New Yorker: Can Trauma Help You Grow?
“We say that, if you do experience traumatic events, it is quite possible you will experience one or more elements of growth.” Any recovery is contextual to the trauma, but I have to repeat an old saw of mine: if we stop framing ourselves as ‘victims’, and start opening ourselves up to being ‘survivors’, we might heal faster. Some might consider that a minor difference; I don’t believe so.
My personal traumas have been pretty substantial at times. Some scars I carry to this day, others caused huge changes in my persona ... I milked them for the understanding I lacked, dropped them, moved on. Some I hate, some I am grateful for (though I’d prefer to have not experienced them and just learned the ‘easy way’).
YMMV.
Comments:
Labels placed by psychology and psychiatry can be terribly damaging. I’ve run into more people buying into the ‘victimhood’ mindset, and then getting medicated out their eyeballs because they’re afraid to leave their bed.
Worse still, they’re DRIVING.
They never should have allowed general practitioners to prescribe antidepressants.
I’ve mentioned James Hillman’s works before. Can’t recommend them enough. You don’t have to buy into his Jungian philosophy, just take what works and leave the rest.
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My personal observation reflects yours, growth is a product of change, in a short enough span we call that an event and label it.
Humans rarely actually seek change