I really hate the concept of “little t trauma”. Hate it.
“Big T Trauma”, the logic goes, is for things that are “actually bad enough’, like war veterans or rape survivors. Or people who survive natural disasters or terrorist attacks or car accidents.* “Little t trauma” is said to be for things like “interpersonal conflict”, infidelity, divorce, “financial worries or difficulty”, “legal trouble”, “death of a pet”, “bullying or harassment”, “loss of significant relationships”, or emotional abuse.*
And it’s bullshit.
*Examples taken from various articles on the subject I just looked up in preparation for this rant.
Plenty of people survive car accidents and sexual assault and war without lasting mental health issues.
The perceived severity of the traumatic event doesn’t actually matter. What matters is how your brain reacted to it.
You can have PTSD or other serious traumagenic disorders from bullying at school, or “just” emotional abuse, or neglect, or just from not having your needs met. If you’re marinating in stress long enough, it causes SO MANY problems.
Poverty is extremely traumatic! Your brain doesn’t necessarily understand the difference between “someone is routinely causing me serious physical harm” and “we run out of money for food by the third week of the month”. It just knows to interpret these things as threats to your continued survival. They cause you to produce stress hormones and other physiological responses. I’ve probably known people who have severe, ongoing issues due to just about everything on that list!
Your brain is trying to make sure you don’t die, and all the fucking logic in the world about “Well I wasn’t ACTUALLY in danger” or “Well she wouldn’t really have hit me” or “it was just kids being kids” doesn’t change that.
Every single trauma survivor I’ve ever known has thought that what happened to them Wasn’t Bad Enough to Count, because Other People Have it Worse. Every single one.
I think we’re so close to starting to realize that, as it turns out, a whole metric FUCKTON of people have experienced traumatic events and it’s affected a LOT more people than we initially believed. We’ve started to understand that it’s not just war vets who get PTSD.
But it’s like we’redesperate to come up with a reason that no, actually, it’s not that the systems we have in place routinely damage people severely - or that a lot of very common parenting techniques cause serious harm. We have to subdivide it further into little categories, and you should stop being so dramatic. OBVIOUSLY it that wasn’t bad enough.
To be clear, I understand that this terminology was PROBABLY well-intentioned. “Look, a whole host of experiences can be trauma! We should acknowledge that!” - or at least I hope it was. But it’s that implied “[but obviously it’s not as bad as the people who have REAL problems. Don’t you know some people had to deal with TERRORISM!?]” that makes it bullshit.
People who are really struggling with awful, serious things already have enough trouble being taken seriously and taking their own pain seriously.
This concludes your irregularly scheduled rant about how mental health is discussed.
Hey humans! So a while back I answered an ask about falling off a horse. While I tried to give the best answers I could, it’s important to know that a) horses scare me (because they’re 1200-pound beasts with steel feet, of course they scare me, seriously read this post, NO THANK YOU), b) I don’t live in an area where riding accidents are common, and c) …. actually there is no C, I just like having things in 3s.
But the lovely @vanillivilovesreus submitted this awesome post on horse related trauma, and I think it’s really cool and really important. *Please note that I have not verified this against any form of textbook*, mostly because my basic paramedic textbook and a lot of my A&P books were damaged in a bit of in-apartment flooding a few years ago, and in the spirit of moving forward and not backwards, I’ve bought a bunch of esoteric textbooks on peds critical care and more rather than replace my (pedantic) paramedic textbook. Which I should probably do. Someday. If I don’t break down and spend $200 I don’t have on Rosen’s or Tintinalli’s….. *sigh*
But! This is an amazing post, it all stands to reason, and I’m incredibly grateful! Thank you again. xoxo, Aunt Scripty.
So I saw that question what would be expected if someone fell from a horse and was dragged for a short distance and I thought I’d butt in, because the idea that you fall backwards rubbed me the wrong way and this got a little out of hand. My riding experience is limited, but I get by and I thought maybe people might be interested in all kinds of injuries that can happen around horses and I have seen a few accidents and heard a lot of stories. (English is not my native language, so I apologies in advance for any spelling/ grammatical errors.)
Now, you can get hurt around a horse without actually riding the horse (or even getting close to a horse, if we take accidents around the barn into account). But let’s just imagine a usual lesson as I know them. In most cases you’ll start with cleaning your horse (and before you can do that you need to get it out of their box/ paddock/ whatever). I had more horses step on my toes than I can count and depending on the horse that might be uncomfortable but doesn’t actually hurt, but it might as well break a toe/several toes if we’re talking vicious, giant horse. Though that’s why you wear riding boots around horses.
Some horses might bite or kick or at least try to. A light bite hurts like hell and might result in a bruise, really strong bites - those usually affect fingers, because fingers fit perfectly into a horse’s mouth - can break bones or maybe take off part of the finger too.
If a horse kicks you, you better hope you are close to the horse because the further you are away, the more force is behind the kick. Injuries vary a lot depending on that. If you’re close to the horse and it’s more of a knee jerk reaction on it’s part, you can easily get away with a hoof shaped bruise. The stronger the kick, the worse your injuries. Depending on where you are hit, you might crack your rips, lose your breath for some time, get a concussion or, if you are unlucky enough to be hit on the head, you might actually die.
When a horse breaks into a panic while being led, for the love of god, let go! Don’t kid yourself, you won’t be able to keep up or hold the horse back, so you’ll be dragged along at some point - probably sooner rather than later and that will at the very least result in road roash, but you might also break something.
Now you’ve made it onto the horse, congratulations! All is well and fine, until you fall.Every horse rider will fall at some point. It is not the end of the world. In most cases you’ll pad the dust of and get back on the horse. So what can happen if you fall? In most cases,you won’t fall backwards, but forwards or to the side. I had a fall which was actually more of a slithering off the bare horse back, where I landed on my feet, took two steps back and fell on my ass. Happens sometimes. Also, most falls are over before you can think about it. One second you’re on your horse, the next you’re on the ground with no memory of how you fell (though that changes with the frequency of falls). So, you fall fowards/ to the side and you don’t consciously react - see where this is going? You are very likely to sprain a wrist, hurt your arm in anyway or break your collarbone.
Head/ neck and back injuries mostly happen during jumping or at cross country or something equal, because it’s fast, the height is even greater and you have no way of influencing your landing and you have momentum. If you don’t know what you’re doing and try any of that, there is a very real danger that you at the very least break some bones. It is very, very possible that you end up partly or completely paralysed or dead.
I never ever encountered a barn where they would let you participate in a lesson without a helmet and there are good reasons for this! Many riders will also wear a back protector of sorts. A helmet helps a lot, especially if we’re talking about arena underground, which is relatively soft. I once fell on a ride through the forest and boy was I happy about my helmet. Stones and roots are not your friends.
Can you be dragged along after a fall? That’s unlikely, but I’ve seen it happening. In theory, the stirrup is constructed to separate itself from the saddle if pressure is exerted pulling back, but some of these mechanisms might be old and therefore stuck or maybe you’re dealing with a saddle that doesn’t have one of those (although I never encountered this). However, if you get dragged along, add roadrash to the injuries you already have from the fall plus quite probably injuries at the ankle/ foot.
Can a horse trample you (to death)? Theoretically, yes of course. 800 lbs is a small, light horse. However, a horse won’t run into you/ step on you unless it doesn’t see you aka is in a great big panic. What might happen though is that you somehow fall under the horse and with its next step it treads right onto you.
So,
tl;dr you can make a lot of injuries and their severity believable around horses, because it mostly is a gamble how you fall.
i just found out about traumacore and as someone who struggles with CSA it’s fucking disgusting and triggering as shit.
I draw vent art, I know how it works but your “art” is so fucking explicit, it makes me feel dirty and you post it everywhere. you know what someone who actually cares about others would do? we put our depressing art away so no one else can see it. y'all are profiting off of it. and you think it’s cute. “oh daddy stop” bitch shut the fuck up. just fucking stop, you get off on making others feel pain. you think it’s funny when you see CSA victims get retraumatised or triggered.
in case no one told you, or in case you know but you need encouragement taking the next step: it’s never too late to unlearn a law that is now holding you back, it’s never too late to write a new law
i think sometimes trauma survivors fall into this place where it’s very hard to believe that anything that happened to you was that bad. and the only proof you have that it was that bad is that you’re suffering. and so healing can be really scary and difficult because it means giving up the only tangible evidence you have that you were traumatized in the first place
My fault? When I tripped over because I didn’t tie up my shoelaces, that was my fault. When my favourite plant died because I forgot to water him, that was my fault. When I lost a friend because I kept putting off contacting them, that was my fault.
When you locked me in your room, when you tried to finger me under the tables in our science class, when you told everyone we had sex, when you made fun of my body and called me a whore, when you tricked me, when you groomed me, when you made fun of me for going to the police, was that my fault? You say yes, I say fuck you.
Those parts of me I’ll never have back, you stole that. There was no us, and there certainly was no me. You haunt me, when I see you my legs don’t work, and I want to run towards you, to embrace you, then thrust my knife into your back. Because that is what you did to me.
I see you laugh at me; I see you jeer. Whore, slut, skank, did you ever really know my name? Did you know what my favourite colour was? Did you know what show I loved the most? Did you even want me? Or did you want my body? You salivate, dripping drool like a dog with a gaping maw, you ate me, then spat me out when I resisted. You didn’t want me when I fought back.
You’re a monster, a lying cheating beast who prays on those who are smaller. You saw a rabbit, ripe, fresh and full of hopes, and you snapped its neck. For so long that rabbit lay there dormant, its neck hanging like a loose rope. I loved you once, at least I thought I did, I was 12 when you started attacking me. You said you love me, then proceeded to treat me like a toy.
You won, you won finally, I broke. 2 times I stood on a ledge, 2 times I choked myself with a rope. I turned, naïve, thinking maybe you’d see what you did. You were laughing. Mouthing “jump”. So, I tried, and 3 angels held me down, took me to the hospital and tried to fix what they could. They mended my physical wounds and tried to fix my brain. They had to remove the TV remote chord, I tried to die again.
I haven’t seen you since, and that brings me great joy. Every time I hear your name, see you active online, I laugh. I’m not fixed, not yet. I don’t think I ever will be. There’s no way to fix what you’ve broken, but that doesn’t mean that it will always bring me down. One day I know I’ll be able to stop the flashbacks, look past the trauma and know it wasn’t my fault. Until then I just must play it day by day. One day you’ll be scared of me, like how I am with you. And on that day, I will have won.
Hey y’all did you know that just because you had a shitty childhood doesn’t mean you have to guilt trip and project your trauma and insecurities on other people? So when someone posts a funny video with their dad or talks about a nice gift their mother gave to them maybe instead of saying “wow imagine having parents that love you” or “haha my mom gave me nothing for Christmas after I turned 8” you can scroll past the video without being bitter and miserable.
People shouldn’t be your enemy for just having nice things. If they’re being spoiled, ungrateful brats that’s far different but someone being happy about something nice that happened within their family or a gift/experience they got? Yea, no one needs to know that you weren’t fortunate enough for that. Read the room. It’s not always about you and your trauma. And before you come at me, my life of far from perfect. I’m one of you.
not to sound like a boomer but i think millenials should stop giving 1 - 10 yearolds their own tablets/ipads or let them roam around the internet willy nilly
Also, needing daily internet access to do schoolwork, research, etc. is not the same thing as giving them 100% unfiltered access to the internet. Especially if you don’t even bother to teach or enforce basic internet safety like stranger danger, etc. Same thing applies if the school provides one for the purpose of doing schoolwork.
Not child under 13 years old should have unlimited internet access. This isn’t me being jealous of those who did, because I was one of them. This is me knowing that I’ve been in danger and have been in contact with several creepy people as a result, and it wasn’t even that bad for me. No child should have that. You are way too young to be on the Internet with no supervision at that age.
What Does It Mean To Think Catastrophically & Mindfulness Techniques To Help Overcome It
Catastrophic thinking is a type of irrational thinking, which is very common in people who suffer from anxiety disorders such as social anxiety disorder, avoidant personality disorder, generalised anxiety disorder, OCD, panic attacks and PTSD. This type of thinking usually has continuous thoughts about the future in a very negative way. These thoughts are usually what I call ‘What if?’ thoughts, and its these types of thoughts that lead to fear, dread, worry and distress. The main reason why many people with anxiety think this way is because they have a severe phobia of the unknown and what will happen to them in the future.
Psychologically speaking, these thoughts are just in our imagination from stored images from previous experiences such as traumas from our past. This is called fragmentation. After witnessing a trauma, our brains store the experience into images, which will be placed into our subconscious mind. This is the reason why some thoughts may come up and not make any sense to you or the people around you at all. Sometimes these distressing thoughts can come up in dreams and that is why many patients with PTSD and C-PTSD often have nightmares and night terrors.
However, there is a way of overcoming and healing from this dysfunctional type of thinking. Living in the present moment is the best way to heal from catastrophic thinking. This is because it gets you in tune with what is going on right now, at this moment in time - not yesterday, not tomorrow or in five or ten years from now. Knowing that you or your loved ones are completely safe at this very moment is a very good tool to use to stop disastrous thinking. Being here in the present, listening to your breath and being mindful of your thoughts and feelings will help with any kind of anxiety disorder.
As someone who has suffered from severe anxiety in the past, I have realised from my own experience that a lot of it stems from a lack of trust towards ourselves and others. When we lack trust, we start looking for reassurance and whether not we are making the right decision or not, and continuously ask for advice leading to frustration and even more doubt. This is why learning and allowing yourself to fully surrender and let go in a state of anxiety is important part of the healing process. I have previously written about trust and surrender here on this blog, if you want to read those.
Anxiety Visualisation Exercise
Close your eyes and imagine yourself sitting in the eye of a storm, the calm centre that lies behind the chaos that is going around it. You see pieces of debris floating around of all different sizes, which represent the thoughts you carry with you. Observe them and look at what they are showing to you, like you are watching a movie. You know that you are completely safe and serene in this eye of a storm and you know that it will not hurt you. Suddenly, you begin to see the storm move swiftly across, taking all of your negative thoughts with it. You feel a sense of deep peace and emotional freedom, like someone has taken a heavy bag off of your shoulders. You stand up and begin to walk towards the sun that is shining in between the clouds smiling, feeling liberated and full of joy. When you have finished this visualisation exercise, open your eyes.
If you liked this post, please share and like it with all of your friends or to someone who needs a little bit more love and support right now!
And thank YOU! This is the most complete art depiction this character of mine as received, and I cannot stop marveling at how good he looks here, especially the tattoos, like WOW :D
Behold, Gossamer Trostark! He is, in character, damn awkward as hell, but he looks amazing here!
HardyGal’s DnD Experiences (Roughly) Retold
Session 4: Claustrophobia
yay I finally got a chance to allude to Gossamer’s backstory :]
WARNING: tight spaces, panic attacks, and vague childhood trauma
—
The walls of the tunnel were narrow enough that they had to walk single file. Narrow enough to make Gossamer slightly nervous. But not nearly so unsettling that he was unable to shove his nerves aside.
They trekked on, and on, and on through the dark, Queenie leading the way with her darkvision. There were no other sounds besides the rustle of clothing, the clinking of Vyalda’s chainmail, the steady tap, tap, tap of boots on the stone ground, and the occasional audible breaths. Gossamer remained aware of Queenie’s presence ahead of him and Vyalda’s presence behind him, tracing his hand over the grooves on the wall to his right in an effort to ground himself in the seemingly infinite darkness.
At some point Fredrick, who took up the back of the line, grumbled about the ceiling getting lower.
Gossamer did not know at what precise point his nerves began to slip. Perhaps it was when Vyalda’s horns began to scrape intermittently against the stone ceiling, the dragonborn joining Fredrick in needing to hunch over as they continued forward. Perhaps it was when the rasp of cloth against stone was added to the shuffling ambience as Fredrick was eventually forced to kneel in order to keep moving. Perhaps it was when Gossamer finally felt his hair brush against the ceiling.
Regardless, Gossamer soon found himself feeling rather dizzy. His breathing had become very audible. The urge to push Queenie in an effort to make her move faster was dangerously high, hand in hand with the urge to simply start yelling.
“Hey, Gossamer, you doing all right?” said teifling called out blithely from in front of Gossamer.
Was he doing all right…? Gossamer took a moment to swallow down his rising panic. No, he decided, he was definitely not doing all right, but he was not about to start screaming. (Yet).
“No, I’m–” Gossamer swallowed hard, trying to ease his dry throat. “It’s fine, it’s fine, I just… Let’s keep moving, please. I don’t wanna stay here for longer than we have to.”
“Just… find something to distract yourself,” Fredrick called from the back of the line.
The goliath sounded annoyed. Gossamer definitely couldn’t blame him.
“Yeah, yeah, that’s a good… Yeah…” Gossamer shoved his hand into his belt pouch and pulled out the first item he wrapped his fingers around. “Let’s just keep moving…”
They pushed on through the tunnel.
The ceiling was low enough now that both Queenie and Gossamer needed to hunch forward.
Gossamer fiddled with the item in his hand. A broken and slightly rusty padlock it felt like, one of many from his pouch full of arguable junk. He twisted and pulled the shackle with all the barely contained franticness of a caged animal, his breaths hissing out through grit teeth as he put one foot in front of the other.
‘Calm down… Calm down… We’re gonna get out of here soon.’ Gossamer clenched his hand around the padlock. ‘Keep it together, dammit.’
Then,finally, they reached the very literal light at the end of the tunnel. Up a slope, some one hundred feet ahead, sunlight peaked through a small cave opening.
“Looks like we’re almost out,” Queenie said slowly.
“Oh, thank the gods,” Gossamer gasped, in time with Fredrick’s relieved exclamation of “Finally…!”
Queenie continued forward, but at a noticeably slower pace. Her silhouette was hunched lower than was necessary to bypass the low ceiling, and her hands hovered over the handaxes at her sides.
It was all Gossamer could do not to push her.
“Can’t you move any faster?” Gossamer said tightly.
“I’m moving as fast as possible,” Queenie replied, her usual blithe tone carrying a bite of annoyance.
“I just want to get out of here as fast a possible…”
“Look, we don’t know what’s waiting for us outside. I’m just tryin’ to be cautious.”
“That is a good point,” Vyalda spoke up from behind Gossamer.
“I would also like to get out of here as fast as possible,” Fredrick grumbled.
“Be patient,” Queenie said casually.
“Perhaps we should come up with a plan first,” Vyalda suggested. “Just to prepare for whatever might be out there.”
“We don’t even know what might be out there,” Fredrick pointed out.
“Everyone quiet down,” Queenie hissed.
The slow forward pace had come to a halt by this point. The voices of his companions debating on what to do filled the tight space, yet they sounded muted underneath the increasingly frenetic rate of Gossamer’s heartbeat. It was getting harder to breathe.
‘Let me out…’
His eyesight blurred. He didn’t even realise he had been clutching the front of his shirt until he moved to press one hand against the right wall. Had… Had the tunnel always been this narrow…?
“Let me out…”
His neck and shoulders ached, but there was no room for him to stand up straight. A presence in front of him prevented him from moving forward. A presence behind him prevented him from moving back.
‘No, please…’
“Let me out, let me out… Let me out! Let me out!”
Stone turned to wood beneath his fingertips. His arms and chest and back itched and stung beneath the tattoos.
“Please, please, please…! Let me out! Please! Please let me out!”
Where was he now? What was happening? People were talking around him. They sounded annoyed. Oh, gods…
“Please,please…! Let me out!”
No, this wasn’t right…! He wasn’t supposed to be here! But he was too small, too weak, too fragile - a child’s hand slammed against the stone wooden wall and the voice of a young boy dared to scream for mercy.
“Let me out, let me out, let me out! Please! Let me out!”
A muscled arm wrapped around his middle. He cried out, had the audacity to try to pull away, but his struggles meant nothing. The arm pulled him back against a solid surface and pinned him there, his arms trapped at his sides.
“Please, please, please, please, please, please… Let me out, please!”
He was going to cry soon, he knew it, just as much as he knew that it would do no good. His tears meant as little as his struggles. He was supposed to have given both up a long time ago.
“Please let me out…”
A low, soft voice vibrated through the surface at his back. A slow melody drifted through the pounding of his heartbeat, pausing his rising tears.
“Please…”
Words registered in his ears. He recognised them - the lyrics of a draconic lullaby, soothing a mighty warrior to rest. He hadn’t heard it in years, but he still remembered every word.
‘Mom…? Dad…?’
No, the voice was too low to be his mother’s and too high to be his father’s. Nonetheless, every line of draconic acted to dismantle this waking nightmare. He could see light beyond the confines of this wooden(?) box. The arm around him was not restraining, but comforting. He felt scales beneath his fingertips as he grasped it.
‘I’m not… This isn’t before. This isn’t before…’
Another strong arm maneuvered beneath him. He could feel himself being carried. A child took solace in the strong yet gentle presence.
(An adult knocked on the edges of his nightmare addled mind, asking what exactly was happening.)
The voice trailed off, but he continued the lullaby in his mind, murmuring the words silently. Light struck his eyes as he finished the song, and he grimaced, curling in on himself slightly. The arms began to place him down, and–
Gossamer inhaled sharply as his arms came into contact with the unmistakable sensation of grass. He sat upright and looked around to see himself in a woody clearing, just outside a small cave entrance. Queenie was pacing along the edges of the clearing, one hand on her axe, Vyalda was stretching out her back and shoulders just beside Gossamer, and Fredrick was just crawling out from the cave, looking immenselyrelieved.
They were finally outside.
“Oh, my gods…!” Gossamer flopped back onto the grass, arms spread out, eyes staring at the sky. “Ohhh, my gods…! I have never been so happy to be outside before!”
“Yes, yes, we’re finally outside,” Queenie said placatingly, still pacing along the edge of the clearing. “Now you can quiet down a bit.”
Gossamer barely heard her. His chest rattled with a high pitched laugh, an edge of hysteria mixed in with overwhelming relief.
“Gods, look at that sky,” he breathed. “Damn, it looks gorgeous.”
Long buried memories tugged on the edges of his mind, urging him to search them. He ignored them and continued staring at the sky with a (likely) dopey grin.
I know I have to let this go. My mind is telling me to run and never look back. But my heart, oh my heart -it’s badgering my soul to sink deep in the ocean of my cloaked emotions. Words do not narrate my subtle life, but moments do. I exist not in this life. I exist in moments.
