Trauma

I was listening to a podcast (The Lady Gang, Whitney Cummings) and it brought up the subject of trauma. Specifically that everyone has things they experience that are yes “minor” compared to other things but that’s their level of trauma and we shouldn’t dismiss it just because it doesn’t measure up to how we define hard.

Case in point? My experience with my big ol’ brain tumor. Not many people have to personally go through this but I don’t use it as a bar to compare things to. Pre-surgery I experienced to me some traumatic things that now do not compare to this BUT I cannot compare what I’ve experienced to others.

So we may compare a breakup or a firing and initially say “well it’s not as bad as dealing with cancer or death” but that’s not fair. It’s still trauma.

They also talked about how seemingly small things can forever have an effect on you. Example? When I was going through all my eye stuff it brought up a lifelong fear I have. This initially stemmed from when I was young, maybe 5, and doing a vision test. I was nervous so I did terrible, did it again and did much better and the nurse saying in a very snotty tone that “yea that was much better.” Seems like no big deal but it created a lifelong anxiety of doing well on vision tests that was then exemplified with the pressure of knowing these surgeries should improve my sight.

My takeaway after listening to that episode was to not measure the severity of what someone goes through, especially if they share their feelings with you.