asian.neet

asian.neet

Specialist
Oct 13, 2023
307
I just got told I was trauma dumping. I was in an old, but quite friendly discord server. I venting a lot of days in the past about my family or mean people in my life. And they were supportive.

Unfortunately I had to leave it because of traumatic stuff that brought me to this site.

I just rejoined that server a couple days later and now they're very hostile about it. I'm just really upset at this point.

And if you weren't OK about it, *WHY* did you not tell me to stop earlier?that feels like the most disingenuous thing you can do to a person.
 
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Dr Iron Arc

Dr Iron Arc

Into the Unknown
Feb 10, 2020
20,973
Personally I feel like trauma dumping is a necessity in order to form true bonds with people. I know when I do it successfully to someone it usually helps me become much closer to them.

Unfortunately I'm not as good of a friend in reverse. When someone trauma dumps on me I usually have no clue how to respond. Sometimes in the past, not responding was the right thing to do but not always.
 
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sancta-simplicitas

sancta-simplicitas

Arcanist
Dec 14, 2023
456
I think the culture around mental health is getting more toxic by the day and that includes the shaming of people who can't help themselves but talking about their traumas, as if it is something they do out of malice. It seems like it's begun to shift to even talking about your mental health struggles at all at this point. I've even seen that kind of shaming towards people who "trauma dump" on their therapists. Sure, it's untactful and can put people in an uncomfortable position, but when people do that it comes from a place of profound hurt and a completely natural reaction to said hurt. Humans are - unfortunately because we're more often than not complete shitheads towards eachother - designed to seek out comfort in other humans. "Trauma dumping" is just doing what our biology tells us. If someone does it to me, I'll listen. If I feel like I'm in a place where I can't, I'll politely tell them so.
 
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EyesOfNight

EyesOfNight

the night will be eternal
Feb 2, 2024
371
I've even seen that kind of shaming towards people who "trauma dump" on their therapists.
Ah yes, of course. Telling the person that's supposed to listen to my problems about my problems is bad.
Do these people even know what therapy is? Are therapists supposed to magically now everything?
 
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sancta-simplicitas

sancta-simplicitas

Arcanist
Dec 14, 2023
456
Ah yes, of course. Telling the person that's supposed to listen to my problems about my problems is bad.
Do these people even know what therapy is? Are therapists supposed to magically now everything?
It's deeply ironic because I believe the whole shame culture around trauma dumping arouse from therapy culture. People aren't supposed to listen to eachother anymore because there are professionals who get paid to do so. And according to some people we aren't even supposed to talk about it to the person we're paying to listen either... 🥴
 
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Saturn_

Saturn_

Arcanist
Apr 22, 2024
423
A very convenient get out of jail free card for people who don't have the balls to tell you that they just don't give a shit about your problems, and that they want you to shut up. This armchair psychology mumbo jumbo is emerging as yet another social construct to further shun the already alienated mentally ill. Now people like you and I can be likened to cold-blooded abusers for misreading social cues or needing a listening ear after years of agony and trauma. Such a lifesaver for your average Joe, whose life is so good that he can't bare to fathom a life worse than his, lest he be a "victim" to your cries for help. Isn't that so lovely?

God I fucking despise these Gen Z pseudo-intellectual buzzwords. I feel like this modern attitude of indifference and "not owing anyone anything" is a huge factor in these skyrocketing depression and suicide rates. The youth have turned being there for your fellow man into a bad thing. Compassion? That's "toxic" and "codependent" now. Welcome to the new age, the Roaring Twenties. Leave your humanity at the door.
 
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S

Slipkorn

Member
May 10, 2023
50
I mean if all you ever do is trauma dump, then people will get tired of it. My mom does this shit to me a lot. Go months not hearing from her then bam, an entire novel of everything going wrong. In a weird way it has conditioned me, cause anytime I even think a friend or a coworker is wanting to do it, I'll just poke and prod and stab at them till they let it all out. From the person dumping it feels so fucking amazing to get it all out. Problem is the person getting dumped on could get overwhelmed, or even never see you the same again. You gotta find the right person, and it aint a damn therapist. Someone close enough to know who you are, but someone enough disconnected, and also willing, and wanting, to hear it all come out.
 
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EvisceratedJester

EvisceratedJester

|| What Else Could I Be But a Jester ||
Oct 21, 2023
3,429
Randomly unloading your trauma onto others without warning is a bad thing, whether people like it or not. It can make the listener feel stressed out, it may trigger them if they happen to have similar traumas, and it even has the potential of traumatizing the listener (vicarious trauma). It's fine to want to vent about your traumas with others, but you should let them know first rather than just dumping it onto them. I've had to listen to my dad tell me all sorts of shit out of nowhere that made me feel incredibly unpleasant. Talking about your trauma is fine, but you have to understand that the people around you have their feelings and boundaries too. Some people are not in a position where they can mentally handle having someone else's traumas unloaded onto them. It's good to let others know when you plan on divulging into more serious and pleasant subject matter.
 
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Havnis

Havnis

XXXX'ed out 🌲🌲🌲🌲
May 15, 2024
167
I just got told I was trauma dumping. I was in an old, but quite friendly discord server. I venting a lot of days in the past about my family or mean people in my life. And they were supportive.

Unfortunately I had to leave it because of traumatic stuff that brought me to this site.

I just rejoined that server a couple days later and now they're very hostile about it. I'm just really upset at this point.

And if you weren't OK about it, *WHY* did you not tell me to stop earlier?that feels like the most disingenuous thing you can do to a person.
I think they didn't really care in the first place.
I mean if all you ever do is trauma dump, then people will get tired of it.
Not necessarily, I never got tired reading FC's vent.
 
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F

Forveleth

I knew I forgot to do something when I was 15...
Mar 26, 2024
755
I'm a big advocate for being honest about how you feel when people ask "How are you?" however, I see a few situations where volunteering this information could be a problem.

First, if you're a big social media personality or a streamer with potentially thousands of fans having even a small percentage of them constantly telling you about their horrible lives, can be really, really tiring. These people are not trained to handle this volume of negative information and I think it's unfair for their fans to show up and give them such explicit details about the bad parts of their lives. I don't mind people saying "I was having a bad time" or "I'm struggling and you're really helping me", but when people list all the horrible things that has either happened to them or are going on now, I think that's too far considering they could be potentially hearing that multiple times a day every day.

The second is just normal people being exposed to negativity. I was in a community once where there was a person who, every time they would come in, they trauma dumped. While I want to be sympathetic to that, if I was having a bad day myself and I was partaking in that community to cheer myself up and that person showed up, I would leave so that I didn't have to experience the negativity that I knew was going to come from them. If I'm already not doing great and somebody shows up talking about their trauma for the however many-th day in a row, it got very frustrating. They never really gave that much encouragement to anyone else. It was like they showed up, dumped their trauma, and then expected people to comfort them every time they were there and that was the only way of interacting with the group.

TL;DR: Therapy is expensive, therapists are stupid, and I get that people need to have someone to talk to. However, I don't think it's fair for people to not consider that they're not the only ones feeding bad information to someone and/or to not provide positive support to other people in turn.
 
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Heartaches

Heartaches

Apologizing for my life and ever entering yours
May 6, 2021
261
I have mixed opinions on the concept.

I understand why it exists. There are persons whose main or only reason is to vent to you, a lot of times unprompted. Now, venting isn't inherently bad, venting can be great, but it can also be tiring. If somebody constantly seeks you only to vent and has no regard for your own time, feelings and can't learn any coping mechanisms to soothe themselves, that can develop into a damaging relationship. And let's not deny it, some people use trauma dump as a tactic of manipulation/abuse.

I have been in both places. I've trauma dumped others to the point of making them mad at me because I wanted to, because it "helped" me release my emotions "justifiably". It ruined a lot of my relationships irreparably and worsened my mental state. On the other hand, I've also been trauma dumped by people I've barely known, and even though I stated my boundaries clearly (I don't mind if people want to vent, but I don't wanna be perceived as a cushion with no regard for my own feelings), they still did it and only made it about themselves, which made me cut contact entirely.

Not all relationships are made for that type of connection and that is *not* bad, they shouldn't go one way only.

However, I also dislike that a lot of people have taken to label any kind of venting as "trauma dumping", simply because the idea makes them uncomfortable and not because of the attitudes or intentions of the other parties. Some people wanna label anything "trauma dump" because they don't wanna do any emotional labor and think every mental issue should only be talked with a therapist. Nothing wrong with not wanting to do emotional labor, but be clear about it and don't paint the other person as the bad guy.

Not all problems need to involved a therapist, a therapist can only help so much, a client has to put into work what they've learned. Besides, it can feel rather pathologizing, worsening how we perceive our emotional needs.
-
I've been following several accounts relating to somatic therapy, indigenous healing practices and traditional medicine. Now, I'm not indigenous myself nor the most knowledgeable person on the topic, but I find it interesting how a lot of people who are talk about topics such as mental health. In some communities, the mental well-being of their members is a collective effort, not placed upon one individual solely. Depending on the community, they may apply practices such as: talking-listening, meditation, ritual dancing, herbalism, spiritual rituals, etc. (Most of this practices have been appropriated by the western world)

It makes me wonder if things like trauma dumping wouldn't be a big issue if there were community efforts to help, heal and look after their members, with many methods to do so. It's no secret that our current society is very lonely, there's a lack of connection for many of us, which is why we look for forums like SaSu or discord servers (which, I'm not implying they're bad, just to clarify).

Perhaps if we were able to create in-person communities to support each other, and not entirely relying on therapists or other mental health professionals, we could aliviate many of our emotional issues and trauma. Just a thought, I'm just meandering at this point (also, not trying to villanize mental health workers)
-
Anyway, that's my opinion. I'm very sorry for what you went through, it was not your fault, they should've been clear and honest with you; that's why boundaries exist.
 
N

noname223

Archangel
Aug 18, 2020
5,177
A very convenient get out of jail free card for people who don't have the balls to tell you that they just don't give a shit about your problems, and that they want you to shut up. This armchair psychology mumbo jumbo is emerging as yet another social construct to further shun the already alienated mentally ill. Now people like you and I can be likened to cold-blooded abusers for misreading social cues or needing a listening ear after years of agony and trauma. Such a lifesaver for your average Joe, whose life is so good that he can't bare to fathom a life worse than his, lest he be a "victim" to your cries for help. Isn't that so lovely?

God I fucking despise these Gen Z pseudo-intellectual buzzwords. I feel like this modern attitude of indifference and "not owing anyone anything" is a huge factor in these skyrocketing depression and suicide rates. The youth have turned being there for your fellow man into a bad thing. Compassion? That's "toxic" and "codependent" now. Welcome to the new age, the Roaring Twenties. Leave your humanity at the door.
Loved that comment. Highly appreciate it. Thanks for posting this.
 
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ijustwishtodie

ijustwishtodie

death will be my ultimate bliss
Oct 29, 2023
4,826
Not necessarily, I never got tired reading FC's vent.
I'll personally never get tired of FCs vents as well though I wonder if that's because I'm autistic just like how she is
 
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girlsboysthems

girlsboysthems

no i dont have a gun
Dec 19, 2022
418
everything at the right time and in the right space. have you maybe looked into a server thats specifically made for helping eachother? it might not be approapriate in a gaming server for example...
 
Havnis

Havnis

XXXX'ed out 🌲🌲🌲🌲
May 15, 2024
167
I'll personally never get tired of FCs vents as well though I wonder if that's because I'm autistic just like how she is
I like her because I identify more with hated people like her, also she repeats her ideas with unique writing which is unconventional feat.
 
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Angst Filled Fuck Up

Angst Filled Fuck Up

Visionary
Sep 9, 2018
2,975
It's just an excuse for someone to not get their hands dirty, if you ask me. It's a trendy but lazy rhetorical device for not engaging with someone on a meaningful level. That seems to be a trend, unfortunately. We've developed all sorts of phrases and buzzwords designed to encourage you to not stick your neck out, and make you feel like an attention-seeking dipshit for asking for help.

When I attempt to connect with someone on a substantial level it seems to be interpreted as something sinister or untrustworthy - I've noticed that it's best to appear stand-offish in this modern world. Which is a weird thing. I'm not used to it, and it doesn't gel with who I am as a person. But I suppose it explains my isolation. You sort of seem like you're on the make or desperate for human interaction if you take anything beyond a passing interest in another person, and anything that hints at that is unappealing.

I've sort of made peace with the fact that I'll just deal with problems on my own from here on out.
 
Ambivalent1

Ambivalent1

🎵 Be all, end all 🎵
Apr 17, 2023
3,279
The purpose of others is to listen to my sob story.
 
N

Nrocoop

Member
May 8, 2024
5
I'm sorry that this has happened to you. As someone who's been around the block a few times (I'm 60something) I'm not surprised: we live in a superficial world where frequently the 'difficult stuff' gets relegated to therapies/therapists and approved drugs, so it's then safely ring fenced from the rest of life/normies.

I also get what others posters on here are saying about the right of others to set boundaries (on an intellectual level only), but being aware of that in theory AND in practice is a rare experience for me, so I get where you're coming from
 
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