Trauma permanently alters how the brain processes. In a world that generally views taking care of yourself as a liability or chore that inconveniences others, it’s incredibly difficult to undo that indoctrination of the medical model, which argues that you, the patient, are the issue, and not those who don’t understand your condition. With this in mind, it makes sense why those without the ability to empathize with others judge people with trauma on a surface level. But should we accept this closed-minded form of ableism? Many people don’t understand how one’s trauma impacts how they view and interact with the rest of the world. Although trauma is far from an exemption for negative behaviors, the least you can do is try to get their perspective first before critiquing their actions, since actions do not typically exist in vacuums.
Let’s establish a definition and scope of trauma before we talk about its effects and how it’s socialized. Trauma could be anything that causes physical, emotional and/or psychological damage dealt to your person. It looks different for everyone and what some people may see as “not that deep” could still stick with you for a long time.
Trauma fundamentally changes how your brain and body work, especially if you’re still developing. Studies have shown that without treatment, stressed and traumatized brains may develop a larger and more active amygdala, which is the brain’s emotional center. The amygdala makes you feel fear-reactive emotions by calling for the release of stress hormones when feeling threatened.
With this trauma causing biological, psychological and social discrepancies, you may feel alienated from other people who either mask or don’t have trauma. You may experience symptoms such as flashbacks, intrusive thoughts and psychological diagnoses such as — but not limited to — clinical depression and anxiety disorders. In other words, trauma can negatively alter the way you experience the world and change the way people view you.
For people who haven’t fully worked through or relieved themselves of their trauma, it may feel like you’re the problem for not having everything together. People who can’t empathize with you will reject the idea of a non-linear healing process in favor of expecting you to heal instantly. This attitude of not empathizing with the struggles of the trauma survivor is inherently ableist.
The systems of this world in general, however, are also ableist. This is everybody’s problem. Knowing that time is money in a capitalistic world and how anyone can be traumatized, a lack of time and understanding for trauma survivors can lead to a supposed “inconveniencing” of those who interact with them. If they take time for themselves to process and better understand themselves, they could be seen as “lazy” or “selfish” by those who don’t take healing from trauma seriously. In other words, the traumatized are viewed as time-leeching liabilities who are weak and burdensome. This can lead to the traumatized internalizing ableism and hating how they’re naturally processing what happened to them.
On the other side of this coin of ableism is those who infantilize the traumatized. These people enable traumatized people’s behavior instead of being candid. If they do something bad, the enablers may often excuse negative and maladaptive behaviors from the traumatized, resulting in helping them dodge accountability and stunt emotional growth. This helps no one and only allows for the enabling of psychologically harmful thought processes, stunting growth instead of fostering it.
So, how can we best support the traumatized? The first step is to give them the space and autonomy to decide what to say, how they say it and when. Of course, you also need to take care of yourself, so balancing setting clear boundaries and letting them express themselves can be integral. Understand that they are human beings capable of doing good and bad things, of both creation and destruction. Understand that although trauma does not define someone’s entire identity, it could influence how they interpret the world and act accordingly. We could all benefit from understanding how the human mind operates. The goal is empathetic growth, not judgmental stagnation.
Our lives are more than just trauma. We are intersectional human beings who can experience painful things that influence our thoughts and actions. Nevertheless, we can succeed through supporting the traumatized. As we are social creatures who have whole networks to interact with, we naturally have a predisposition to communicate with and even rely on each other. This isn’t inherently a bad thing, but rather a jumping-off point to better ourselves continuously. We can’t sugarcoat the truth of this world’s apathetic structure and the prejudices of people in it, but it’s still possible to promote positive — and even influential — changes. The traumatized are torches that help inform us of the flaws of society, but we still need to make sure their flames don’t burn out before it’s too late.