"My trauma was worse than yours."

BlackElephant

I really hate trauma pissing contests, or when someone says, "You haven't been through anything. I've been through much worse." It just invalidates other people's experiences. And how can they really say that someone else hasn't had anything bad happen to them? Most people don't talk about very traumatic experiences all the time or brag about having gone through them. How would they even know, unless they're psychic?

(By trauma, I mean major things, like abuse or bullying, not "Somebody looked at me cross-eyed once.")

Has anyone else had this happen to them, or noticed this happen? Why would somebody brag about their own trauma level and lord it over people?

RedEyedAbyss

"Why would somebody brag about their own trauma level and lord it over people?"

This myth persists due to ignorance. When you don't know what it feels like to be in a situation, you tend to think it couldn't be that bad. Also, there's the just-world fallacy. And yeah, the whole idea that they're just doing it for attention really smacks of kicking people while they are down (admittedly, I am reminded of an infamous poster here who would never shut up about his inconsistent overblown family situation, but he clearly wasn't being sincere a lot of the time).

InsanityAddict

It's clearly stated in the rules that this forum isn't intended as a psychological crutch for whatever trauma a poster has. Even if a majority of the posters here would have similar experiences or at least sympathy, this is a general-purpose site and would at best function as a referral to more specialized sites, or indeed the stern advice to seek out a therapist.

That said, the distinction between the ban refugee who only comes here for the attention fix and the poster who is more than a trauma with a username is glaringly obvious 90% of the time. The latter doesn't bring it up at every opportunity, actively works to fix it, and knows the clear line between having a problem and making the problem into an identity.

BlackElephant

Well, I was actually talking about people in real life (and just anywhere in general), not on this forum. Should this have been in Meatspace or Philosophy (since it's not just about real life, but it's more of a general thing)?

InsanityAddict

The same signs apply: making excuses to not fix the problem, brings it up constantly at little prodding and even if peeps have already told the person it's above their pay grade, and inability to talk about anything else.

Raydere

I strive to use my traumatic experiences in a helpful way to others ("I've been through something like that, blah blah blah, sorry to hear, insert advice I learned from my experiences here"), not to invalidate people's complaining.

Schitzo

What's the "just-world fallacy"?

InsanityAddict

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis