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

[HealthyHomesMatter]

So many “personality traits” are just trauma responses.

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.

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.

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.

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?

I think you misunderstand the word 'trauma'?

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 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.

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

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.

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 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.

@SixtySomething if it helps, trauma is defined as a very distressing event(s) outside of someone's control. It includes sexual or physical abuse or assaults, terrorist attacks, war, natural disasters, traffic collisions, serious accidents, fires, kidnap, death of a close friend or family member (especially if sudden and unexpected), and painful or frightening medical procedures.

The 'outside of a person's control' is particularly significant, as for most children most events in their life are outside of their control. Therefore children who are exposed to repeated distressing events are very likely to develop a range of mental health problems.

I go back to my point that healthy, well-adjusted people with a good support network can experience one traumatic event and cope well and not go on to develop PTSD or mental health issues. The less well-adjusted and well-supported someone is the more likely they will have difficulty processing their experience or experiences and the more likely it is to cause them ongoing trauma responses. Clearly children in abusive households where there is most likely no support or safe "good enough" parent, and they are repeatedly exposed to violence, abusive behaviours etc are very unlikely to emerge unscathed.

Well, the "privilege" in this case would be having supportive parents and a stable home environment, which yes is a form of privlege.

@lilyofthevaIIey I don’t disagree in many cases, but unfortunately there are people whose trauma has had such a severe impact that they can never recover. They are their trauma.

My DM was repeatedly raped by her father throughout her childhood and her own DM abandoned her. She developed such severe mental health problems that she has spent half her life in psychiatric units. She’s in her 70s now, and she will never recover. She’s too broken. Her psychosis and her identity are a direct result of her trauma. She is a victim, and it’s incredibly sad. No health professional has ever come close to being able to heal her. She cannot choose to change her mindset because she isn’t in control of her mind.

How very sad,
She did nothing to deserve it. Yes, I'm happy to agree that people who have never had such things happen to them, or threatened that they might, are privileged!

I agree with this. Definitely. IMO 'trauma' and 'traumatic' is being used too freely. The word has lost some meaning tbh.

I expect all the YABU are people who are "well adjusted" because they have processed trauma, which takes responsibility, time and hard work (and usually therapy).

YABU.

I knew a friends mum with the same physical handicap as my mum. They all had to treat her carefully, always be considerate, do things for her, never spill things. My mum on the other hand was an extraordinarily capable superwoman and it felt like nothing was too hard for her, it was like chalk and cheese and this woman felt like a huge victim compared to my mum who was nobody’s victim ever. We aren’t just our background and our physical conditions.

Absolutely, and we all need to be able to call this trauma and respect the serious impact it has and ignore Sandra who’s taking a break from work because she’s ‘traumatised’ from being fired from her job when she goes into work and basically begs them to fire her all day long by refusing to do half the job. Not a made up story.

I completely agree that there are tragic cases where trauma has such a profound impact that recovery is limited or even impossible. What happened to your DM is horrific and utterly heartbreaking, and I wouldn't suggest for a second that someone in her position can simply choose a different mindset.

I think we're talking about two slightly different things, though. Your DM sounds like an extreme example of trauma causing severe, lifelong psychiatric illness. In those circumstances, the trauma and its consequences may indeed dominate a person's life.

My point was more about the general discussion around trauma and identity. For many people, trauma explains some of their behaviours and struggles, but it doesn't mean they are nothing more than their trauma or that healing and growth are impossible.
Acknowledging the impact of trauma and encouraging people not to define themselves entirely by it aren't mutually exclusive ideas.

Even in very severe cases, I think there is value in trying to find the person underneath. In fact, I think defining someone solely by their trauma can be quite depersonalising. Trauma may have profoundly shaped their life, their behaviour and their mental health, but they are still more than the worst things that happened to them.

For example- a woman with severe childhood trauma may be hypervigilant, anxious and distrustful. Those are trauma responses. But she may also be funny, creative, intelligent, compassionate, stubborn, curious, or have a love of animals and her children. If we focus only on the trauma, we risk missing the whole person and to me, thats literally robbing that person of their own sense of self.

To me, there is an important distinction between saying "this person's trauma has had a devastating impact on their life" and saying "this person is their trauma."

Your mum sounds fantastic, but it’s also true that people can be affected to greater or lesser extents (ie more or less symptoms, pain, disability etc) even within the same diagnosis.

I guess it’s similar to the way in which we in the west have access to food. We don’t consider it a privilege, we take it for granted and see it as a basic human right. Whereas a person with chronic hunger would look at us with our three meals a day, being able to pick and choose what we eat, and think that we were highly privileged.

I think we are all guilty of taking things for granted.

This post really resonates with me.

This is me, desperately trying to break that generational trauma while dealing with my own trauma because I am still finding the right tools to protect myself.

Hard agree- it takes a great deal of self awareness to recognise personality traits vs ‘trauma’ responses (I put trauma in quotes as it may necessarily be something absolutely terrible) and to be equipped to take responsibility for it and make the most of life.

@Formerdarkhorse but how can an individual take responsibility for rape, war, a car accident, etc? The point about true trauma is that it was outside of the individual's control. It is not something for which they are responsible.