{"id":29617,"date":"2015-01-09T04:00:47","date_gmt":"2015-01-09T09:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=29617"},"modified":"2015-03-27T09:32:48","modified_gmt":"2015-03-27T13:32:48","slug":"a-tough-love-approach-to-dealing-with-microaggression-trauma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2015\/01\/09\/a-tough-love-approach-to-dealing-with-microaggression-trauma\/","title":{"rendered":"A tough love approach to dealing with “microaggression” trauma"},"content":{"rendered":"

Trigger warning: If you are constantly suffering microaggressions from the world at large, you probably need to read all of this post from Chris Hernandez<\/a>:<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve reviewed these reports of \u201ctrauma\u201d, and have reached a conclusion about them. I\u2019m going to make a brief statement summarizing my conclusion. While I mean this in the nicest way possible, I don\u2019t want victims of Microaggressions or supporters of Trigger Warnings to doubt my sincerity.<\/p>\n

Fuck your trauma.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yes, fuck your trauma. My sympathy for your suffering, whether that suffering was real or imaginary, ended when you demanded I change my life to avoid bringing up your bad memories. You don\u2019t seem to have figured this out, but there is no \u201cI must never be reminded of a negative experience\u201d expectation in any culture anywhere on earth.<\/p>\n

If your psyche is so fragile you fall apart when someone inadvertently reminds you of \u201ctrauma\u201d, especially if that trauma consisted of you overreacting to a self-interpreted racial slur, you need therapy. You belong on a psychiatrist\u2019s couch, not in college dictating what the rest of society can\u2019t do, say or think. Get your own head right before you try to run other people\u2019s lives. If you expect everyone around you to cater to your neurosis, forever, you\u2019re what I\u2019d call a \u201cfailure at life\u201d, doomed to perpetual disappointment.<\/p>\n

Oh, I should add: fuck my trauma too. I must be old-fashioned, but I always thought coming to terms with pain was part of growing up. I\u2019ve never expected anyone to not knock on my door because it reminds me of that terrifying morning decades ago. I\u2019ve never blown up at anyone for startling me with a camera flash (I\u2019ve never even mentioned it to anyone who did). I\u2019ve never expected anyone to not talk about Iraq or Afghanistan around me, even though some memories still hurt. I don\u2019t need trigger warnings because a book might remind me of a murder victim I\u2019ve seen.<\/p>\n

And before anyone says it; being Hispanic doesn\u2019t make me any more sympathetic to people who experience nonexistent, discriminatory \u201ctrauma\u201d. Discrimination didn\u2019t break me (or my parents, or grandparents). I\u2019ve been discriminated against by whites for being Hispanic. I\u2019ve been threatened by blacks for being white. I\u2019ve been insulted by Hispanics for not being Hispanic enough. Big deal. None of that stopped me from doing anything I wanted to do. It wasn\u2019t \u201ctrauma\u201d. It was life.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Trigger warning: If you are constantly suffering microaggressions from the world at large, you probably need to read all of this post from Chris Hernandez: I\u2019ve reviewed these reports of \u201ctrauma\u201d, and have reached a conclusion about them. I\u2019m going to make a brief statement summarizing my conclusion. While I mean this in the nicest […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[53,13],"tags":[238,912,139,1025,764],"class_list":["post-29617","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-usa","tag-offensensitivity","tag-privilege","tag-psychology","tag-triggerwarnings","tag-university"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-7HH","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29617","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29617"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29617\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29618,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29617\/revisions\/29618"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}