Nobody has a personality anymore: we are products with labels

As a child, my dad’s brother fell out of a bunk bed and got a traumatic brain injury that would kill him 15 years later.

My dad experienced real trauma but was told to bottle it up. After 30 years, he finally went to counseling and it was transformational for him.

By contrast, I had some mean fifth grade classmates who still live in my head in uncomfortable social situations…

Did my dad have trauma and need to put a “label” on it? Yep. Do I have trauma? Nope. But I do have some work to do...

As a society, we’re responding to the fact that a lot of our family and friends are living with the weight of a past which haunts them or psychological challenges which deeply affects their ability to relate to the world.

I think it’s ok to be overweight on therapy-talk. Kind of like how a little too much inflation is ok after a long period of zero inflation…

But I do think we should let younger people have more time before they get labeled/diagnosed. There’s a lot of 15 year olds who are just kinda weird…

> Do I have trauma? Nope. But I do have some work to do...

You might be selling yourself or others short with that notion of trauma that excludes what sounds like bullying.

I personally don't find traumatic impact to be determined by the severity of the event. If anything, it feels like I am built for the "big stuff" like family tragedy and during such events, where others have fallen to pieces, I can step up, I am more focussed and capable than normal. A stoic acceptance of such events comes naturally, it's life, it happens and I know I am needed.

In contrast, small events: rejection, failure, embarrassment, conflict etc. can be paralysing, debilitating, brain-breaking poison that I can't escape with out great suffering and effort.

The cases that cause me effort are expressly where the impact is irrational. Natural grief, sadness at misfortune etc. heal with time but irrational impact is where an inconsequential grit of sand has seized the entire gearbox and only grow without attention.