#big t trauma

[starfishinthedistance]

I've talked a bit about this before but if someone tells you they feel like their trauma wasn't bad enough to be valid and your response is to just start talking about """big T and little t trauma""" I hate you and sincerely hope you step on glass.

All that you're saying is essentially "Oh you feel like your trauma isn't bad enough compared to other traumatized people and it's causing you a lot of emotional turmoil? I have the solution! Here are two arbitrarily created boxes I've called 'Big Scary Traumatizing Valid Events' and 'small events but you're having reactions so I guess we have to acknowledge you', and you're actually in that second box! You actually don't have the same problem as the Big Scary Event People! They have the big problem and you have the little one! Do you feel better yet?"

Like, I've already talked about how trauma and its severity is subjective and the Big T vs little t bullshit has no set definition and varies wildly from person to person, but even setting that aside, do you think creating another box and separating the """little t people""" from other survivors is going to make them feel more valid and secure? Epescially how when people talk about """little t trauma""" they always talk about it like "oh the event wasn't that bad but you had a Big Reaction and it was your Feelings that caused the trauma" like...you're essentially saying they're overreacting disguised with a bunch of therapy buzzwords.

"The event wasn't that bad but we still feel hurt 😢😢😢". Go fuck yourself. ESPECIALLY when therapists/psychiatrists/etc tell this to their clients. To have a professional tell you your trauma doesn't fit into 'bad event box' and is just caused by you overreacting does so much fucking damage. Professionals should fucking know better, especially if you claim to be trauma informed.

Just say "Trauma is any event where the brain feels it is in danger, and trauma symptoms are simply when the danger response prolongs past the event. Doubting your experiences and the validity of them is a very common and severe trauma symptom. It's a way of your mind trying to separate itself from the trauma to protect you from the pain of it, and it's observed in almost all survivors with all kinds of trauma. In cases where the trauma is abuse, it's also indictive of severe psychological abuse using methods like gaslighting and other kinds of manipulation."

There. Gets the message across better than telling them they're just apart of the 'not that bad' group of survivors.

God I hate the wellness TikToker-ification of trauma discussions.

[neurodivergent-willow]

If you are autistic, have you experienced trauma and how much did it affect your experience with autism?

Examples of "big T trauma":

1. Physical or Sexual Abuse

2. Natural Disasters

3. Combat or War

4. Serious Accidents

5. Terrorist Attacks

6. Kidnapping or Hostage Situations

7. Severe Medical Events

8. Sudden Loss of a Loved One

9. Sexual Assault

10. Childhood Abuse or Neglect

Examples of "small t trauma":

1. Chronic Emotional Neglect

2. Perfectionism

3. People-Pleasing

4. Microaggressions

5. Unhealthy Relationship Dynamics

6. Bullying or Teasing

7. Parental Pressure

8. Feeling Overwhelmed by Responsibilities

9. Legal Trouble

10. Infidelity

If you went through both, answer the question for whichever effected you the most!

[amyintherapy]

Big T Versus Little T Traumas

Thought I'd share what stuck out to me most from my therapy appointment a few days ago.

I continue to process childhood trauma, and at one point in this session I had brought up a time where I was blatantly emotionally abandoned when I was in very clear emotional crisis. I was around 14 at the time of this memory.

And my T asked if I remembered anything I thought or felt about this experience, if it was surprising or shocking, hurtful, if it made me angry, etc. I didn't really remember specifics like that, and told my therapist that. But then also elaborated by saying that I didn't think it could have been particularly shocking, as it was a pattern for my mom by that point. I then listed four or five other instances of very blatant neglect when I was in a crisis. Like, your kid is metaphorically on fire, and the parents say nothing and do nothing and just pretend it didn't happen, sort of situations. And a bit later in this conversation I said it's funny how just a couple months ago (maybe not even that far back..I Don't recall for sure) I was struggling with identifying as being emotionally neglected - because it was quite severe emotional neglect. I think emotional neglect of any "level" is valid, don't get me wrong. But it's weird that I was struggling with using the term when I was quite severely emotionally neglected. And part of that struggle is how society at large seems to not recognize 'small T' traumas as being traumatic, and also how the bubble I grew up in seems to see emotionally neglecting children, especially in more 'mild' ways, as just, normal.

For example, I know SO many people who are not authoritarian parents, and who very clearly mean well as parents, but who still feel like they can't validate their kids emotions and hold a boundary for their behavior at the same time. So many people who routinely minimize, dismiss, invalidate or avoid/distract their kids feelings rather than teaching them how to really sit with and process their feelings. Often because the parents themselves never learned how to manage their own feelings so they can't possibly teach the kid to. Emotional neglect isn't exclusive to bad parenting, it's super common with parenting from people doing their absolute best, but who just were traumatized themselves and never learned coping skills themselves. And when people really truly tried their best, they have a hard time even imagining that their kid could still have trauma from their childhoods. It feels unfair that doing your absolute best could still traumatize your kid. But I think that's the reality of how it often works. Kids are fragile, and most of us have a lot of generational trauma so even when doing our best we can't break ALL the cycles. I don't imagine I'll succeed at breaking all of mine. My absolute best won't be enough either, and I'm trying to come to terms with that now, while also balancing trying my best to heal for my future kid(s) too. But anyway...

The traumatized/mentally ill part of my brain likes to use that 'neglect is just normal' thing to invalidate me having cPTSD, basically. That part of my brain feels like I am just dramatic, and things 'weren't that bad' and so on. That part of my brain still looks at my childhood as having one type of big T trauma (sexual abuse) and that's it.

But after mentioning how it's funny that I so recently was struggling to even accept that I had experienced emotional neglect, my therapist said something about how I also have minimized how much Big T trauma I have. I was confused briefly. They pointed out that all the specific instances I had listed of blatant neglect in the face of crisis, count as big T traumas. That little t traumas are the day to day, mini 'cuts' that we don't really even remember because they were just normal tuesday things to us despite being hurtful. Things like coming home from school excited about something only to have your mom hush you rather than listen to you. Of course, this happening occasionally isn't traumatic but when kids live with dismissive or invalidating or overly critical parents regularly those mini cuts add up to cause accumulative trauma, and that's what cPTSD is about, mini cuts adding up to a wound, rather than traditional PTSD which leaves more acute injuries. They pointed out that Big T traumas are specific events that you do specifically remember, that left a specific wound. So just the fact that I was able to list these specific events means they are big t traumas, not little T.

Clearly, my therapist was right that I was minimizing them a bit because I had never considered that they are big t traumas.

[themulitipurposechannel]

Do I have assessments due? Yeh. Should I be studying? Probably 😂But like most things this just grabbed hold of my brain and won’t let go so here we are XD

.

But on a more serious note I think we’ve all felt this at some point or at least we all will eventually feel this. Esp as you get older and your body starts to fail or for those who ever got diagnosed with a life changing condition.. things just.. get hard when it used to be so easy.Esp if you’re also at that age (eg: teens/early 20s) where it should be your golden years you just.. get so angry. If that’s you then I’m sorry.. that this is happening to you. And I’m sorry that no one save God can take this away, but if nothing else, I hope you know, Anatawa hitorijanai.

[1ckybr0therluvr]

niniiight <3 send me icky anons / asks to wake up to :3

[castlescrumblingdvwn]

the way bogeol/kiho is always ready to throw himself into danger when it comes to protecting mokha & his family (re: fighting mokha's dad on the island, showing up in front of his own one to keep him away from them).... i'm so glad we got that epilogue in ep 8 of mokha making him promise to not do 'bad' things and ruin himself, he needed that.

[maxgicalgirl]

Listen okay I just know in my heart Cecil Palmer and Sydney Sargent would be BEST friends

[octoagentmiles]

hiiiiiiiiiiii 🥰 i have had a Realization™ again–

so I was thinking about The Harlequin Duck (as I often do) and specifically thinking about how clever the title is—I can't say for certain if it was intentional, but I love the play on "Calico (known for their colours) Jack" and "The Harlequin (named for their colours) Duck".

and it got me thinking about how fun it would be (✨ for me ✨😌) if they did that with the titles/creature parallels more often. so I started thinking about the other creature-parallel episodes in AnB so far, and sadly "The Lonely Frog" does not sound like "Paani", and I can't make "Frog" sound like "Macaque" no matter how hard I try,, and of course, "The Golden Mole" does not sound like "Tracker" at all.

...but d'ya know what it DOES sound like? 👀

"The Golden Child":

[orange-coloredsky-archive]

those "what my ocs would look like without trauma" memes are megafunny because it often implies that your like. sense of fashion??? and general appearance?? is impacted by how traumatic your past was. like yeah obvs if you have a character that lost her eye in a battle that changed her perspective on life, then the change to being not-affected would likely mean her eye is still intact.

but usually it just means character looks less gloomy and has a brighter overall color pallete and like. less belts or accessories. implying that trauma makes you goth or something

[starfishinthedistance]

Might be a hot take, but absolutely hate the term "little t trauma". I've never seen it used in a way meaning anything other than "I don't think what you went through is bad enough to call it trauma but I don't want you to get upset with me".

"Overt abuse? Physical abuse? S*xual abuse with s*xual intent? War? A natural disaster? Yep, that's Big T Trauma™, you're allowed to be upset by that :) !!!"

"Covert abuse? Emotional abuse? COCSA? Bullying? Neglect? Mmmm...don't you think that's little t trauma :) ? I mean, it could've been so much worse, right?" (Meaning: "you don't deserve to feel traumatized")

Big T trauma vs little t trauma is literally just a binary of "valid enough" vs "not valid enough". It's never done based the severity of the psychological damage from the event unique to the individual, it's done to generalize everyone who experiences a certain trauma. Which is stupid, because trauma is subjective.

Let's say two people went on separate dates and both got physically assaulted. One is absolutely fine, a little shaken at first but over it quickly. The other is so traumatized that they can't sleep because of nightmares, can't go outside, and is ruined from trusting or attempting to date anyone ever again. Is that little t trauma or Big T Trauma? I mean, one got wrecked by it but the other is perfectly fine, right? So which is it?

There is no correct answer because there is no Big T and little t trauma. Trauma is trauma. If it traumatized you, it's trauma and you deserve healing and support. The fact that they are licensed therapists and shit telling trauma survivors "oh it's just little t trauma :)" makes me sick. This binary serves no-one. Trauma is trauma.

[sophiegoose]

Saw a video whilst doomscrolling on Instagram a few days ago that was a guy who had a bunch of baby chicks following him and they're all peeping and chirping at him and then he just kneels down and starts to pick up all these tiny little feathery poofs with legs

He's just being super gentle and courteous with these tiny little creatures as he holds like 12 of them in his hands and is so aware of where they are and it melted my heart and now I have the insatiable urge to write some size difference/ g/t fluff

[woulddieforloki]

W A I T okay this has probably been done before but has anyone ever written a fic where The Avengers just. like. didn't happen? like Thanos couldn't break Loki so he just threw him down to Earth or maybe Thanos did break him but the Mind Stone was supposed to make him do Evil Things except it stopped working after he went through the Tesseract? so Loki's just kinda There™ in SHIELD headquarters while the whole place is falling apart and everyone's just like ??? and Fury and Clint drag the very confused random man out of there before they call get very dead and Loki's either half-dead because Thanos couldn't break him or he's just very confused because the Mind Stone suddenly stopped working and it's just a very unproductive moment?

and then stuff happens and Thor comes down to Earth and they manage to get the Tesseract from SHIELD somehow and they go back to Asgard and Loki hasn't actually really done anything so they go to see Odin and Odin's just like ........... because like yeah Loki kinda overthrew the monarchy but he was having a bad day and he does seem to realize that was wrong (at least enough that he's not actively trying to murder his brother again) so Odin just kinda awkwardly pats him on the back and welcomes him home

and then Loki just has to. like. live with it. and everyone's all weird about him now and they've always been weird about him but now they're extra weird about him because he was king for a day? and then fucking died? except he didn't? and then obviously Heimdall and Sif and the Warriors Three know what really happened which makes it even weirder when Loki comes back and tries to go back to his normal life and nobody's gonna tell him not to go back to his normal life because. like. he should do that. probably. but at the same time like twelve months ago Loki fucking killed himself and how do you just move on from that (and if you figure out the answer please tell Loki because he really doesn't fucking know)

[a-weird-cryptid]

Meet Zazoo!

Aka the kazoo demon.

Before Helel found him and decided to keep him by his side, Zazoo's life was extremely miserably and traumatizing.

Now, he's slowly starting to heal from his past with the help of Helel. Knowing for sure that his taller friend with a higher rank will do anything he can to protect him.

They might have started out as just "business partners", but they're way more than that by now for sure. Even if they don't show it publically that often.

Because of this, he really started to express himself again. Mostly by playing music and entertaining others. Both of which he loves to do. Though some things never change... and Zazoo still doesn't say a single word. It is unknown if he simply can't speak or if he refuses to, because of reasons yet to be discovered...

Zazoo in Helel's hands

When both of them are in hell.

[wetpapert0wel]

bisexual .

[carbon--14]

i’ve decided the next installment in my writing career will be a giant middle finger to teen romances and dramas that make me salty that my high school life was so boring

[ihavetoomanythoughts3]

I’m so glad someone finally said this.

Folks have got to understand that they probably aren't messed up by some Secret Big Trauma that they just can't remember; but rather by a million tiny microtraumas that they do mostly remember but don't even register as traumatic because nobody actually understood that these things would cause trauma, much less stack on each other over the years.