Sickening Trauma And Ptsd Jokes, Ignorance

[Chava]

I know this comes up from time to time....the sickening colloquialisms around trauma like "I found a hair in my salad and was totally traumatized" (or whatever). I think we need a dumb slang word to represent "stressed" in an exaggerated but NOT traumatic way.

A few days ago someone wrote some joke on facebook about their daycare work and something they called "Puke Traumatic Stress Disorder". What made me extra sick is how funny people thought it was....totally mindless and oblivious to the play on PTSD. I had the guts to just write that I didn't think PTSD jokes (or jokes in reference to any serious injury or mental illness) was funny. I'm sure some people thought I sucked, but I don't care. It's obvious people are really ignorant to how terrible trauma and PTSD is. Also, so many people are still total idiots around all issues of mental health....like only people locked up in the asylum have these issues, versus realizing your neighbor or colleague could well suffer but we don't go around announcing it.

f*ckers.

Anyway, feel free to back me and others here when people pull this kind of shit. It doesn't mean announcing to any loser what we experience, but more just finding a way to say that trauma or PTSD is REAL and it's pretty terrible. So find a better way to describe your silly personal drama.

 

[scout86]

Good for you for expressing your opinion! When I hear that kind of stuff, I often think, "I don't want to play one trauma is worse than another, BUT..." There are an awful lot of people in this world who REALLY experience trauma and it annoys me when the word is used over something that seems trivial to me.

 

[sun seeker]

Same thing with depression. Part of it is ignorance as you say, but part of it is we don't have the vocabulary to talk about different levels of distress. You'd think we would; wasn't someone mentioning in another thread recently how many negative words the English language has compared to positive?

 

[darrenS]

i joined a support group and the first thing they said , is a diagnosis of a mental illness is traumatic, and then proceeded saying how they had bits of ptsd along with their mental illness and it was more than obvious they really didnt have a clue, but if i was to slay every dragon , i would be one busy boy, i find it a lot easier to ignore it - i was also hauled over the coals as i said my role is not to educate others about ptsd - i tried to explain that the mere talk of it leads to questions, and those questions i am not comfortable answering - human behaviour is one of tell me the "juicy bits" and im not willing to divulge or feed their curiosity. I get very annoyed at hearing the word trauma coming out of peoples mouths who clearly have not faced a real trauma but then to correct or educate that would lead to the same juicy bits phenomenon.

 

[Chava]

I'm also not going to make it my business to educate others. There are some fuzzy areas that are none of my business. But a joke about little kid puke? That's a JOKE and a word play on PTSD. I've cleaned vomit off the slippery floor of a bus. It's not traumatic. It's just not even a big deal.

So, I loath every stress being called trauma by some people...that's just ignorance. The extra level of joking is ignorance plus total lack of filter, which is all over the internet, even among people who should know better (early childhood educators who've probably had mental health training and should at least model a minimal level of sensitivity). I'm fine sticking my neck out 1 mm once in a while. It means nothing in a sea of 'hahaha...LOL!!" but a few people dared agree with me and I know they knew what I was saying. This is real and the PTSD jokes are shit. Maybe someone slowed down for half a second to think about it. Maybe not. I'm not educating anyone. I'm just saying the joke sucks, which is true. I'll come out of my shell to voice that much. Doesn't hurt at all.

 

[gonegirl]

I was discussing this with my T yesterday. How this very thing keeps popping up on social media and how unhelpful it is. Also when people use the term flashback flippantly. None who has ever experienced the terror of traum flashback would ever use that word without blood freezing fear.. i will join you on your mission to kindly point this out to people i know in the hopes that they might care enough to research the awfulness of ptsd that we don't share with them.

 

[Upside Down Eagle]

I agree with you up to an extent but I also don't. I think yeah the condition should be taken seriously. But on the other hand.

When people are saying "ooh that totally made me flashback" or "I have PTSD from such and so dumb thing", they are not saying PTSD is nonexistent or stupid or funny. They are not even implying it. It's a way of talking. Yes it maybe an ignorant way of talking, but people do that all the time, and they are going to do that in the future.

Maybe you won't like this, but even I kid around with PTSD sometimes that way. Even though I have PTSD and I know it's very serious. Even I sometimes joke that something "totally traumatized me" just as a manner of speaking. When you take this personally, it's going to go make you feel bad. But when I say that (and when others do) they don't mean it personally...

People kid around with cancer too, and with God and with Jesus. They are always going to pull thing out of their context and use these things to add a sense of drama to what they're saying. Some people swear with God and still believe in God. That's what I mean.

 

[Kintsugi]

I joke about PTSD, being traumatized, and flashbacks all the time to people who both know and do not know about my diagnosis. All the time.

I don't personally think it's a bad thing. Awareness about PTSD is at an all time high, I'd say, and part of how people deal with sad things is joking about them.

I know it's terribly insensitive, but with many of my friends, especially those in college, I would insist I had PTSD from being deployed in Vietnam. I said this because it was impossible, but that's where all the awareness was centered 5-10 years ago, and I didn't want to disclose my trauma, so I found a way to sort of tease people who asked about my trauma, because they would get all serious and ask me, and I would deadpan answer that I'd been in Vietnam, and they couldn't help but giggle a little at the ridiculousness of that statement.

It was how I coped. And joking about trauma and flashbacks helps me cope, too. It's an easy way to connect socially while bringing up real issues. I don't know anyone, personally, who legitimately believes PTSD is a joke, or fake, or something that you get from a bad day at work.

 

[Chava]

When people are saying "ooh that totally made me flashback" or "I have PTSD from such and so dumb thing", they are not saying PTSD is nonexistent or stupid or funny. They are not even implying it. It's a way of talking. Yes it maybe an ignorant way of talking, but people do that all the time, and they are going to do that in the future.

Maybe you won't like this, but even I kid around with PTSD sometimes that way.

I think for me it's more like how people don't think cancer jokes are funny (why they don't really exist). For me, trauma has been life-threatening in itself and so has my cptsd (suicide, addiction, etc). I don't like bipolar jokes either. It does disregard the seriousness. I can make anorexic jokes because I'm anorexic (but I don't make anorexic jokes anyway).

But I think I know what you're saying and respect your opinion. I use art to create drama. Well, and I joke about God but not openly on facebook, only with my friends I can joke about God with....