Is All Trauma Subjective?

In my professional job of talking for a living, one of the great benefits is the quality of conversation that I’m able to have with (most) people. You don’t learn better or about more things than by conversing with someone else about a given subject. No other method of learning is even close, in my estimation. The art of listening and speaking, of dialectic, of language generally, is one that everyone needs to perfect if they truly want to understand the ways our world works. 

A good follow-up on this point would be the following- where would be the best place for those conversations to be held? In an ever-changing and increasingly-communicative world, this is an important and valid question to pose. Is it best to have these conversations in person? Over dinner? On a Zoom? In private? Depending on the context and desired outcome, all could be sufficient. They all have their uses, or else they wouldn’t be used. Communication is so critical, especially today, that you need many tools in your arsenal in order to wield it effectively. 

The conversations that I always enjoy the most are ones where I truly get to see what people believe and think at their most vulnerable. Good conversation, at the end of everything, always comes back to how deep you can go with a person, at how well you can explore the inner workings of their mind. The sooner you can get to substance, the sooner you can get to seeing the motivations of what actually moves the needle for various people on various sets of issues. 

The vehicle that I’ve found the best at this are, odd as it may seem, dating apps. Dating apps are such a bizarre modern innovation that there is almost no other way to treat them but with simultaneous depth and skepticism. You can’t go too deep with people, but you also have to tread very lightly with shallow conversations as well. This presents a conundrum- do you prod, and try to see if there’s an actual connection, or do you not, and never see at all?

I always trend towards the side of the deeper end of the pond, as mentioned. This is a risky strategy for dating apps, particularly in an era where no one seemingly wants to go deep with anyone. But, as far as I’m concerned, I believe that it’s the single-best strategy to get to a point where you’re actually in a position to find someone who matches you, your values, and your motivations in life. It’s happened before, so why couldn’t it happen to me? That’s my rationale, at least. 

Now, has this ever actually worked, in my case? I can count that number on one hand, with none of those ending up permanent. I’ve fallen in love with two women off of dating apps before, so that’s something. Nothing lasting has happened over apps in my situation, but I’ve gotten close. For a stubborn person like me, who just needs a glimmer of hope to keep pressing through a brick wall, that’s always something to lean into. 

One of the most interesting conversations I’ve ever had on a dating app took place about six months ago. I had matched with a woman who, from the outside, had everything from a values perspective aligned that I was looking for. Due to most women on the apps, in my view, not being as honest as they could be about what they actually believe, this was a refreshing sight. This almost never happened to me, and I was keen to see if it were actually something that could turn the tide in my favor. 

In the initial interaction with this woman, I was stunned to learn that she actually swung more towards my values than I thought. In fact, she was further along the spectrum on some of the things I cared about more than most people. This was a stunning revelation to me. It almost never happened. If I wasn’t so comfortable with where we were initially going, I would have been tremendously uncomfortable. But hey, ride the ride, as they say. 

But, alas, the wave came crashing down, as they usually tend to do. Somewhere along the point of the conversation, we tripped one of my favorite wires to trip- therapy. If you’ve been following my work for any semblance of time, you know that I have a large problem with the way therapy, and the Mental Health Industrial Complex, works. Do I believe it’s totally useless? Absolutely not. Do I believe it’s mostly useless? Absolutely yes. Much of it, like most things, is contextual, but my view towards therapy generally skews highly negative. 

Until we step on the therapy landmine, context to our prior conversation is important. This woman played the role of the tough, rugged, conservative, Christian, southerner. She had an American flag in one of her top pictures. She supported Israel. She claimed that the blue-haired radicals that complained about everything under the Sun were foolish and weak. I had no problem with any of these things. They were her opinions and convictions, ones that I, to a large degree, welcomed. She stood firm on what she believed in, and didn’t like people that she perceived as engaging in their own weakness- an opinion I shared. 

But that all went out the window as soon as the therapy conversation began. This woman was currently in school to become a therapist. I had no animus towards this at all. I believe that therapy is mostly compromised by bad actors, so to have a different flavor of therapist could be a welcome sight. I’d have no problem dating one, at least initially. 

But it was certainly telling that, when I voiced my true concerns and opinions on the Mental Health Industrial Complex, all of her “toughness” that she showed went completely out the window. The attacks began immediately. I “didn’t know what I was talking about”, she stated. I “didn’t understand her story” or “where she was coming from”. These could have been true statements, but they also could not have been true statements. She never took the time to ask me. I had stepped on her identity- that was enough for her. 

But what was especially telling about her snowflake-ish meltdown over my stance on therapy was her intense focus on one word- “trauma”. That was the concept that, over and over again, she kept coming back to. She couldn’t let it go. Her “trauma”, something so specific and subjective to her, was something that caused her to be so protective of her own identity that she nuked our entire conversation over my perceived inability to understand it. I didn’t even know what this “trauma” was. She didn’t let me that far in. 

That word, “trauma”, has been weaponized. Both deliberately and inadvertently, trauma has been used by everyone, myself included, as an excuse for anything we consider a “don’t go there” zone. A client of mine, for example, in an early coaching session of mine, said that he was “traumatized” by things like going on a bad date and a woman cursing him out. Examples like this abound, if you look hard enough for them. 

Traumatized? Really? I thought that “trauma” was reserved for getting your leg blown off by an IED, or your dad beating your mom up when she didn’t have dinner on the table, or witnessing a school shooting. When did it become something that we used for getting into a relational conflict, or suffering a breakup, or from getting a bad grade on an exam, or getting chewed out by your boss? 

Very recently is the answer, because “trauma” was never meant to be used in that context. As mentioned, whenever someone drops the T-word, no one can cross the person who utters it. Do so, and you’re automatically shouted down as a denialist, insensitive, someone who had the nerve to attempt to get clarity as to what the person is actually talking about. 

But that’s exactly the point, it seems. Clarity is always the enemy of lies. Whenever someone wants to hide something, to lie about something, they always masquerade it as something unclear. They don’t have the guts to lie about it outrightly, so they make it something you can’t question instead. It gives them an automated defense mechanism, something that can’t be questioned. It’s no different than the social justice movement- just call someone a bigot, a racist, or a transphobe, and you get an automatic Get Out of Jail Free card. Question it if you dare, but it’s probably best that you don’t. 

This is, obviously, a very dangerous trend to have happen with anything, but specifically so with mental health. If we cannot question the severity of a severe word like “trauma”, then what’s the point of even having discussions about mental health at all? If we just give everyone their own individual lane of comprehending reality, then how on Earth can we actually solve mental health problems? The answer is, in my view, that the people who propagate this nonsense don’t want to solve them- it’s antithetical to their entire worldview. 

Seemingly the only one brave enough to point out this stunning development was one of the great journalists and writers of our time, Abigail Shrier. In her most recent book, Bad Therapy, a must-read on this subject, Shrier tackles this concept of subjective trauma head-on. She was so aggressive in forcing the issue that it drew ire from even the most self-proclaimed tough people in our culture, ranging from Mark Manson to Chris Williamson. They had a very hard time, seemingly, with seeing how this could be true, which shows just how deeply-rooted this language has become. 

The way Shrier described therapy is by using a term called “iatrogenesis”. Iatrogenesis, weird wording aside, is a simple concept- when doctors cause harm by attempting to treat patients. Shrier’s argument, one which we share, is that therapy, particularly in the case of children, is causing more harm than good. By so insulating their patients and empowering them in all the wrong ways, we have cut off the spigot of any conversation about what trauma really is. This is causing, in Shrier’s opinion, smaller versions of tyranny to break out on an identity and micro level- disorders no one has heard of, blanketed self-diagnosis, and other things. 

So, this begs the question, one that Shrier does not directly answer in her book- is all trauma subjective? Or is there an objective set of metrics we can base trauma upon? This is a very worthwhile question to answer. Everything needs a starting point in order to form a serious conversation around the subject. If there is no starting point, there is no way to have a serious conversation around it. The lack of definition around mental health, therapy, and trauma is what has caused the division around their conversations. We must get to the bottom of it if they’re to be had at all. 

Like all things that have been hijacked by Expressive Individualism, we have been made to believe that trauma is, without a shadow of a doubt, a subjective thing. But, like all things that have been hijacked by Expressive Individualism, this also means that trauma cannot be subjective. Expressive Individualism, the inversion of identity that focuses on self-obsession instead of outside relationship and roles, is what is causing so much division around the world, so much so that we’re tearing ourselves apart on every major cultural issue, all of which stem from the same roots. 

The Expressive Individualism problem is one that is very tricky to solve, to be sure. But we must make an attempt to solve it. If we don’t, we will be further subjected to its tyranny, further enslaved to the unending subjectivity that serves as a death by a thousand cuts. Particularly when it pertains to mental health and therapy, the maintenance of our minds, we cannot afford to let this tyranny stand. 

So, for the “subjective trauma” problem, my proposed solution is the following- we must have objective metrics for what trauma is considered. But, that said, all people are different, and process things differently. Thus, we must have subjective standards about the way we treat others, but objective metrics pertaining to how those people are treated. It’s the same as the old adage of treating everyone equally, but not treating everyone the same. It’s sound advice, one that we would be wise to apply more broadly over other issues. 

Subjective trauma cannot exist, because if trauma is subjective, no trauma would ever exist at all- something that is both patently absurd and untrue. To allow this pathology to reign supreme is to allow it to destroy us. I’m against destruction, particularly pertaining to something this stupid and tired. While you’re unique, you’re not special. Your trauma is the same. 

Own the Day,

Sam