Trau­ma al­ways leaves marks. Peo­ple may not ex­pose the event or in­frac­tion, but be­cause trau­ma al­ters a per­son’s brain chem­istry, ef­fects may be vis­i­ble. This oc­curs whether it is repet­i­tive trau­mat­ic events over a long pe­ri­od or from a one-time event.

Be­cause trau­ma af­fects peo­ple dif­fer­ent­ly, it is not al­ways pos­si­ble to de­ter­mine how a one-time event may im­pact a per­son for life or how a per­son suf­fer­ing long-last­ing in­frac­tions may ap­pear more re­silient than ex­pect­ed.

Peo­ple cope dif­fer­ent­ly and each per­son’s cop­ing style is to be ap­pre­ci­at­ed and re­spect­ed with­out valu­ing one per­son’s re­sponse above an­oth­er.

Some peo­ple may be ex­pres­sive about their trau­mat­ic ex­pe­ri­ences be­cause of the de­gree of anger, fear, sad­ness, and shame. But be­cause the lev­els of these emo­tions may dif­fer and be­cause of a per­son’s in­di­vid­ual make-up, oth­ers may live and re­main in si­lence and even seem bet­ter reg­u­lat­ed.

“The im­pact of trau­ma can be sub­tle, in­sid­i­ous, or out­right de­struc­tive. How an event af­fects an in­di­vid­ual de­pends on many fac­tors, in­clud­ing char­ac­ter­is­tics of the in­di­vid­ual, the type and char­ac­ter­is­tics of the event(s), de­vel­op­men­tal process­es, the mean­ing of the trau­ma, and so­cio­cul­tur­al fac­tors” (Trau­ma-In­formed Care in Be­hav­iour­al Health Ser­vices, 2014).

Last week, a video cir­cu­lat­ing, show­ing a man at his dad’s fu­ner­al ser­vice in com­plete dis­tress from the abuse he claimed he suf­fered and ac­cus­ing a rel­a­tive of de­nial or pre­tence about the suf­fer­ing, was high­light­ed. This was to make the point that the body nev­er for­gets the trau­ma and at an in­op­por­tune time, it may ex­pose the buried or un­re­solved emo­tions.

But, as well, peo­ple’s re­sponse to the same mis­treat­ment may be to­tal­ly dif­fer­ent. As the man emo­tive­ly ex­pressed his hurt at the fu­ner­al, he did sug­gest that his rel­a­tive eu­lo­gis­ing his fa­ther was be­ing a hyp­ocrite be­cause of her re­sponse.

And while it may be as­sessed as that, it could well be that her lev­el of re­silience was dif­fer­ent and her re­ac­tion to the same type of hurt­ful be­hav­iour was dif­fer­ent al­so. Her im­pair­ment may have been less than his and her abil­i­ty to let go high­er than his as well.

Who knows if, in the en­su­ing years, that rel­a­tive had had in­ter­ven­tions that aid­ed her in re­pair­ing of dam­aged emo­tions? Or maybe she is the clas­sic re­sponse of too lit­tle emo­tion or numb­ing, and his is that of be­ing over­whelmed. Both are valid re­spons­es to trau­ma, even if we each re­spect one above the oth­er.

His out­burst was clas­sic too, ex­hibit­ing the dys­reg­u­la­tion that comes with trau­ma and the in­abil­i­ty to ef­fec­tive­ly man­age anger, anx­i­ety, sad­ness and shame, es­pe­cial­ly when trau­ma oc­curs at a young age. If we are to be­lieve the sci­ence, both re­spons­es are “nor­mal.”

To ad­dress the trau­ma that we ex­pe­ri­enced see­ing his trau­ma, though, there are a few things to be said.

A few peo­ple ap­peared up­set and ques­tioned: “Why they have this man on so­cial me­dia?”

That one is easy. Fu­ner­als, es­pe­cial­ly since COVID-19, most­ly now come with a “link” for view­ing the ser­vice live on YouTube or an iden­ti­fied web­site. Stream­ing is nor­mal. This ser­vice was streamed and this man’s re­ac­tion was live. That’s the whole an­swer.

That it was high­light­ed by oth­ers as “break­ing news” comes with the ter­ri­to­ry too. Peo­ple are build­ing up their fol­low­ings and keep­ing up with their “likes” and such and sta­tus as in­flu­encers. Oth­ers are cu­ri­ous. Still, oth­ers, like we are wont to do, find en­ter­tain­ment in hu­man dis­tress.

Live with it. That is what we have cre­at­ed, if on­ly from par­tic­i­pat­ing in it.

My per­son­al ex­pe­ri­ence, though, is that trau­ma val­i­da­tion by ex­pos­ing my sto­ry on tra­di­tion­al and so­cial me­dia re­mains a sig­nif­i­cant as­pect of my heal­ing jour­ney.

The ex­perts say that trau­ma val­i­da­tion is a crit­i­cal clin­i­cal tool in ther­a­py be­cause it coun­ters the con­fu­sion, shame and iso­la­tion sur­vivors of­ten feel.

“Val­i­da­tion is one of the most im­por­tant clin­i­cal tools in trau­ma work be­cause trau­ma of­ten leaves clients feel­ing con­fused, ashamed, or dis­con­nect­ed from their own re­al­i­ty,” says An­gel of Change Net­work on LinkedIn.

“Many sur­vivors have had their ex­pe­ri­ences min­imised, de­nied, or mis­un­der­stood... Val­i­da­tion helps in­ter­rupt that pat­tern. It tells the client, in a ground­ed and clin­i­cal­ly thought­ful way, ‘Your re­sponse makes sense in the con­text of what you’ve been through’” (linkedin.com/pulse/why-val­i­da­tion-mat­ters-trau­ma-treat­ment-r6e9c).

For a long time, the em­pa­thy I re­ceived from be­ing open on so­cial and tra­di­tion­al me­dia coun­tered much of the stig­ma I had been made to bear.

In the past, peo­ple had on­ly seen the ef­fects of the trau­ma I ex­pe­ri­enced: mood changes, dys­reg­u­la­tion, ner­vous break­downs and hos­pi­tal­i­sa­tions, anger and fits of rage, in­abil­i­ty to func­tion in re­la­tion­ships, so­cial awk­ward­ness, and much more.

So­cial me­dia, though, brought an­oth­er cur­ren­cy: be­ing un­der­stood and be­lieved, be­ing sup­port­ed with kind­ness, be­ing able to share in oth­ers’ sto­ries of trau­ma and pain.

In fact, I am large­ly here every week be­cause some­one lis­tened and sus­pend­ed judge­ment.

We ought to learn to be sup­port­ive of peo­ple who open­ly ex­pose their dis­tress. The sto­ries we read or wit­ness are those of sur­vivors be­cause the peo­ple who need ther­a­py are nev­er on so­cial me­dia ex­pos­ing their de­viance and pos­si­bly nev­er seek an in­ter­ven­tion.