The Top 3 Stereotypes Put on Trauma Survivors

Hey YouTube, and welcome to my channel. My name is Brooke Richey. I'm a 20-plus-year vocalist and multi-trauma survivor, 2 things which require the human voice, this God-given instrument, to regulate, communicate, and navigate in life. And that's just what I'm here doing, trying to help you do the same— regulate, communicate, navigate. And this new series that I'm kicking off today is on the miscommunication that happens with trauma survivors. And today's video is the 3 most common stereotypes and labels that get put on trauma survivors just for them trying to move past their trauma. Okay, so let's get into it. Point number 1, stereotype number 1 is victim mentality. This will happen. People will say that a trauma survivor is stuck in victim mentality. When they are speaking about an experience from the past. Remember, if trauma was not dealt with at the time that it happened, it becomes stored in the body. That means whenever a trauma survivor is speaking about their experience and they're not bleeding on others, they are trying to actively get it and process it out of their system. It's a choice to actively move it out of their system because why? It's stored in the body. Your voice activates things that are stuck in the body. Your breath moves it out. It reduces the anxiety, it reduces the emotions, everything that's wrapped up in that experience. If it's not spoken, and it's not shared, and it's not validated, it's going to live in their nervous system. So here's the thing. If, if you have a friend, a loved one that is sharing a past experience with you, Validate them. Okay, affirm them for the experience that happened. And instead of saying, don't get stuck in a victim mentality mindset, ask them that— ask them what they want to do now that they're, that they're sharing it with you. What are you going to do next? That was a really awful experience. Here's what you can do. You validate for them. That was a really awful experience. I'm so sorry you had to experience that. Now what? What's next? Ask them what's next, because then what's next is what's pushing them in a forward direction. It's what's keeping them in a growth mindset. And this is the other thing. There's 2 sides of the Of trauma. There's 2 sides of trauma. There's— of trauma and trauma processing. So let me paint an image of this. When I was 9 years old, I had an experience that traumatized me. I consider it a form of a— it was a mimicked scenario of trafficking. I wasn't physically harmed, but my psyche was harmed. So in a way, yes, my physical body was harmed. If you if you harm the psyche of a developing child, my physicality was harmed because what happened in the long run? I developed CPTSD and CPTSD induced so much illness into my life in my prime years. Okay, so I have this experience in this room. It was in this in a classroom of a driver's ed school. I have this experience in this driver's ed school and. For decades, for— I'm just thinking of that one experience, but there's also some other experiences that happened in that same space. And this is what I want to point out, because there is the trauma processing, getting that negative experience, but also the growth mindset of what else took place in that room. Labeling— me and my siblings, we helped our dad label. mailing stuff for, for the school that they worked at. And they, meaning my parents, but we helped with labeling for, for the mail and for marketing. And so what did that mean? There was an aspect of the collective where in the same environment, right, and this is why I want to be really clear with this. You can't run from your trauma. The only option, which I don't even want to say, you know, is removing yourself from this earth if you're going to run from your trauma, or you're going to cut people off, you're going to burn bridges anytime you get triggered. And so this room, I want you to think of this classroom. Trauma happened in that space. But also a collective fun work environment happened in that space. And this is the approach that I think the world misses a lot of the time when trauma survivors express. And their expression is simply them in a growth mindset, in a growth state of mind of I need to get this out of my system so that I can move forward. People say, this is what people will say, you are stuck in the past because you're bringing up the past. The past is still there. That's the thing. When trauma is not processed in the moment, like I said, trauma needs to be dealt with right away. You can think of it like this. Here's another example. Someone has a tumor. It's malignant. They They need to go get it removed. Are you, as a friend, as a loved one, going to tell this person with the tumor, deal with it yourself? Or are you going to encourage them to go get the help of a surgeon to get it removed? Tell me what you're going to do. Trauma is the exact same way. So point number 2, vulnerability on this On this, kind of in lieu with this, is the concept of vulnerability, and that when trauma survivors are vulnerable in sharing their experience, that they lack boundaries, and they have no self-respect. I reject this wholeheartedly. And with what we've seen in our world recently, you know, I mean, there's me, and how I've shared my, my story, but— Kanye West shared recently his experience of abuse growing up. Good for him. Seriously, good for him to get that out of his system. Do you— I can't applaud it more. Like, you— we need this more is the thing. We need this more because here's the thing, here's the deal. Let's look at it. Let's Let's talk about this real quick. The dude was married to Kim, they have 4 kids, they divorce, and then he remarries someone else. And now it's looking like this, like, manipulative relationship. But then what happens? He shares this experience. So I think there was a wake-up call, is the thing. This is what I see. I see that there was a wake-up call with all of this talk of like, you're abusing this woman, like, this is This is manipulative and coercive and all this stuff. And it reminds him of what my experience I had when I was a kid. And he shares this so that he can get it out of his system. Good for you, dude. Like seriously, this is and that's that's how you cycle it out. And the thing is, people look at us. Trauma survivors in sharing that, and they want to say that we lack boundaries because we are disrespectful of putting it on someone else. Folks, I shouldn't have been nine years old in a mimicked family like trafficking situation. Hello, Kanye shouldn't have been however old he was. He was a teen or however old. That shouldn't have happened. And you, you mean to say that now because we're an adult and we're sharing it and we're being vulnerable, that we lack boundaries when our boundaries were crossed? No, no. You just don't like how it feels when someone is being raw and vulnerable and exposing the darkness that happened to them. That's what's going on. And so This is why I find it so important to talk about, is because we trauma survivors, we come off as very blunt. We— I say I take my whiskey neat when it comes to the truth and processing the truth. Like, just say it as it is. Seriously, just say it as it is. Say what's bothering you. Say what— say it. And if you don't say it, this is what you do. You're keeping yourself trapped to it. You're keeping yourself imprisoned to it. And that's why vulnerability— trauma survivors, we show you how to be vulnerable— is a deal. And there's, there's, you know, there's boundaries in this too. Like, you don't want to go and bleed on people. And by bleed on people is like, read the room, you know? Um, but when someone is like, hey, I'm gonna share my experience, and it's blatantly listed in this video what I'm going to be talking about, Or it's blatantly listed on this blog, like what I'm going to be talking about, or there's trigger warnings and all that stuff. Like, that's just sharing and that's being vulnerable. And then that gets criticized. So that leads me to my third point. We're often viewed as a threat because we share, because we're vulnerable. Make it make sense. So, and by make it make sense, I say a kid comes to you and they're like, hey, this thing happened to me. And you're like, oh my gosh, let's address that right now. But an adult shares it, you know, and now I'm getting into age and whatnot. But, but an adult shares it and it's an immediate, I'm being threatened from you sharing your experience. Where's the threat? You could share, I could have shared I had ice cream last night and people would have been like, oh cool. Or if I share, Like, take it as simply as that. I had ice cream last night. Here's a trauma of the ice cream. I got brain freeze last night. Or here's a trauma of the ice cream last night. It fell on my body, then fell onto my shoe, and then onto the ground, and then I lost my ice cream. That's a trauma, right? A mini trauma. Like, make it make sense. You know, it's the same concept where You want to say that you're threatening me because I'm pointing out the truth of something that happened? No, there is no threat there in sharing. Like, a threat is this: a threat is coercion and force. A threat is gatekeeping. A threat is saying, if you don't meet these expectations based off of how I feel, I'm going to limit you. I'm going to criminalize you. I'm going to put you in a cage. And this is the problem, and especially in America, when it comes to criminalization of survival. Y'all feel threatened when the— when no threat was made. When actual threats are made, we have a system that says, well, we got to prove it. When actual damage is done, we got to prove that that cop actually took that man's life. Are you serious? And we're going to let him go years later? No. So it's not threats, and I hope this clears the air on some things. I've spoken up about this a lot in. In my own life experiences of I think communication could be improved. And so how do we move forward? And how do we move forward? Um, learn how to respond. Train yourself not to react just because you're offended when someone shares something that you are connected to, even if it's just the human level. Right? Like, human to human, I feel threatened because you're sharing this vulnerable thing with me. I'm not threatening you. I'm trying to get validation and affirmation. I'm trying to grow here with this unfixable problem I was given. And that's my experience. That's the experience for a lot of trauma survivors. They're giving— they are given an unfixable problem at a developing age. Especially, you know, childhood trauma survivors. They're given an unfixable problem. And so you want to say you're stuck in victim mentality because you're focused on this unfixable problem, but it was given to you in your developmental years. And what you know in your development is what you're given. So if you're given an unfixable problem, you're going to keep trying to work and work and work and work to fix it until finally one day Maybe you realize, oh yeah, I can't solve this problem. That's the thing. And that's why when you dismiss— anyone who just is quick to dismiss someone else's experience, you're not just doing the other person a disservice, you're doing it to yourself. Because here's the thing, someone has an issue and you can help them with it, it could be your issue 20 years down the line. It could be your problem 20 years down the line. We don't know what happens in our lives day and— like the next day and the next day. We don't know what's gonna happen. And that's the whole thing. When you dismiss someone's experience, you reject them as a whole, because that's what we're here for. Like, I mean, we're here to be whole people. And I would say, like, when we get to the ends of our lives, There's so many things that we can learn that need to bloom inside of us as a human being, and trauma is one of those. Validating trauma is one of those, and it doesn't always have to be— is a thing. But I think this is a really, really big problem that we have because we have a global consciousness that we aim to take care of. Right? Okay. And then lastly, bonus, a little bonus stereotype, a bonus thing here. Whether you're religious or not, we know the story. The biggest trauma of all time happened to the most righteous man to ever have walked this earth. Jesus. So when we reject and dismiss trauma survivors, we're actually rejecting God and Source. We're rejecting our own oxygen supply. That's why we got to work on the communication, fam. And I appreciate everyone, you know, just on a little personal note, who has embraced me and validated me and said, okay, no, she didn't, she didn't threaten anyone by sharing. She was vulnerable. She asked for help. And that's the other thing, trauma survivors, if anything, we are just asking for help. That's the thing. We're asking for help. If no, like, we're some of the most hurt people in the world. And We choose not to hurt people. There are— there is also the opposite, where there's trauma survivors who will just hurt others because they're angry. Um, but that's what I'm here all about, is there's safe ways to process your anger and your rage. And I've done that in a lot of ways, especially in music. Um, literally just go find a rage room with a filing cabinet. You'll have a heck of a time. Anyways, I should wrap this up. Um, but yeah, let's move forward. I want to challenge you, if you're someone who has someone in your life that you know is struggling, reach out to them. Just reach out to them. Simply ask them how they're doing. What's going on for you? See if you can engage in some conversation with them, because it's really— it's, it's a connection. It's getting the words moving, right? The vocabulary moving, the renewing of the mind that trauma survivors need. And if you are a trauma survivor, I challenge you to go talk with others. Pick 2 people a day, at least 1. Try for 4. Anyways, I hope this helped you. Um, I have some resources for you linked in the comments below. I would love to connect with you if you are looking for help on your journey. And, you know, just here to take care of this nervous system that we got. Um, yeah, I'll see you in my next video. Thanks so much.