To think being well-adjusted is a privilege no one acknowledges enough?

I don't think anyone is suggesting that trauma isn't real, or that people can simply decide not to be traumatised. Trauma can have a profound impact on how someone thinks, feels and behaves, and healing often takes years of work.

My point is slightly different: acknowledging trauma and understanding its effects is important, but making victimhood your identity isn't the same thing. Trauma may explain some of our struggles, but it doesn't have to define who we are forever.

Likewise, some people are undoubtedly privileged to have grown up in stable, supportive environments and therefore start life with advantages others don't have. But recognising that privilege isn't the same as believing people are powerless to heal and grow beyond what happened to them.

Trauma shapes us, but it doesn't have to become our entire identity.

The other thing I'd add is that "well adjusted" people are often not as well-adjusted as they appear. Some genuinely had easier starts in life. Others are carrying their own wounds but have different coping styles, better support systems, or simply hide their struggles more effectively. So I would be cautious about assuming every apparently well adjusted person is merely benefiting from privilege.

Okay.
I initially got a different meaning from your post.
You’re no doubt right about undesirable personality traits and that the word trauma is overused.

As @MrsPapillon said, trauma is used when a person is iin fear of their life either on a one- off occasion (accident, military, terrorism) or on a daily basis (dv).
The point about trauma properly used is that it affects the brain in particular ways and requires particular treatment- possibly impossible to recover from without professional help(?).

I saw an old colleague who has now become a “trauma informed” trainer in corporate workplaces post on LinkedIn with examples of “trauma”.

They included having a younger sibling, moving house, changing school, not being picked in PE and other life events that are almost universal.

I didn’t have a loving supportive home, my dad is (for all practical purposes) a stranger following divorce when I was a toddler, my mum doesn’t know how to show love. Our house was repossessed when I was about 11. I also got picked last in PE 😂.

I could blame any and all these things for any difficulties I have in life, but there are hundreds(millions!) of people like me. These are pretty routine life events, and it diminishes those who have suffered real trauma to pretend otherwise.

What makes you say that? I was just saying that undesirable personality traits can develop without there being trauma as defined by @MrsPapillon

I would say growing up in a functional family and being well adjusted is ideal. Growing up in a dysfunctional or deprived environment is less than ideal.

The fact that life is unfair to me is just a given. We obviously do not live in an ideal world. Some folk have to work harder than others to build a satisfactory life. Better just to crack on and do your best.

If you want to adddress inequality or support dissadvantaged groups by all means do that as well.

I think this whole 'privilege' nonsense has gone too far. We don't ever fully know what goes on in other people's lives, so most of the privilege labels are based on incorrect assumptions when labelling others, and me me me self pity when labelling oneself.

My friend could easily be labelled as being born with a silver spoon in her mouth. Her parents were together, she was privately educated, inherited a family business and is now working up through the ranks in politics. She is the most resilient women i know and very successful at everything she does.

Her dad died when she was 19, she had an extreme premie and a full term still birth, but most people don't know this because she doesn't use it in her standard intro or her various social media profiles.

I think you misunderstand the word 'trauma'?

You sound like you're talking from knowledge/experience and I'm certainly not going to disagree with you.
In Victorian times, there was no welfare state as we know it.
Reading newspapers from that time (as I sometimes like to do), it's amazing how people saw it as their personal responsibility to address social inequalities.
Mostly via religion, of course.
An everyday example, local middle class men asked to give up an evening a week to help younger men with literacy difficulties, women asked to donate fabric and show 'less fortunate' women how to make clothes for their children.
All very patronising to our eyes, of course, but I chose this example because it worked around everyday folk.

What I think is missing from our society is the idea that everyone bears a personal responsibility.

Could we ever regain a similar attitude?

Maybe we concentrate too much on the word trauma.
Undesirable personality traits can develop as a result of being damaged by your upbringing as well as having 'bad genes' to begin with.

And that’s the crux there. People use the word ‘trauma’ far too freely. Some things are undoubtedly unpleasant, but it’s not trauma. For PTSD purposes, it’s basically an event that put you in fear of your life. Not being bought a pony when all your friends had one might make you feel resentful, but it wasn’t trauma. Being embarrassed because you burped on stage at school and everyone laughed isn’t trauma.

Trauma is being abused. It’s growing up with a parent with addiction. It’s living in a DV household. It’s being separated from your parents by abandonment, prison, or being in care. It’s extreme neglect.

I think being raised with supportive people around you is the privilege. I have gone no contact with my family due to abuse and the trauma of pretty much being set up as a child to be bullied by family and looked down upon and sneered at and it is only when I broke the cycle of that abusive and walked away that I realised the potential I had that could never be realised because of how I was specifically scapegoated. I was devastated, I was then angry, I have had therapy and now while I live a life with no family around me or my child I know I am doing this to protect him from the type of stuff I have had to deal with. My solitude is peaceful and as a result he is also a peaceful well rounded kid. My trauma helped me give him a life of 'privilege' where mental health is concerned and he is one of the most well adjusted people because of it. It is sad that so many are not raised like this to begin with but I think a lot of us have broken cycles for our kids.

Sooner or later, you have to take responsibility for yourself.

Endlessly blaming everything on your past experiences doesn't wash for most people. Serious trauma is one thing, but the normal bumps and troughs of life... no.

People misunderstand. Being “stuck” in the place/time that the event happened is the very definition of ‘trauma’. People who are stuck are not wallowing, they are traumatised. You can’t just have an epiphany and decide “I’m not going to be traumatised anymore, I’m going to move on”. It takes a LOT of work.

You’re not making trauma your identity. The traumatic experiences gave you your identity. It shaped you. It taught you countless behaviours and coping mechanisms that are completely unhelpful in an environment that is now safe.

Those unhealthy behaviours once were the very thing that kept you safe and kept you alive. Learning, accepting, and trusting that they’re no longer needed is a long process. Changing your neural pathways, learning to manage the resultant anxiety, overcoming your subconscious brain, is a massive undertaking.

It's not as simple as saying “I’m going to choose to not be traumatised”. If only it were that easy.

Always think about my youngest DC who has SEN and what his life would have been like had he been born into a poorer less educated family. I have been told the way he behaves is largely down to how he has been raised and that this behaviour could easily be far worse had he been raised in a shouty, sweary, violent sort of household. He’s calm, he doesn’t flip out and have tantrums/meltdowns whatever, he’s just a really chilled out kid.

He also has a reading age of 8 at 5 despite technically being non verbal. I’m an academic so we have hundreds of books scattered all over and regularly visit the library which he loves. He’s constantly absorbed in books. It may be the same book on a loop for a while at bedtime but that’s fine because at least he’s reading. He also passed the phonics screening with full marks. I don’t think his outcome would have been so great educationally if born into a less educated house.

Absolutely!

Specifically designed user name.
Slightly controversial OP.
Original poster never return.

AI generated bullshit click bait.

You can spot them a mile off.
It's the most boring thing about MN.

Agree with this and find that this is the attitude of most people who have been through something really seriously traumatic, they won't be the ones whining about privilege.

I don't think being well-adjusted is a privilege. I think it is something that everyone should have and we should teach healthy behaviours, relationships, resilience etc at school. It would be far more useful than trigonometry or the history of the Tudors.

Also most people will experience something traumatic in their life. Whether or not they have a 'trauma response' is often down to their coping skills. Well-adjusted people with good support networks can have a traumatic experience and not have a trauma response, or only have one for a short period of time. Whereas, those who have not been fortunate enough to be raised in secure, loving and safe environments are more likely to have enduring trauma responses.

I don’t think all this self absorbed self analysis is ultimately helpful.
I remember a study where people who were waiting for counselling for something did worse in their recovery than people who weren’t expecting it. Tell people they have problems and they will internalise that.
Struggling with life events is just the human condition.
What a pathetic and unresilient society we have become. One may think that decades of peace and prosperity would build a happy society but seems to do the opposite. A self pitying and hopeless population that lashes out at each other. Mouse paradise anyone?

Honestly, I agree.

There’s a thread running at the moment about a 6yo not wanting to go to school and so many people are saying he needs emotional support and a reward from school and intervention from a specialist and I’m just thinking - no, he’s six, he needs to do as he’s bloody told and go to school 😂

Yes another threewordposter who doesn't get back.

Nothing to see here folks, move along.

Victim might be an apt description at the time (eg you could be a victim of a crime for example- like your example) but I am referring to its use as an identity for the rest of your life which is what the OP is referring to.

I have personally been the victim of crimes in the past but that is not how I describe myself now and I wont ever. To label someone as a victim for their entire life is to remove their power from them. Its disempowering

Strongly agree with OP.
I think - and while I can't imagine how hard it must be to recover from real trauma - that can, in some ways, not be easier to recover from, but it's something recognisable. Sometimes trauma is caused by what is lacking rather what is there and sometimes it's hard even to recognise what has happened so you internalise and wonder what is wrong with you when you come from a seemingly normal situation when in fact it is highly dysfunctional and damaging.
I hope I haven't offended anyone who has suffered abuse or escaped from dangerous situations or whatever as it's not what I mean to do.

I suffered significant trauma as a child and no thank you. I am not a victim and I find it massively unhelpful and patronising to be told I ought to be one. That is not a healthy or empowering way to live.

You see, I dislike this dislike of the word victim. If a six year old girl was sexually abused, is she not a victim? If the trauma has damaged her (which it undoubtedly will have), is sending her the message that she isn’t a victim helpful? Is that not gaslighting her?

I had childhood trauma and I spent years beating myself up. It was only once I realised that I was a victim, and what happened to me wasn’t my fault, that I could let go of the guilt and shame and begin to move past it.

Sometimes the word ‘victim’ isn’t a dirty word. We shouldn’t make victims feel shame.

Victim /ˈvɪktɪm/

noun
person harmed, injured, or killed as a result of a crime, accident, or other event or action.

Because saying it's a privilege to have 2 present parents pisses off all the single parents/blended families.

Nevermind there have been actual studies that show growing up in an intact nuclear family leads to better outcomes on average.

I agree with all of this 100% and I dont see how it's even helpful at all to be grading people's trauma and sorting people into "lucky" and "unlucky" piles. How on earth does that help anyone? comparing yourself to others and how they are doing is a completely fruitless and pointless exercise.

Its also completely subjective - someone could be brought up in a loving privileged home and have severe mental health issues - should they feel "privileged" compared to someone brought up in a poor family who has naturally excellent mental health? where do we draw the line and whom should we label as a 'victim" and do they even want to be labelled that way? I suffered significant trauma as a child and no thank you. I am not a victim and I find it massively unhelpful and patronising to be told I ought to be one. That is not a healthy or empowering way to live.