trauma
Do people come out of emotional trauma as better people?
In Bojack Horseman, Diane Nguyen says something to the effect of “My trauma has to be valuable, because otherwise it was just useless pain.” I think this is an idea that appeals to a lot of people. I want to learn from my mistakes, and similarly, I want to learn from my traumas.
But this romanticizing of trauma makes me feel uncomfortable… I feel like this idea flirts too close with the idea of making trauma ok, when trauma should really be something no one has to go through. Hell, it even provides some ammunition to the people who intentionally inflict trauma on others because they think it builds character or whatever.
Minor spoilers for Bojack Horseman, but in the end Diane decides that her traumas don’t need to be revisited over and over again. Maybe she’s learning something from revisiting them, but it’s better to just move on and be a good person in the moment.
Ramblings:
- Maybe trauma doesn’t teach, but experience teaches, and trauma is the price we pay for experience? Probably not, but it sounds wise.
- Trauma teaches you to be handle specific scenarios, but hurts you generally. If someone cheats on you, that trauma will make you better at identifying red flags and handling cheating in the future, but that insecurity and fear will hurt your future relationships in general.
- After being given time to think, people understand their traumas and proceed to seek them out again. Some perpetuate the cycle of trauma and abuse others in the same way, others seek out trauma and find people who hurt them in the same way. This is because their trauma is painful, but at least it’s a situation they understand in some twisted way.
- Maybe there is a separation of self inflicted traumas and externally inflicted traumas. Everyone should learn and grow, and the process of taking yourself apart is inherently traumatic to an extent. That is… acceptable to an extent, but what isn’t acceptable is externally inflicted trauma.
- greatest change and stress allows us to learn
