[majormajor]

If you are saying you don't think your own resilience is anything to be proud of, I think you are failing to consider those who faced trauma and failed to handle it.

I too know the "what the fuck else am I supposed to do" feeling in response to people saying stuff like "how did you deal with something like that?" or "you're so strong" but I think it does a disservice to yourself to ignore that crumpling under the pressure was a possibility, and one that was avoided if you're still here.

[psychtrauma]

> I think you are failing to consider those who faced trauma and failed to handle it.

I would have previously agreed with you, and I think that is an important viewpoint that is useful to contemplate deeply. But, I now wish to reject the point of view that I should be proud because I faced my individual trauma somehow 'better' than those other people.

Those other people shouldn't have faced that trauma either.

[Fellshard]

You reject it, sure. But you are providing no cogent reasons for doing so — merely saying 'I changed my mind' is no argument that will persuade others, unless you're expecting your prior trauma somehow credentials you to authoritatively create truth.

[psychtrauma]

Indeed. I have no reason to argue and no real need to persuade others - I just wish to observe and live my truth.

[Fellshard]

Then it is meaningless to communicate it to anyone else. But I don't think that's what you think; there's an internal contradiction there. I will leave it at that.

[psychtrauma]

Your claim is that all meaningful communication is arguing?

I can and do recommend therapy to everyone.

[majormajor]

Perhaps this is a difference of trauma types.

"Shouldn't" is an interesting word for e.g. getting cancer. We would all be better off if nobody had to ever face that, but... what would "they shouldn't have gotten cancer" really mean, there? That they should be bitter over being unlucky?

That would be a very different statement to make about a trauma inflicted by another human, though.

[gonetherapin]

hi, made this throwaway (or maybe one to keep?) to agree with you.

i'm not happy or pleased that my therapist calls me resilient. she uses the word as something positive but i'd rather not be "resilient" at all. the experience and effects of trauma are something i could do 1000% without. and i'm sure most people who have survived such an ordeal can attest to that fact.

[akoncius]

contradiction:

I have a personality type which crumbles on every occurrence of some challenges in life, and I’m havin nearly panic attacks about almost everything. part of that emotion is “why me, I don’t want this problem in my life”. and frequently for short periods of time I’m on the verge of giving up.

what my therapist is trying to teach me that all events in my life are kinda inevitable, and it’s up to me to decide how to handle them, and I thing therapist is trying to develop some resillience in me by explaining that some trauma in my life is just unavoidable. getting older is unavoidable. diseases (albeit preventable) unavoidable. economic crisis inevitable and so on and so on. so having resiliency is a good thing, regardless if you prefer to have that trauma or not. and you should be proud that you handled it well.

[Godel_unicode]

Not being resilient doesn't mean not having to experience trauma though. If you're saying you'd be happy to not be resilient if it meant not experiencing trauma then I can see your point.

[akoncius]

on the other hand: you said you would rather not be resilient at all.. so how would you prefer to react to the exact same trauma you experienced previously? assuming that you cannot choose to not have that trauma at all.

[watwut]

The person you are responding to would prefer to never having to go through trauma and would be fine with never building that additional resilience. That trauma is not good price for the supposed resilience he got.

And I can add that another benefit for him would be time and money saved on therapist. Therapy takes time and a lot of money. Being in situation where you don't need it is better, even if you lose on tiny bit of resilience.

[akoncius]

yeah, I understand that people prefer to not have trauma in their life but it’s just impossible :)

[GenerocUsername]

Trauma is the natural state of the universe. To think life should be free of trauma is a hyper-modern and sheltered view of the world enabled by our extreme comfort provided by modern technology and the invisible labor from less privelidged people and those who lived and died before us.

Trauma is the natural state, and our resilience has and always will be a defining characteristic of successful people... Of whom we are descendents.

[haswell]

> Trauma is the natural state of the universe.

As a survivor of sexual abuse on a lifelong journey of survival, it’s difficult to communicate just how strongly I disagree with (and am repulsed by) this statement and the sentiment behind it.

It lacks awareness of the many kinds of trauma, and trivializes the experiences of those who’ve been subjected to things that are anything but natural.

Do not mistake the prevalence of something for being “natural”. Trauma, by definition, is the opposite, prevalent though it may be.

And even if you could lump all kinds of trauma into the same category, my conclusion would be very different than yours. If trauma is the natural state, then we should be doing everything to change that state, not throw up our hands and conclude “oh well, that’s just the way things are, and the best survive”.

Imagine taking this stance on slavery, or more broadly: racism.

[Dudeman112]

>Trauma is the natural state of the universe.

I agree with everything you said.

Also: fuck the natural state of the universe. The natural state of the universe is shit and we should seriously fight against it.

There is no fairness or justice or good in the laws of the universe. Nature is a bitch.

But that's not so bad, because we can be fair and good and make the environment better.

[wiggumspiggums]

I'd recommend checking out a book called "The Body Keeps the Score". It talks about how people's minds and bodies can stop functioning normally due to traumas like sexual abuse, war, etc.

I would have thought that since traumatic experiences have been around forever, humans would have adapted to dealing with those better by now. And yet the medical evidence laid out in this book seems to show that healing from traumas is difficult. To me, that means there is something "unnatural" about trauma (or at least the most awful cases).

I'm probably not doing the book enough justice. Here's the goodreads profile for anyone who wants to explore further: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18693771-the-body-keeps-...

[KittenInABox]

The defining characteristic of successful people IMO is not resilience but that their life has given them the opportunity to be successful in the first place!

There is nothing hyper-modern about condemning war, sexual assault, child abuse, and genocide. These things have been viewed as terrible by various civilizations since civilization existed.