Discussion Can personal failure in life be a trauma?

[Praestat_Mori]

Question see title. What do you think?

 

[ropearoundatree]

I don't see how it cannot be... Unless it doesn't matter to you! :)

 

[Labyrinth]

I was cursed for my undiscovered prodigies. My failure is never having been the man I dreamed of. It's like the ghost from that song "Phantom of the Opera".

 

[Meteora]

What do you mean by personal failure?

 

[Pluto]

I think the difference is that it often takes a very long period to know that a personal endeavour has failed. It's hard to know when to stop. PTSD tends to be more about events of really acute stress.

But it hits hard if/when that day comes. It's true devastation.

 

[Dr Iron Arc]

The majority of my trauma stems from personal failures I've had whether it's been with academics, friends, or women. I'm sure more catastrophic failures like if you were a flight director that caused two planes to crash or a nurse who accidentally gave 14 patients the wrong drugs and killed them all those can definitely lead to trauma as well.

 

[Forever Sleep]

I guess anything that deeply troubles us causes some degree of trauma. Obviously, there are varying intensities of trauma. Just like there are varying degress of things like social anxiety. I'd say I feel extremely uncomfortable around people. It massively affects my confidence and sense of worth. But- it's probably unfair to claim I have social anxiety when other people are literally throwing up and freezing if they know they will be put into a social situation. My level still deeply affects my life though- so, it's still a problem.

Like- I don't think many of us would want to compare some of our experiences to really horrific ones like child abuse but- we only know our own lives. If our careers are terribly important to us. If they are who we build our identity on and the major thing that make us feel valued then- if we lose that, it's bound to be traumatic. Same goes for anything we have put a lot of our identity into- a relationship, friendship, hobby, sport etc. If we can no longer do the thing that made us feel worthy- then, we won't feel worthy anymore. Plus, it's maybe worse if we can blame ourselves for losing whatever it was. And, we can continue to berate ourselves for not getting that thing back.

But I guess it can be termed as trauma. Especially if there were specific memories that are really uncomfortable. Either because they're bad or good I suppose- when you remember who you were or, had the potential to be.

 

[MyChoiceAlone]

life is about failure anyway. can it cause trauma? of course.

 

[Malaria]

I made a lot of mistakes when I was younger that still haunt me to this day, so it would make sense to me that it counts as a trauma. I still get flashbacks about some of them.

 

[Meteora]

Hm, isn't it important to distinguish?
"Trauma" has become a popular word in the everyday language, I hear pupils say "OMG I m so traumatized, I missed the bus and came late for school". WTF. I don't like that inflationary use of the word.

A trauma is one or several event/s that left you completely ovherwhelmed, powerless, your physical and/or emotional integrity has been violated, your life at danger..... there's different ways one's body/mind copes depending on the age when the trauma occured and severity (subjective!), as well as clustering. That's a very complicated thing explained in a short way.

I think, most people struggling with depressions, anxieties, interpersonal relations experience traumas as children, many more than are acutally aware of it and this can lead to personal failure, I believe.

 

[AbsurdAbyss]

Its trauma if you survive, death if you don't.

 

[Praestat_Mori]

What do you mean by personal failure?

"Personal failure" can be anything someone failed in, what was important for them in their life (incl. materialistic loss) and that changes their life. Not specifically health issues bc on that we have hardly any influence.

 

[tbroken]

Yes it can be.
But what you mean by personal failure is really a matter of your personality. At one point of my life i just wanted to have a decent job with a good pay, practice my passions and nothing more. I found my self surrounded by frustrated and stupid people, killing between each other for some crumbs... not really what i wanted in life.
Also my starting point was average and it took some time for me to understand all of this shit.

 

[Meteora]

Its trauma if you survive, death if you don't.

Right

 

[Praestat_Mori]

life is about failure anyway. can it cause trauma? of course.

I wouldn't say that life in general is not about big failure. It largely depends what fails exactly and when. Failure is a part of life and belongs to the average ups and downs but when failure and downs outweigh the positive things then it becomes an imbalance and a (long) term problem that can cause trauma.

 

[MyChoiceAlone]

so little failures compound? not sure about that. guess it's about conforming or something. i dunno. i've always heard 'live n learn'. i tend to just tend to bury crap. i'm sorry that those things have traumatized you.

 

[LaVieEnRose]

Life for me is just one giant trauma, failures included.

 

[Praestat_Mori]

so little failures compound? not sure about that. guess it's about conforming or something. i dunno. i've always heard 'live n learn'. i tend to just tend to bury crap. i'm sorry that those things have traumatized you.

Well, I don't know if it's a real trauma but sometimes it feels like it to me. What happened I had the chance to finally become "rich" but in the end it failed. I consider it as a personal trauma. It's certainly different to the "typical type of trauma".

Little failures can also sum up if there is absolutely no success with anything anymore over a given time period.

 

[FujoshiNeet]

Hell yeah it can be. Especially if others are there to witness it.

 

[MyChoiceAlone]

Little failures can also sum up

totally agree. they peck away at you

 

[Argo]

Sure, if what we're calling "failure" is so deeply disturbing that it causes a long term wound. But I do think it's helpful to distinguish between something like rumination or compulsive thinking. The lines can blur sometimes if the pain comes after the fact as a part of some narrative, or if the pain was in the event itself. I'll look back at my life with regret sometimes where I was a given a real chance to change things, but everything collapsed instead. That definitely hurts more as a narrative looking back, than it did during the actual process itself. It becomes more like negative rumination at that point.

But I don't blame myself and I don't see it as a "failure" really, because there was literally no way for me to have acted other than the way I did. If you would put anyone else in my exact shoes, they would have done the exact same thing(that's what the phrase "my *exact* shoes" means in a strict sense). So I think that kind of regret is just a kind of confused self-torture with no purpose. The best case scenario is really just to clearly get some value for next time, if there is such a thing. If there's no lesson to learn or if there's no second chance, then yeah... the regret becomes pointless self-torture which we get sucked into.

Still though, the fantasy desire of wishing to go back in time and do things over definitely comes up here and there.

 

[lostmind38]

It can be ! Personal failures whether it is you career, relationships or any personal goals elicit the same responses that are associated with trauma- feeling inadequate, guilt, self blame. If the emotional distress is prolonged and it stays with you, I would say it is a trauma.

 

[uzuf86]

I'm the best example. I've failed very miserably in my personal life and all that was because of my mental illness. This is also exactly I want to ctb