To think that words like trauma/ disfunction are over used?

The problem is trauma is both a specific term used by doctors in the context you described and a word that is used colloquially to describe something a bit upsetting. And a whole range of things in between. There is also a grey area where people will use the word trauma to elicit sympathy for something upsetting, but which isn't actually something they have actual trauma from. So it gets very muddy.

Maybe it shouldn't be used colloquially but I don't know how you could stop it and I think it's due to how the word originated. I think it's different to someone saying "I have PTSD from that" when they don't - in the same way people say "I have totally got OCD" when they don't. Both of those are trivialising actual medical terms and it's annoying. But I think the word trauma/traumatised on its own just has different meanings. Same as someone saying "I am starving". Starvation is a serious horrible issue, but out of context it doesn't mean the speaker is downplaying famine.

That's not what she said.

I have genuine trauma from serious childhood sexual abuse. I've seen people on here (very seriously) describe having trauma from a bad dream, from having a MIL they don't like and from being fired. I've seen people throw the word around over the most minor things, not just here, everywhere.

I had to have a gynae op a few years ago and was terrified, and because I now feel like noone takes the word trauma seriously, I had to instead go into details of what happened to me as a child in order to convey how serious it was in the hope they'd understand how scared I was.

Not quite.

Trauma results from an event, series of events, or set of circumstances that is experienced by an individual as harmful or life threatening. While unique to the individual, generally the experience of trauma can cause lasting adverse effects, limiting the ability to function and achieve mental, physical, social, emotional or spiritual well-being. From the gov website.

Trauma refers to an overwhelmingly distressing, negative or intense event that overwhelms a person’s capacity to cope. NHS

So everyone else’s trauma is not actually trauma or just superficial stuff, except for yours? How does that work?

that's something of a joke mind you @WhatNoRaisins and people'd take it that way!

Actually I think that childbirth can be traumatic. Women's experiences vary hugely but for some it's profound unrelenting pain, unimaginable beforehand. It's still not 100% safe and you so utterly desperately want that little baby to be 1) safe and 2) born. If anything goes wrong, you are completely dependent on others at that point. People can be washing in and out of the room, staff changes, things potentially going wrong. And the pain, that you just can't do anything about. If you are lucky enough to have an easy and safe birth, no trauma. If you don't, it's very understandable that trauma can occur.

Sometimes the problem is not having the right language and reaching for the nearest thing.

I have this childhood memory of accidentally squeezing a frube all over my face, it wasn't a traumatic incident and I still enjoy eating yogurt but its a really intense memory. I'm not sure how to describe it so as a shorthand I might say that I had a traumatic frube incident as a child.

PTSD is another word so over-used it’s offensive to those who actually have it.

For a lot of women, its the loss of control in the birth and helping a baby out generally means the baby is in difficulty, that is very alarming during any birth especially when its hard to even see what's going on. Unfortunately my babies died , stillbirth and neonatal death within 4 days of each other [twins] it's a trauma I'll never recover from. I never question though any woman who says their birth was traumatic, the majority of women I've spoken to are usually gushing about their babies, so if someone says they are triggered by a birth, I tend to believe them. It's never given me any joy describing what happened to me and my twin boys.

Quite often the care is just fine but the circumstances are not. Babies get ill or the mother after or before a perfect birth even when the birth was fine. Birth trauma has lots of variables

The most recent ONS estimate for the UK population is that about 20% experienced childhood abuse.

that does not include adult trauma which will push the figures up substantially - a surprisingly high number of people have been personally subjected to some kind of assault sexual or otherwise.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/bulletins/childabuseinenglandandwales/march2020#what-do-we-know-about-the-prevalence-of-child-abuse-

I agree the terms can be overused, but trauma is all about the response to the event not the event itself. Lots of people can appear bubbly and confident, but experienced emotional neglect or other forms of childhood abuse. The level of functioning doesn’t negate severity.

I don’t think your GP should have said that to you though.

To answer your question and as someone who had a very traumatic birth. Yes, things are crap on many maternity wards. Services are extremely overstretched with many staff suffering burnout. Research has shown that the way one is treated during birth is a large predictive factor in birth trauma. Unfortunately, from what I have experienced and seen, women are often treated in a dehumanising way. Look into the work MP Theo Clarke is doing around traumatic birth and her own birth story. Not to take anything away from the many compassionate and caring maternity staff that also exist. Add this to other factors such as major medical events such as haemorrhages, issues with baby, crash c sections etc., the invasiveness of the birthing process in general, survivors of sexual violence and previous medical trauma having to undergo procedures reminiscent of their trauma (to name but a few), it really isn’t surprising that roughly 45% of women report experiencing childbirth as traumatic.

There is a medical definition of trauma - I can’t remember off the top of my head what it is but it’s something like experiencing near death or death of a loved one in sudden and horrific circumstances. IIRC, the definition does include extreme sexual violence also.

I agree, people use the word trauma too readily when what they really experienced was distress.

I'm sometimes alarmed at how many women on MN seem to have had 'traumatic births'. I mean, birth isn't a walk in the park on a normal day, and many women need a bit of intervention to help baby out. The 'trauma' is rarely elaborated on, so I wonder whether things are just crap these days in maternity care.

People love a bit of therapy speech. It's like a magic armour that you aren't allowed to argue against.

I was scrolling through DS's school Facebook page earlier today. They have tweaked the break times by a few minutes. Every other comment from parents was about how it will be devastating for the kids mental health.

Slightly mixed feelings as it's about how one reacts to an event and the intensity of the reaction can vary wildly, not necessarily relates to how bad the event appears to be. Also it's not a competition. Lastly, a small event can hit a very protected person harder than a 'worse' event hits a less protected, more resilient person.

All that said, I know what you mean and mostly agree. There was a time when a young person mentioned something similar to being traumatised by seeing a dead hedgehog and I found it rather hard not to say 'get a damn grip'.