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Random blither: Damage vs. Trauma
Jun. 4th, 2009 08:19 amI've been thinking lately about damage and trauma.
To clarify my terms at the outset, I'm here using "damage" to mean - "things that happen that suck", and "trauma" to mean - "things that happen and suck and then haunt you for a long time".
And what occurs to me is that a lot of the difference between whether something is damage or trauma, using my definitions above, could have to do with how difficult other factors make talking about the damage.
F'r'instance, if you break your arm as a kid while you're out playing, and it's an accident, and you have parents you can tell about it, and they take you to the hospital and don't blame you for it and you get a cool cast and then you have friends who sign the cast, then assuming no long term health effects from the break, you've probably got damage there.
You broke your arm, sure, but you can tell people about it. It's no secret why or how. When someone says, "gee, what happened to you" you can comfortably answer, "I fell off the slide" or whatever.
On the other hand, if you broke your arm because your parent tossed you off the slide, or if your parents refused you medical attention because you should tough out the broken arm, or if you broke your arm while out playing with some kids and they ditched you to fend for yourself instead of getting help - trauma. Because then the event has gone into this hard to talk about, isolating place.
So under this theory, one of the reasons that so many things to do with the emotional side of family life and the sexual side of relationship life are so traumatizing would be that our culture makes them very very difficult to talk about. The weird side of family life, outside of novels, is treated sort of like those ads for visiting Las Vegas - what happens in the family stays in the family. And the weird side of dating and sexual relationships is treated similarly, except with bonus added shame.
And, by inference, if this theory panned out we as a culture could work to reduce trauma by finding ways to reduce the secrecy/guilt/shame load that we put onto talking about certain damaging situations.
To clarify my terms at the outset, I'm here using "damage" to mean - "things that happen that suck", and "trauma" to mean - "things that happen and suck and then haunt you for a long time".
And what occurs to me is that a lot of the difference between whether something is damage or trauma, using my definitions above, could have to do with how difficult other factors make talking about the damage.
F'r'instance, if you break your arm as a kid while you're out playing, and it's an accident, and you have parents you can tell about it, and they take you to the hospital and don't blame you for it and you get a cool cast and then you have friends who sign the cast, then assuming no long term health effects from the break, you've probably got damage there.
You broke your arm, sure, but you can tell people about it. It's no secret why or how. When someone says, "gee, what happened to you" you can comfortably answer, "I fell off the slide" or whatever.
On the other hand, if you broke your arm because your parent tossed you off the slide, or if your parents refused you medical attention because you should tough out the broken arm, or if you broke your arm while out playing with some kids and they ditched you to fend for yourself instead of getting help - trauma. Because then the event has gone into this hard to talk about, isolating place.
So under this theory, one of the reasons that so many things to do with the emotional side of family life and the sexual side of relationship life are so traumatizing would be that our culture makes them very very difficult to talk about. The weird side of family life, outside of novels, is treated sort of like those ads for visiting Las Vegas - what happens in the family stays in the family. And the weird side of dating and sexual relationships is treated similarly, except with bonus added shame.
And, by inference, if this theory panned out we as a culture could work to reduce trauma by finding ways to reduce the secrecy/guilt/shame load that we put onto talking about certain damaging situations.
