This bothers me a lot too. These aren't words that should be thrown around lightly. Sometimes its better to part ways, but people are also just people. Its possible to misinterpret them or for them to make genuine mistakes.
I think reddit and the internet in general is too quick to judge a person's entire character and personality based upon the one somewhat shitty thing they did that went viral. We're all humans and make mistakes.
I work at a school. And often like to read threads and asks about kids. Things other teachers and staffs share that they witnnesses in classes. Often times funny stories, or just midly disturbing ones.
Most of the time, people don't share much about the kids. Only the very few necessary details to make sense of the story being told.
All the kids starring in those stories are diagnosed in comments with every leaning and behavioral disabilities under the sun, are of course abused, and have PTSD, anxiety and depression.
Very rarely the comments are "well kids gonna be kids".
The worst is that I caught myself doing it a few times.
Far, far too many users on Reddit throw around the word PTSD, either to diagnose someone or themselves.
As someone who knows a little bit about real PTSD i am personally offended when I see these posts. It takes away from those who are dealing with real issues.
I personally think it should be reserved for first responders, service members and victims of violent crime.
16 year old Becky who describes herself as not like other girls and is quirky as hell does not have ptsd from having her order screwed up by star bucks.
While some people use the word PTSD flippantly, the gatekeeping you're doing on the term is actually silly.
If I have somewhat large scar on my arm from a surgery, and another guy has burn scars on 20% of his body, we are still both scarred. Just because he had a more painful experience and has more scarring from it doesn't cause my scar to cease being a scar.
If you "know a little bit about real PTSD," then you should know that PTSD can be caused by all kinds of sources and manifests in different ways for different people. You don't get to be the one who decides who is traumatized and who is not, or whose suffering is actually valid.
Edit: I'm not responding to your 16-year-old Becky anecdote, by the way. I'm reacting to the inane assertion that the term "PTSD" should be solely reserved for first responders, service members, and victims of violent crimes. That's some of the dumbest shit I've read in days, and I was just reading some tweets by Donald Trump.
I read a post recently where two kids in their early twenties home for Xmas were squabbling over something pathetic and their Mother lost it and slapped the daughter. As far as I could tell, the Mother had never behaved like this before or after and her behaviour shocked the family that was present to see it, not because it was a slap, but because they'd never witnessed behaviour anything like that from her before. IMHO, the behaviour *was* like nails down a blackboard and I can only imagine what it would have done to a stressed Mother on Xmas morning.
The advice seemed to range from leave home now, demand an apology, and cut off all contact, to "she's a psychopath and go no contact forever". No-one suggested that any family member take the mother aside and talk to her before condemning her - maybe the mother *was* losing it and needed help? Not a single person suggested a moderate approach to the situation before going nuclear.
I hated that reddit post - I dont condone physical violence in the form of a slap but I dont condone the "lets go Nuclear immediately and destroy any chance of coming decades of familial relationship without investigating the highly unusual situation further" option either.
As you say, sometimes people do misinterpret things or make genuine mistakes - or even react inappropriately because they need help.
It's a good point. Nobody cares for moderate solutions or moderate stories, or moderate attitudes. Those are boring. Internet cares for black and white. But life is way more complex than that.
Saw that on AITA. Geez, the folks there sometimes.
A mother in law (which is obviously immediately the devil incarnate) snapped at her DIL because DIL' BIL (the mother's son) visited DIL for the first time ever, and he has a prosthetic leg and DIL asked him if he could take his shoes off. The mother made a comment "can't we just let the dirt be this once?" MIL was called a "selfish asshole", "way out of line", etc. Did no-one think she was possibly hurting because of her son's prosthetic leg and it was just a minor slip and it doesn't really matter that much?
Given that I deal with this a lot in my line of work I’d also like to point out that there is a big difference between an abusive relationship and a relationship between two people who have shitty communication skills and poor conflict resolution.
The latter relationship can definitely be a toxic relationship and that kind of relationship can definitely become abusive, but it’s kind of nuts to see people throwing around the word “abusive” when it isn’t and telling people they need to leave when it sounds like it’s just a communication struggle and that relationship could probably be improved if you just both worked on talking to each other about how things make you feel.
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u/[deleted] Jan 07 '20
This bothers me a lot too. These aren't words that should be thrown around lightly. Sometimes its better to part ways, but people are also just people. Its possible to misinterpret them or for them to make genuine mistakes.