Sandi L Boucher explains trauma porn, when outsiders seek gory survivor stories, and trauma dumping, when triggered people overshare in wrong settings. Both harm the people involved. She uses residential school examples and calls for respectful spaces and self-care.
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If there's one thing I've definitely come to realize since I started doing daily YouTube videos, it's the fact that many of these discussions center around terms or phrases that are used in the conversations of reconciliation or overcoming oppression or whatever the case. Racism, whatever the case, Anti racism work, all of it is there. But if you don't, if you're not in that career or you don't have those kind of conversations on a regular basis, maybe because there's no one marginalized, racialized, or, you know, excluded in your family, then maybe you're not familiar with the terms. And it gets way easier to understand what's going on when we understand the terms. So I have two new terms for you today. Talking about, well, explain to you what they are and when we should or shouldn't use them. And both of them have to do with trauma, which is not indigenous, exclusive. So let's talk about it. Hi, everybody. My name is Sandy Boucher. I'm Red Thunderbolt, woman of the Loon clan, a proud member of Seine River first nation in Treaty 3 territory in Northern Ontario. And Stormy's gone off to chase his sister, so it's just me today. Well, the frog's trying to make an appearance. I promised you in the opening that I was going to share two terms with you that maybe you've never heard of, unless you work in the realm of trauma, then maybe you have. We've all experienced trauma, or many of us have, most of us to some extent. But that doesn't mean you would know these terms. So they definitely come up in my world. So I wanted to talk about them because in my opinion, it's two things that really got to stop happening. The first one may surprise you. It's a phrase, and it is trauma porn. That is the term or phrase we use to describe those people that. This is one example. It's not specific to this, but those people that want to hire an indigenous person on September 30th to share their residential school trauma story, that that's all they want to hear. They want to hear the horrific details, and they would be disappointed if you minimized it. So rarely do they have any consideration for the fact that the person they're talking to experience these things. They just want to hear the gory details. This happens way too often. Way too often. And I mean, do not get me wrong, if a survivor wants to share their story for when I hope they're in a really safe space to do that, I hope they're sitting in a sharing circle where people are going to hold space for them and not expect them to answer questions or something that they're just going to be allowed to share so they can get some of that pain out. If they choose to share their stories, that is totally different than being asked to. Because remember marginalized stereo, people that suffer through stereotypes, let's go that way. Racialized, marginalized, excluded people may feel incredible. They may not know how to say no yet, which takes a certain level of assertiveness and confidence to be able to do that. So they get asked and there they are reliving their trauma for an audience. And what the audience is enjoying is trauma porn. So, yeah, gotta stop, gotta stop. The other thing is kind of the other side of the coin or definitely not looking at mainstream, but looking at indigenous. It might happen to you if you start working with indigenous people, if those people have not had the opportunity to heal and share their story. And by the way, if they still want to share their story. I have been accused of dwelling on things I've definitely heard other people accused of. That if someone still wants to talk about something, they're still not healed, There is still more to share. They need you to be quiet and listen. So they're not dwelling, they're healing. And. And that's not something that you get to decide how long they need to heal. But what might happen with these people. I'm certain you've heard of the term triggered. I've seen it happen so many times. We're at a conference or we're at a meeting and someone says something and another person is triggered and suddenly they are trauma dumping, meaning they are just spilling their guts and sharing all of this trauma. And this is not the appropriate place to do it. Now, someone to erupt like Mount Vesuvius, like that, that means they desperately needed to say it, but it's not the ideal environment for them. There may not be supports there. There may not be an elder. There may be people that will judge them for disrupting the meeting for, you know, just sit back in judgment, gossip about them at the break, that it's not the place to do it. But it might happen when you are working with a traumatized group that's indigenous people. So that's why I always say, you know what, if you have questions, tag me below. Or, well, no, send me an email and we can talk about it. Because I've done the healing. I'm putting myself out here to be able to do that, to just go ask a question of the next indigenous person you meet. Did you go to residential school could be absolutely horrific if that person has not had the chance to heal. Anyone who sets themselves up as a leader, as a spokesperson, we know what we're doing. We expect the questions. We're prepared for it. Our sales self care game is epic to allow us to do this work, to expect that of just the next indigenous person that comes along is incredibly dangerous. It's not going to go well. It's going to burn bridges and you could cause harm to the person that you corner. They're definitely not going to want to talk to you again. That bridge has burnt. So trauma porn. If you have some desire to hear all the horrors of the residential school systems, you know what? Go look up the Canadian Holocaust. It's available online. Warning, trigger warnings like crazy. And if you haven't done your healing yet, I understand you need a job. I understand you might have a family to support, bills to pay, whatever the case may be, you gotta find a way to heal. You know what, sharing circles, Find the nearest one near you, they're free. Find a counselor, a therapist near you. You gotta get that out so that it doesn't come out in an unsafe space. Not because it's inconvenient to the people there, but because it's not what you need to heal. So there's two new terms for you, trauma porn and trauma dumping. When it comes to trauma, we got to tread carefully and love each other back to help, help. And we don't do that by asking people to talk of their darkest days. And we don't do that by judging the people that break down because they're triggered. We can do better. We can totally do better than this. I count on you. I believe in you. Tomorrow is Saturday, so it's going to be podcast day again. I'm going to warn you, I'm going on a rant tomorrow. There's something. I love getting emails from people, but sometimes the email makes. The only thing that goes through my head is wtf? And I'm using the letters to be respectful. Tomorrow we got to talk about this because. Yeah, so rant warning, rent warning, rant warning. Hopefully you check out the podcast until tomorrow. I love you. Take care. Bye. Bye.
