Why do we have a stigma around trauma?

#notADoctor

We do have a stigma around trauma. We don’t talk about our experiences with our friends, we don’t ask for help and most of us either won’t or are not able to speak to a therapist.

So why is that?

There are several things in play.

First of all, we don’t have the language and tools to work with ourselves. This means that we might describe the feeling after breaking up with our partner as “if someone would kick us in the balls really hard”, “my heart is broken” or many other analogies, which we understand on a high level.
It’s hard for us to describe how we feel or what is happening in our minds without some help, which is quite a big hurdle to overcome.

Secondly, we don’t realise we might have some outstanding trauma. If you ask most people how their childhood was, they will just say “Well, it was fairly normal.” It takes some time for things to start clicking together and we start to realise that we should try to help ourselves.

Thirdly, we don’t realise that talking about it helps. It might sound odd at the start, but it works. And I don’t believe that it’s “problem shared, problem halved”. Talking about relieves some of the shame we feel and helps us understand what’s going on. You don’t want to burden someone else with your problems.

So even when you feel like you want to share something with a friend you might get stopped by fear of judgement. We are worried that people we talk to will judge us. Anywhere from pity, denial of your feelings or thinking that you are just looking for attention. #notAnExhaustingList

And there is a good exercise for this. Just watch what your thoughts are when someone will share something with you.

“Oh, you didn’t have it that bad.”
“I/Someone had it worse than you.”
“Oh, you poor little fella.”
“You are making this up.”
“Well, it’s your fault in the first place.”

Just pick yours.

Can you just be there with compassion and without judgment? It’s not easy and it is not something we learn and even then it takes a long time to learn. At least it takes a long time for me.

And in my opinion, the most important is the shame we carry. SHAME, SHAME, SHAME!

We feel shameful for being bullied, for not having done enough for our friends or family members, for making mistakes or just for crying.

On top of it, shame has one of the cool features. It spirals and builds up on each other. We are ashamed for feeling shame, and then we are anxious about what’s going to happen, which creates more shame in us and so on and so on.

And over time it can build up that we are just stuck in a cycle of shame and it just grows. Then anything small that happens adds already on top of this overflowing dam of shame.

The shame we carry that drives a lot of judgement drives the judgement towards others, so it stops us from talking with each other and hides the shame deeper and deeper. Driving the stigma.

And we just need to start talking more about it. We need to learn to be less judgmental towards others and ourselves. I found that it’s easier to be compassionate towards others than myself, but it’s a start!

Every small conversation helps. Hearing someone without judgment helps. It’s small incremental steps to slowly make the stigma less powerful.