Reply to When a friend always brings down the mood with their trauma, would this be okay?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I was in this friend's situation. My solution was to stop talking to people. Trauma is isolating. People don't understand, and though they love to think of themselves as lovely and caring, they're really just great big hypocrites.

Such a shame about your mood having been brought down, though, right?[/quote]

See, OP, this is the kind of self-pitying, poor me, manipulative response you’re likely to get from your friend.

But you should speak to her anyway, because you’re doing her a favor if she doesn’t want to be friendless and alone.[/quote]

NP she’ll still be friendless and alone. When the trauma is so big a part of your life that it’s who you are, if you can’t share, you have nothing to talk about so you’re friendless and alone. [/quote]

This. To give a Harry Potter example, isn't there a magical creature you can only see if you have watched someone die? Trauma changes you. There's this line between the world you find yourself in after trauma and the people who haven't experienced it. You can't really cross back for a social event. It marks you and it is in everything you do, think, and feel.

The people on the other side of the line have all kinds of defenses against the traumatized as a survival mechanism. That's why you all sound like mean girls even though you insist you're lovely, caring people. There must be some evolutionary need to chase unfortunate people out of the herd so their misfortune doesn't infect you. Blame them for harming you and then whatever you do to make them more unhappy is justified. [/quote]

As someone who has experienced personal trauma and grief, I disagree with you that people who don’t want literally every social situation to turn into a personal therapy session focused on one person are “trying to chase you out of the herd.” There is a time and a place and space for absolutely everything. I decline invitations sometimes if I know I’m not going to be able to enjoy myself. I prefer spending time with smaller groups of people, but when I do join in the neighborhood Bunco night, I know that that really isn’t the time or place to open up my innermost thoughts and feelings as if it were dinner at home with my three best friends. Read the room. Yes, you can confide in friends and lean on them when you need them. No, a holiday party is not the time and place for that. If I hit a wall during the big holiday party, I Irish goodbye and go in my car and call a friend—THAT is an appropriate way to lean on a friend in a time of grief.[/quote]

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