Halloween, 2004 was an actual nightmare for our family. After an evening of trick-or-treating along Newtown, Connecticut’s festive Main Street, we got into the car for a short ride home. Though exhausted, we heeded the request of our three children to make one last stop at our neighbor’s spookily decorated house. A fog machine, lit by a candle at its base, greeted trick-or-treaters with a misty haze wafting up toward a colossal flood-lit spider cradling the roof.
My husband and I stayed in the car as our kids eagerly ran up the incline of the driveway. My son Cary, seven years old at the time, was dressed as a “Dark Rider” from The Lord of the Rings—a hooded, full-length black robe with long, flowing sleeves. While awaiting his treats, Cary ran his hand through the fog machine’s haze to feel the cool mist. The sleeve of his costume brushed the candle below, and in seconds, both the sleeve and the hood of his costume were ablaze. Our neighbor rushed to the flames with his bare hands. By the time we realized the shrill screams were from genuine, not pretend, horror, the flames were extinguished, our children were inside the house, and 911 was being called.
Cary sustained third-degree burns to his face, neck, and left hand. He spent two days on life support, followed by a month-long hospital stay during which he underwent numerous surgeries and excruciating treatments. The accident was shocking enough to garner both local and national attention. Reporters were at our door. Cary returned to first grade two months later, an unwilling celebrity, wearing compression garments on his lower face and left hand.
Cary visited a child psychologist, whom we referred to as a “feelings doctor.” She saw no red flags, and after a few visits, Cary no longer wished to go. Given that he was doing well physically, socially, and emotionally, thanks to the support of doctors, family, and our community, we did not want to encourage him to talk about the accident any more than he desired. Eager to get “back to normal” as quickly as possible, that’s exactly what we did. For eight years. Until adolescence hit.
The words “trauma” and “traumatic” are currently on a list of words that the Trump administration has advised agencies to “limit” or “flag” on public-facing websites. These words, so omnipresent today, were not part of the lexicon when Cary had his accident. Although the medical care Cary received was excellent, no one at the time mentioned the word “trauma” or even counseled us on how this ordeal might one day manifest emotionally. PTSD was something most people believed impacted only soldiers—not children.
Cary was hit with a tsunami of debilitating physical and emotional turmoil when he turned fifteen. We didn’t understand, but we knew this was far beyond “normal” teenage angst. It wasn’t until we reached out to the doctor who had treated Cary’s burns that we heard the words, “Oh yes, this is classic PTSD. I see it a lot. It often doesn’t manifest until adolescence.”
In recent years, thanks to efforts from prominent pediatricians like Dr. Nadine Burke Harris, the former Surgeon General of California, and other notable professionals, enormous strides have been made in understanding childhood trauma. According to the National Child Traumatic Stress Network, approximately 25% of American children will experience at least one traumatic event by the age of 16. Common causes include poverty, racism, bullying, neglect, physical and sexual abuse, domestic violence, gun violence, natural disasters, and, like Cary, accidents and medical trauma. We now also better understand the insidious nature of trauma and how symptoms often don’t appear until months or years after the event.
Naturally, progress has its drawbacks. The word “trauma” is vastly overused. Author Maria Popova recently referred to it as a word “so fashionable that we have hollowed it of meaning by overuse and misuse, by making it a catchall for anything that challenges and disquiets us.” When a friend described her daughter’s experience with a “difficult” (“difficult” not “abusive”) boss as a “trauma,” I wanted to shout, “No! That’s not trauma—that’s life!” The same has happened with other words that have been de-closeted, such as “depression,” “anxiety,” and “OCD.” But depression over a bad grade is very different from clinical depression, anxiety over public speaking is worlds away from Generalized Anxiety Disorder, and calling someone with a penchant for neatness “so OCD” shows a lack of understanding of the agony experienced by people with true OCD. Nonetheless, the ubiquity of these words indicates that the stigma and shame once attached to them have diminished. Let’s not forget that cancer was once so stigmatized that many would only refer to it as “the big C.”
Young people who endure trauma, if fortunate, have access today to specialized treatments such as trauma-informed music, art, sand, somatic, and play therapies— invaluable resources that recognize a child may not wish—or be able—to talk about what happened but may be able to process their feelings through different modalities. There are even trauma-informed schools. I wish we had had these opportunities when Cary was hurt.
In 2012, I created a Facebook page called Trauma Informed Parent—a resource for parents and caregivers of children who have experienced trauma. To date, it has well over a quarter of a million followers.
Flagging “trauma” and other supposedly “woke” words (“black” and “female” are also on the list) may be nothing more than a tactic meant to distract from the far more odious actions this administration is taking—actions which, ironically, are serving to spread more trauma. But words matter.
Take, for example, a parent having the option to choose a “trauma-informed” dentist for their child. After Cary had his wisdom teeth removed at 16, the oral surgeon robotically wrote him a prescription for 20 Vicodin tablets. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, children and adolescents who experience trauma are particularly susceptible to developing a substance use disorder. If trauma education were part of a physician’s training and a child’s trauma history were routinely part of their record, doctors would be able to exercise more caution.
Education on the impact of trauma is essential. Without it, we might—as some still do—attribute symptoms of PTSD, especially in youth, to things such as poor parenting, ADHD, bad behavior, or, if we want to go even further backwards, demonic possession or punishment from God.
Speaking of God, I recently met a woman whose 14-year-old son died by suicide. Recognizing her physical and emotional symptoms as potentially those of post-traumatic stress, she sought advice from her pastor. This is very common. According to Dr. Matthew Stanford, professor of psychology at Baylor College in Houston, the majority of Americans will seek help for mental health issues from a faith leader before they will from a licensed clinician. The woman’s pastor told her she could not be experiencing post-traumatic stress because that only afflicts members of the military. Imagine how differently that conversation would have gone if faith leaders were required to be “trauma-informed.” Dr. Stanford and others like him are working hard to make this happen.
The irony is that Donald Trump—as a number of his relatives and many mental health professionals have pointed out—is a product of the very word he’s hoping to eradicate. Unspoken—and thus untreated—childhood trauma wreaks havoc on its victims and subsequently on those in their orbit.
I can’t find an article about these supposedly “banned” words that does not smack of propaganda.
And this article, in fact, smacks of propaganda.
Traumatic events are of course linked to mental illness. But this fact has degenerated into screams from certain people that certain language or ideas are “traumatizing” them. When I was young I was taught that “sticks and stones many break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” My parents hoped that having this attitude would reduce my temptation to fight kids who called me bad names. Yet today we have “hate speech” being made illegal in some jurisdictions.
So I can see why the Trump administration might want to back off on some of these modern buzzwords used by people who are trying to convince us that they are being suppressed by language or other non-violent actions. It’s a free speech issue.
That said, most people who work in the field of mental health have no idea how deep traumatic events can go in the psyche, nor do they have any idea what to do about them.
No one is going to tell therapists or similar people that they can’t tell someone that they have been traumatized, and sympathize with them on that account. No one is going to tell therapists (I hope) that they can’t attempt to seek out and bring to light deep-seated trauma in a case.
So we just have to keep this subject in perspective. One of the most traumatic moments of most lives is being born. Yet we never mention birth as a source of trauma. Death by car crash or violent attack can also be extremely traumatic. Yet I have never heard of anyone trained in psychology who seeks to unburden past deaths on a case. Some of the most traumatic events in our existence happened a VERY long time ago. Yet I don’t see any psychologists (except maybe Jeff Mishlove and a few others) talking about past lives. My conclusion is that most psychologists don’t know what they are talking about.
Of course “trauma” in this life (when it is survived) can trigger emotional breakdowns and other problems. But that trauma pales in comparison to the events that are getting triggered. And if you don’t uncover those events, their effects will persist. Is there anyone out there who can write about this from the viewpoint of a trained practitioner?
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I’m so sorry to hear about your family’s terrifying experience and the traumatic effects it has had on your lives – the idea that these experiences can’t be talked about is horrific and shocking.
The determination of the Maga/Trump/2025 coalition to make some ideas unthinkable is authoritarianism 101.
I am not surprised to hear that trauma is considered a “woke” concept – as the concept of trauma frequently draws attention to harms caused by abuses of power – so not a concept that an authoritarian regime would want to support.
I think the concept of traumatic injury – often as the real effects of power on our bodies and minds- can also be liberating and help us to reframe our experiences in terms of wider social forces. But the way it is framed as a ‘disorder’ in psychiatric discourse can hide these social origins and cover over real causes and prevent healing.
I agree we need to take the effects of adversity very seriously- that they cause deep and lasting effects for the individual and society. And that this understanding can be lost when everything upsetting is called trauma.
However, I’m not sure it is helpful to frame normal responses to adversity as an illness or disorder like OCD, GAD or “clinical” depression – experiences which are not proven to be medical disorders and diseases – and, evidence is growing, are likely to be just different or more extreme responses to adversity.
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“Trauma” in the meaning used here is a psychiatric concept. In other words it was invented by people who feel comfortable working within an authoritarian regime.
There are many things that I find difficult to understand about progressives. But how one can believe that liberation could be gained from psychiatric concepts goes beyond me.
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I think it is quite explicit, that is not the way I was using the term trauma.
Nice try
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Posting as moderator: We’re getting a little intense here in criticizing each other. Let’s try to get back to critiquing ideas, not people. Let’s talk about how we use the term “Trauma” (or whatever) ourselves rather than criticizing how we perceive others to have used it. Remember who the real “enemy” is! It’s not each other!
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I thought I had deleted first comment as edit function froze which sometimes happens on mobile, so I hit delete. Hence second comment. But obviously first comment was not deleted ☹️
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I agree it’s not productive but think it’s worth pointing out that the post criticizes one political party over another on what is not actually a political issue. The resulting divisiveness was predictable and unnecessary in my opinion, and unfortunate because the author deserves compassion for their experience. To me, the post feels like a backdoor way to express a political grudge and I bet others in thread received it similarly.
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I think I was quite explicit that I am not using the concept of trauma and traumatic injury as a psychiatric “disorder”. Please don’t misrepresent my words.
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It’s fairly apparent that you’ve never experienced clinical depression yourself. I have. Being open minded to the possibility of others’ lived experiences differing from your own is a far more kind approach.
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Dear Nancy,
Given that the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders lists two hundred and ninety-seven ‘conditions’ without biological markers to substantiate their existence (Council for Evidence-Based Psychiatry, 2024, http://www.cepuk.org), could you furnish specific evidence or criteria that delineate what is classified as “clinical depression”?
Kind regards,
Cat
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Hi Nancy, I have experienced severe symptoms which have been described as clinical depression and have been hospitalised for this several times. I’m sorry you have had this experience too – I agree it is awful. I just don’t believe it is a brain disorder according to the psychiatric model.
I have not suggested that these experiences are not real – only that the psychiatric explanation of them is limited.
I believe we each have the right to make sense of our experiences in our own way.
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such a curious world where one off the cuff comment oh this is classic ……fill in the blank, suddenly helps to create a story for people and then becomes real. How many times have I read and heard similar stories – people being diagnosed with this or that DSM construct, believing they’ve been misdiagnosed until someone else offers another ‘diagnosis’ story that works with whatever story the person has already come to tell themselves. Its all story.
At any age there are huge changes happening to us that we might be struggling to make sense of or understand and especially at 15. From what i’ve read the young man was badly burned and this might well be visible on his body/face and we’re extremely self conscious and living in cultures that ensure we are so we can spend money to change ourselves. We’re also acutely attuned to being judged by others.
The shifts to language are part of a broader and constant shifting of language.
The cultural pendulum oiled with self interest, profit and ignorance swings vastly too far in one direction and just like all other consumer brands DSM labels/language are popularised and then we get push back and it swings in totally the opposite direction – if we’re lucky we might find a middle way at some stage – in the meantime how about we listen to people’s stories and seek understanding and support before we label them.
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Dear Mad in America: I know you say your organization is working to raise awareness about iatrogenic injuries and that “there has been progress, especially recently”. But I have lost track now of how many clinicians I have told my whole story about being misdiagnosed at 19, put on Zyprexa, and then a dozen other medications, each to treat the symptoms caused by the previous medication only. And then escaping the system after 24 years of iatrogenic injury, at great financial cost to myself, and tremendous, perhaps irreparable harm to my body and mind. A feat that is often impossible and for which I consider myself very lucky. And also explaining to them how my mental health has never been better since before I entered the system as a child. And when I tell them that my biggest struggle nowadays is trying stop smoking cigarettes, that their suggestion is “have you tried an SSRI?” Like, I know you’re just trying to be helpful and you mean well, but are you freaking stupid or something? Honestly, I don’t think the Mad in America movie nights are moving the ball quite as much as you think they are, or in a way that is going to make a meaningful difference for anybody actually caught up in this system.
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I think that it’s important that people consider the source when putting their energy into such a topic, especially when the topic is divisive rather than uniting. In my opinion, the entire New York Times as a journalistic source should be disqualified, due to a consistent and proven history of biased and dishonest reporting. But the very article referenced as the source of this blog has many issues itself.
For one, as evidence for the list of banned words generated by the authors the article mentions that the authors have seen the disappearance of these words “in official and unofficial agency guidance and in other documents viewed by The New York Times.” Since the publication is a well-known (far) left-leaning publication, forgive me if I have trouble taking the author’s words that they have seen them personally, yet have only provided a very small number of cherry picked examples in the article itself. I hope that we are all not so naive that we don’t believe that journalists working for the New York Times are subject to political biases, or have agendas other than “spreading the truth”.
In addition, for the large list of words offered as “banned”, the larger context has not been provided. If any document gets rewritten, certain words are going to be omitted and replaced with other words. If you just provide a count of the words that have been replaced that you consider relevant to your agenda and you don’t provide a count of other “irrelevant” words that have been replaced, sure it’s going to look like a lot of the words on your list have been purposely targeted. This is a trick for which the fameous expression “damn lies and statistics” was created.
The article is also missing any meaningful discussion of why any of the individual words might be removed for productive purposes, I think because the authors are counting on their left leaning audience, who have been pre-programmed with years of biased reporting from the NYT, to assume that any actions taken by this administration are for “evil” purposes. The article is missing any quote from an administration official containing their logic on why a particular word should be used over any other word, or why any word might be considered harmful by the administration. Perhaps there is just a difference of opinion but I don’t think the authors have afforded intelligent people like their readers the ability to consider both sides of the issue. Again, I think that the frequent strategy of the Times is to report one side of an issue and count on their readers to assume nefarious purposes thanks to years of programming by biased media. Is there really no argument to be made that DEI should be de-emphasized in government documents since it has become such a massively divisive issue? Perhaps we could reach the goal of a more diverse, equitable and inclusive society if we weren’t split down the middle by terminology that has become so “triggering”.
Anyway, I can’t in good conscious take an article like this by the Times seriously, without any meaningful evidence provided to the readers, without any balanced analysis that considers the actual intent of the administration, that includes obviously problematic statistical methods, and from an organization that has never apologized for reporting on nonexistent weapons of mass destruction in Iraq in an effort to manufacture consent for a war that lasted over 20 years and killed a very diverse group of innocent citizenry.
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I prefer to talk to my preacher and his wife because they don’t push psychiatric drugs or confinement on me. Both have received training in pastoral counseling. They care about people and know how to listen.
I haven’t discussed the theory of whatever is meant by “trauma” with them. We agree that suffering exists, and some emotional wounds never go away in this lifetime. Grieving is healthy and normal whether you’re a veteran or not.
After decades seeking help from “mental health” I don’t care if someone uses the jargon the APA approves as standard. Better to have someone willing to listen to my pain and treat me like a human being instead of a billable walking brain disease.
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Well stated.
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Dear Suzy De Young, Your story resonates with me as confirmation of my belief that life altering events happen in seconds. I feel badly for your son Cary, as well as for you and your husband. Not so much for the neighbor who had lighted candles around children in costume. Your son will no doubt experience flashbacks and anger at different stages of his life. He has to process what happened to him over again at each new age. In reference to your work in establishing “Trauma Informed Parents”, as well as to help your son, please go to the Facebook page that will describe how an REM brain state helps all people process trauma. http://www.facebook.com/SelfEffectiveREM
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This article certainly spoke to me. My son died of an accidental overdose of prescription drugs two weeks before his 29th birthday. It has become apparent to me through many many hours of research that he suffered from PTSD as a result of his being sexually abused for a number of years beginning when he was just 5. He was diagnosed alternatively with ADHD, childhood depression and borderline personality disorder and prescribed all kinds of medications. The death knell sounded when he was prescribed gabapentin along with Benzodiazepines. When he was growing up, psychologists and psychiatrists did not consider PTSD in adolescents or children. I am grateful that Ms. De Young founded the Facebook page “Trauma Informed Parents” and hope it helps prevent more tragedy.
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Dear Suzy,
I empathise with the distressing experience your son has faced. However, I must express concern regarding the reliance on fictional labels like ‘Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder’. Such terminology reinforces the psychiatric establishment’s agenda, which prioritises diagnosis and pharmacological intervention over individual empowerment. This approach contributes to a broader system of social control and profit-driven motives within the mythical ‘mental health/ illness’ paradigm.
Kind regards,
Cat
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I just listened to an interview of Dr. Gabor Mate about trauma. It was excellent. He has a lot to say about the topic, and I highly recommend listening.
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