#TRAUMA DUMPING FREE#

However, if in the same breath that you advocate for mental illness you are also trauma dumping, then you are a part of the problem. It is a given that people donвЂ™t always think before they speak. I wondered, вЂњWhat if someone around me is also a victim of a school shooting?вЂќ And then, in my horror, I thought, вЂњWhat if they overhear?вЂќ I did not ask nor was I prepared to hear that, but still she gave me this heavy piece of information and access to a very vulnerable part of her. Within minutes of our introduction, she tells me she has severe PTSD due to her being a victim of a school shooting. I was at a social gathering recently, and a young lady whom I have never met very clearly sober came up to me. But when we blur the line between open, effective, and honest communication to out-of-pocket discourse on very serious issues, I become hesitant. I encourage people to not feel ashamed of the baggage they carry, and I, too, carry my own. They use them as conversation starters, and, in many moments, allow trauma to become a sole personality trait.ДonвЂ™t get me wrong, I know how this sounds.

I feel people are too comfortable confiding in strangers, and even their closest friends on their issues. Too often this causes people to feel invalidated because it gives the idea that their problems arenвЂ™t as significant as others.ДЄs inappropriate as trauma dumping is on the internet, itвЂ™s much more harmful in real day to day conversations.

#TRAUMA DUMPING FREE#

When young adults see creators, or even friends, open up and share their problems and negative feelings on social media they take it as an opportunity to have free reign to add onto that with their own. These users are some of the main contributors to the normalization of trauma dumping.ДЄ research paper by Nursing Open suggests that the ages of 12-18 and 19-24 are the most impressionable, a fact that helps explain the trauma dumping phenomenon. 15, 2021, 25 percent of users on the app were around the age of 10 to 19. There are so many days that I find myself scrolling through TikTok finding video after video where young adults, and sometimes younger kids, use popular sounds and trends to vocalize their trauma while negative and unhelpful comments flood the comments sections. Constantly dumping your trauma can become triggering to those around you and it promotes unhealthy coping mechanisms. This quickly catapults into people making jokes about unhealthy eating habits or suicidal thoughts. It is a behavior that has become heavily normalized online, where we see people opening up about serious issues with the intention of raising awareness. Since then, what was starting to become an open and honest environment surrounding mental health, is starting to look like an open door for people to dump their trauma on each other as a means of communication.ДЄlthough trauma dumping is a phenomenon most commonly seen on the internet, it can be defined as an instant in which someone is abruptly oversharing their traumatic experiences in a manner that may feel toxic and self-victimizing.

The conversations around mental health in my growing years have changed so much since 2014 when it felt as though, for the first time, it was a more acceptable conversation on the internet. From it, I find comfort in knowing that at least among many of my peers, my mental health struggles are valid and seen. Young adults are ready to jump at any opportunity to tell the world why we feel bad, without stopping to think about the effect it may have-a phenomenon known as вЂњtrauma dumping.вЂќДЄs a child raised on the internet, I understand and adore the mental health movement. There is something that I have noticed in my youth - a lack of consideration. By Shannon Garrido, Multimedia Managing Editor

Trauma dumping