I was reading an article about a study of the impact of wartime stressors on Ukrainian adolescents, looking at impacts like depression and suicidality. It is interesting because the testing measured across two phases of the Russian invasion, with the more exposure to war indicative of a large spike in negative mental health outcomes. It is unsurprising, but it also noted negative mental health outcomes from relatively low exposure to trauma.
Trauma.
It is a word that gets thrown around a lot these days, but I wonder what constitutes trauma in a world where people are highly sensitive to their emotional state, and physically reactive. Could the conditions required to evoke a trauma response be lessened?
Trauma is an overwhelming experience involving actual or threatened death, serious injury, or sexual violence that shatters a person's sense of safety, overwhelming their coping mechanisms and leading to lasting emotional, mental, and physical distress. It can stem from single events (accidents, attacks, disasters) or ongoing situations (abuse, neglect, war) and is defined not just by the event itself, but by the individual's intense reaction and subsequent impaired functioning, often involving shock, helplessness, and difficulty integrating the experience.
That was from a search, but there are two things that I would highlight from it at this point,
involving actual or threatened death, serious injury, or sexual violence
A lot of the trauma people mention today, doesn't fit into those categories, but that doesn't mean it doesn't qualify as trauma. This is because we have largely conflated actual threats to our safety and threats to our ego. We can experience similar fears responses, even when we aren't actually in any danger at all. And for most of us who have never been in a warzone, faced serious injury, or sexually assaulted, low-level fear can seem traumatic, because we don't know what high-level feels like.
and is defined not just by the event itself, but by the individual's intense reaction and subsequent impaired functioning, often involving shock, helplessness, and difficulty integrating the experience.
And this is the next part I will highlight, as it is connected. It isn't the event faced, the warzone, the assault, the near-death experience, it is our response to it. And if we have lived a relatively safe and secure life, when there are small events that scare us, they feel much larger, molehills into mountains. And these relatively small events can trigger the various trauma responses, even though under a different set of experience, the same events wouldn't be traumatic at all.
Despite globalisation, the experiences of children around the world are highly varied, with many facing actual existential threat often. And even in countries that are considered wealthy and stable, the experiences of individual adolescents varies widely also. However, if we are looking at relatively stable, healthy situations, it means that the children haven't likely faced very much trauma in their lives, and that means that they become more sensitive to possibilities of trauma. Those who face a lot of trauma and survive, can become desensitized to the conditions, which can be traumatic in itself.
The source of trauma can take many forms, and I try to be understanding with people who talk about the trauma in their lives. Yet, I am also aware that if we are set too sensitively, like a floodlight with a motion sensor, we are going to be triggered by everything. We become hyper reactive to any negative emotion we feel and we get the; "intense reaction and subsequent impaired functioning, often involving shock, helplessness, and difficulty integrating the experience." - which is just not a healthy way to live.
A client of mine was a peacekeeper in Kosovo back in the day and despite being older now, he looks like he can handle himself. So I asked him if he ever get scared when out in a bar. His answer was a definitive "no" with a smile. But he added, that he knows that he can take pretty much anyone, and those he might struggle with, he knows before he would even attempt it. But, they can see it in him too. He is trained to deal with stressful, traumatic experiences and he has been battletested to harden him further. He said he still sees traumatic things that affect him to this day, but he can handle his emotional state.
Many can't.
And while no person let alone children should have to deal with war, the thing is that life becomes a warzone when we aren't trained to deal with what we are going to experience. If we don't build those fundamental skills when young, when we face the challenges of an adult, we are going to breakdown, because it is going to be traumatic. Remember, it is not the event, it is the reaction to the event.
I believe that we have taken some wrong directions in how we raise children today, as they are failing to experience the events to teach them resilience and emotional self-sufficiency. Yet they are also exposed to a lot of unreal experience that convinces them they understand the situations of reality, with violence and sexual content. They think they know how to act and react, but when reality hits, they are traumatised instead. It has set them up to be highly affected by conditions them to find basic situations stressful, causing anxiety and emotional and mental helplessness.
There are a lot of broken adolescents.
And they will turn into broken adults. Traumatised by pasts that were relatively good and stable, with few actual risks that threatened life or limb. But now, kids are beating and killing each other because of social media drama. They are raping each other because they are so entitled and believe they should have all their desires met, with desires driven by fantasy content. They are intentionally making each other feel unsafe.
They are traumatising themselves.
And making themselves victims.
Taraz
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In today's world, the GenZ experiences trauma mostly through Netflix, HBO, Anime etc. Although, I cannot generalize this perception but my part of the community literally copies their module. Just because they love 'Thomas Shelby (a character from Peaky Blinders)' and he said, "I am already dead (because of the war scenario)", they (watchers) too are already dead. But, it does not deny the fact that trauma is real, even the short one's are real and sometimes more serious. The problem is these ones are coming from the small things that pile up when you do not know how to process them.
Sometimes, I feel like we forget how much our inner world is shaped by the way we react, not just by what actually happens to us. Two people can go through the same moment and walk away carrying completely different weights (tge human body is indeed an impressive phenomenon) . We have lost the natural growth because the constant comparison, constant noise, constant pressure to feel something dramatic; and it all chips away at the quiet strength people used to grow naturally.
Maybe every scratch is not a scar!
And maybe, the world comes in harmony and not fighting like uncivilized animals.
We are the Peaky fucken Blinders.
Digital exposure to trauma is not the same as true experience, but without a reference, people can "believe" they know what it is. Watching the landing at Normandy in 'Saving Private Ryan,* which was a very realistic depiction apparently, is not the same as experiencing the horror in reality. Veterans of Normandy landing walked out of the cinema due to the trauma it brought up, but everyone else just sat through, enjoying the horror. Then after, they think they know what it was like.
And this is what people need to remember! Two people can have the same traumatic experience, and one be weaker for it, the other stronger. One can be harmed by it, the other helped by it. This doesn't mean that we should traumatise everyone and see who gets stronger, rather that it is possible for everyone to improve their reaction to experience in order to grow, rather than suffer.
But a reality check (even something as mild as "hey it's not that bad") is callous and invalidating our feelings.
It's somewhat developmentally appropriate in adolescents as they only have so much context and as there's a lot of really big upheavals including emotional ones, they do tend to feel extremely hard done by and extremely sorry for themselves and know beyond any shade of doubt that they absolutely do have the worst possible outcome that could ever happen to anyone in situations that are nowhere adjacent to anything in the same universe as high level traumatic. My kids were the worst for that between 12 and 15, youngest is still kind of in and out of that but getting better. Unless there was some serious trauma involved I expect adults to have grown out of that.
The first part sounds like normal teenage things XD Youngest at the moment has no problems insisting that there is no possible way that we could do some of the things we say we could do or have done and we're just grossly overestimating his own abilities, but he will do the literal exact same thing and when we point out that he most likely would not be able to do those things he gets mad because we're "underestimating" him because somehow he's the only one who can possibly accurately guess anything.
He's probably also very up and down with moods because he's a teenager and also because reality destroying the expectations created by fantasy can be a devastating blow to the ego (but it is of course everyone else's fault).
Having said that I'm reasonably sure everyone has encountered at least one person who makes very confidently completely wrong assertions about things they know nothing at all about and they're not always children XD
For sure it is. At the same time, we have to get accustomed to some level of discomfort, otherwise we learn and do very little.
(by the way, sometimes when I type, a whole lot of random letters come out instead of the words I want. Like, not even close...)
Well off topic.
I know of kids around here who haven't grazed a knee, because they have barely been outside to play in a way they could. What happens when they are fifteen and going through a breakup with their "true love"?
Yes, in many ways. But even teenagers can have some sense of context, even though not fully developed. If they have no exposure to discomfort, I think they lose the ability to tell mountain from molehill quite quickly.
The "reality destroying expectations created by fantasy" is a massive problem. Moreso, because many will still believe that the fantasy is the ideal, undermining the experience and lessons provided by reality.
I have no idea what you are talking about ;)
I'm was inspired by the story of your soldier friend who served in Kosovo. And that's how everyone should be: Resilient enough to handle the ups and downs of life. Because ups and downs are guaranteed, the only difference is that they come differently to every person.
The more resilient a person becomes the more they realize some of the experiences they tagged as traumatic, are infact, flea bites. They enter a new level of 'traumatic'.
David Higgins, former US Navy SEAL, tells a story of how he adapted to the hard situations he faced, overcame his fears and became "the toughest man alive". He asserts that anyone can deal with trauma, it's just a matter of mental and psychological conditioning.
Parents need to teach their kids that life comes with lots of discomfort and inconveniences and prepare them how to handle it if it comes. So when it comes they won't be caught surprised and off guard.
There is a balance in there somewhere, but I think we are erring on the side of too soft, too little responsibility, not quite enough real pain for kids today. Many have never even grazed a knee falling in the park, because they are sitting on a screen inside.
For sure. And you needn't be a SEAL to have the training.
I think the key here is to introduce children to the real world gradually in a controlled fashion. A small step at a time and re-evaluate if they are ready for the next step. That way they can adapt to the real world and not just wait until they are adult enough to be introduced to stuff all at once...
We are creatures that are highly adaptable but adaptation is a gradual process.
I completely agree. @smallsteps :)
And this herein is where I see the issue. We aren't exposing kids in a lot of fundamental areas, but in tertiary areas like violence and sex, they are exposed to high, fantasy level content with no oversight or discussion to understand it.
Raising children right now sums up with sitting a child in front of an iPad all day, so it's not surprising when they find it difficult to deal with real-world stuff, but I think it's gonna get worse. Yesterday, I watched a Sam Altman interview where he says he is using AI to raise his children, which is really sad, and I imagine there will be lots of parents who will do the same thing moving forward.
Me too.
Btw, I get a weird vibe from Sam Altman. It is also interesting that a lot of tech people generally go the other way, keeping their kids away from a lot of the digital experience, and giving real-world experience instead.
If he relies on AI to raise his child, I can also imagine that he also relies on AI in other aspects of his life, including his behavior, making him act weird, or maybe he is just weird to begin with.
This is why exposing a child to outside world is important. From learning cycling to dealing with stranger, we need to teach and introduce to them with differrnt situation. Here i see the old school of people does that effectively. But again, the real life event can be threatening, and it can send Shockwave down the spine. But being exposed and learned about the differrnt event can help a person to recover faster...
The "dealing with strangers" is a big one. I find a lot of younger people aren't very good at reading people, which means they trust when they shouldn't, and don't trust when they should. If you think about it in terms of only trusting those who make you feel good, you will get into a van with a stranger who offers candy, but be upset at a boss who tells you what to do at work.
Although suicide is not the right decision and it is a great sin. But those who commit suicide are already mentally dead. Because they are hurt by something or they have a future security or fear that makes them choose such a path. Those who are victims of sexual assault or are victims of a major accident, war or any other bad situation, their lives are really ruined and in such a situation many choose such a path of suicide. Even this tendency is seen in many physically disabled people. But if all of us and the family could stand by these people positively and could encourage them in life and be their partners, their world would be wonderful. Which you have also beautifully highlighted in your writing.
I don't believe in sin in this sense, because I don't believe in a heaven or hell. Even if there was a heaven and a hell, I'd rather be kicked out of it than kill people to try and get into it.
I get the question about whether we’re raising children to be resilient or fragile and it actually is a hard one, but it’s a conversation worth having. Safety is important, but so is learning how to tolerate discomfort and uncertainty without falling apart(example of wars aside). It builds character
Safety is important, but when we are confusing psychological safety for physical safety, it becomes a risk. I think that is what we are doing now.
As we experienced much, I think building emotional resilience is important and we should teach children to face discomfort rather than avoid it.
Eventually, they will experience a lot more discomfort, but by then, they will be traumatised by it instead of helped.
Trauma is real no doubt, but so is the risk of becoming overly sensitized in a world that encourages us to interpret every negative feeling as a traumatic threat.But now finding the balance, protecting kids while giving them room to grow stronger, is the real challenge.
I think that we need to return kids to experience more of the real world. Rather than wrapping them in cotton wool so they don't cry, they need to run and jump and fall.
The same is true with bullying as it is with trauma. There are a lot of boxes that need to be ticked for the label to actually fit and people don't realize that. My wife has been dealing with a parent who keeps claiming trauma for her kid. My wife won't say it to her face, but the reality is the trauma as mostly taken care of a long time ago, the parent just enables their kid now.
Then there's me, a 2x childhood victim of sexual assault, who just pretends the trauma doesn't exist!
Thanks.