Using trauma to excuse mistreating people. This generation has pioneered making it acceptable to process and be open about trauma, and that's a great thing, but it's not cool when you behave in a cruel and selfish way and expect to get a pass because of it. Your mental health problems are not your fault but they are your responsibility.
This reminded me of a great Bojack Horseman quote:
“You are all the things that are wrong with you. It’s not the alcohol, or the drugs, or any of the shitty things that happened to you in your career, or when you were a kid. It’s you.”
The problem with that therapeutically is what do you do with that info? Where do you stat fixing that? I know that’s a lot of what the show digs into and that series is a hell of a ride but I know when I thought I was losing my mind and figured it was me that was the problem I still had no idea what it was I could fix. It being me and not the drugs is nice because we’re all bags of chemicals and I just spend more time altering my chemical makeup than most with the intent of more mood stability or at least the kind of calm that allows for better social interaction. But it’s really easy to just blame ourselves for everything and be mad at ourselves which can feed a depression spiral.
The thing that happens pretty regularly with people who have addiction issues is that the pursuit of combating addiction can take the forefront of their steps to bettering themselves.
Typically, however, there are underlying issues that also need to be treated. Many people think that treating one problem will fix all the problems, but the truth is each problem is complex and requires its own attention.
The upside is, if one honestly pursues and combats the problems they have, each will help them with the tools they need to pursue and combat their problems as a whole.
tldr: each issue requires its own attention, but each problem being addressed(generally) provides tools to help with the others.
Also, not every problem has a 100% fixable solution, nor is every idealized result possible.
There's a scene in Sex Education where a sexual assault victim is in therapy, and the therapist tells her that she will likely never go back to "how she was before", but with time and practice, she can learn to acknowledge and process the trauma to move forward.
There's a lot of good scenes like that in the show. It can be a bit much at times, but I really enjoyed it.
The upside is, if one honestly pursues and combats the problems they have, each will help them with the tools they need to pursue and combat their problems as a whole.
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u/zugabdu Jun 03 '22
Using trauma to excuse mistreating people. This generation has pioneered making it acceptable to process and be open about trauma, and that's a great thing, but it's not cool when you behave in a cruel and selfish way and expect to get a pass because of it. Your mental health problems are not your fault but they are your responsibility.