Raises Awarness Of Trauma
Written by Andi Bazaar | May 28, 2022
As someone who frequently talks about "Mental Health Youth Crisis" it can seem like an invitation to trauma-dump at all times, so making boundaries and guidelines like this is super important and something I’m still working on!
We need to rethink the concept and language of ‘flashbacks’ and ‘triggers’.
Flashbacks are memories, they are triggered by stimuli and emotion. That’s the same as any other memory, we simply pathologise this process in some people and not others and fashbacks are normal.
It doesn’t make them any less scary or traumatic but they are normal, that’s how we currently understand memory to work and so the mechanisms of ‘flashbacks’ and ‘triggers’ are not unique to traumatised people at all.
You’re ‘triggered’ by that song, to remember that NYE party at your grandparents. You’re ‘triggered’ by that smell to remember fresh bread, hope you see what I mean. ‘Triggers’ are normal mechanisms, not pathology or disorder.
Doesn’t really help people to convince them that they have some sort of illness that means they are ‘triggered’ to a ‘flashback’ when we could just explain that they are just experiencing memories like any other but they are traumatic memories.
The medical model of human distress has had its time, it’s achieved fuck all also millions of people are medicated and sedated — their understanding of their own brain and their own emotions are deliberately obscured with big fancy labels and words that eventually just oppress them.
COVID-19: EFFECTS ON OUR MENTAL HEALTH
Trauma can cause physical injuries i.e., a broken leg following an accident. Such incidents can produce a deep effect on a person’s mental health, many people affected by trauma will experience emotional reactions.
These can include a feeling of being numb or in daze, fear, sleep difficulties, repeated thoughts of the event, irritability, nightmares and having difficulty concentrating.
The second COVID-19 wave claimed a lot of lives, some of us tested positive and survived but lost our loved ones to the COVID-19. We are living in denial, a life full of blame towards ourself for believing that we might have contributed to the loss of those loved ones.
We should know that events that lead to actual loss of life or life threatening are more likely to lead to "Post Traumatic Stress Disorder" (PTSD). Survivors of traumatic events in which others died may feel guilty or blame themselves for not having done enough to save the others.
“The greater the loss of social support and community bonds, the greater is the risk of PTSD. If we feel like we are failing to move past the trauma, you feel like you’re drowning do not hesitate.”
Talking about the incident can help a person feel better and people with social support are more likely to recover faster, remember that the emotional response will depend on how much time has passed since the you experienced the trauma.
TRAUMA DUMPING IS A SYMPTOM OF MENTAL ILLNESSES AND IS HARD TO “JUST STOP”
If you’re (totally reasonably!) concerned about people dumping on you during streams, here are some tips.
A MENTALLY ILL PERSON
1. Have a normal, no nonsense rule against bringing up traumatic stuff without a content warning. Many people will use one if you tell them its there and it gives you rules to fall back on when someone doesn't do it.
“Its not personal, these are my stream rules for everyone.”
2. Have a bot response that automatically pops up when people use triggering words or your command, a lot of people dont even know what triggers are. Its a way to educate your audience and keep at-risk community members safe.
3. Prepare boundary phrases ahead of time:
"I saw a triggering chat message and to be honest I’m not in a place where I can chat about that, we have a discord where you can vent and anyone who has the ability to chat with you will. You deserve to be heard, but I can't fill that role right now.”
4. Curate a discord space for venting or help and positivity, you don't want your community to look like a place for faux therapy — remind people there’s more to you and your community than a place to dump trauma .
5. This is controversial but imho:
"Don't invite private DMs with (strangers) or encourage strangers to DM with your community members, it can reinforce that dumping is a good way to get individualized help and makes things feel like therapy when its not regulated, safe or fair."
a) To avoid getting drained as an empathetic person, I never shut down a public vent in my discord but private venting that doesnt need to be private (i.e; its not about another community member) is almost always shifted back to a group channel. I'm not a personal therapist!
b) The reason this is controversial is because we see offering faux therapy as a big kindness.
As someone who has given and received faux therapy: resources for the real deal are more powerful and safer for all parties, I've been burned up before. It's not pretty or kind.
6. Know about free resources if you feel bad turning people away like know about them, know their challenges and have some advice about how to navigate it before turning people away. It takes energy and time to educate yourself but its worth it.
And those are my big tips, boundary work is messy and hard and may get you mocked — “wow, you’re just gonna say you dont have space for that convo?”
But its important if you want to have mentally ill people around, we’ll fuck up and we’ll dump. Being prepared is an accommodation!
This type of work is very appreciated by myself and others who know how hard it is balancing everything and we notice that you’re keeping us and yourself safe.
"Being mindful of your limits and transparent about them is badass!"
A Special Thanks To:
- Doctor Seth Gryffen
- Photographed by Benjamin Schenkkan Joseph
- Journalist by Clayton Euridicé Schofield
- Model by Jwan Höffler Conwall
