CumbriaCTB
Member
- Jul 15, 2025
- 77
Greetings, Reader. I hope this rant thread finds you well.
It's 4am and I've now been awake for an hour thinking about this. You know when you have legitimate problems with your mental health, even if it's diagnosed PTSD, and some normie chimes in with some utterly ignorant drivel like "what about children in warzones?" and "the Jews stayed strong during the Holocaust, why can't you?" because, of course, it's totally impossible to have any sort of mental health issue after the Holocaust happened. Thanks, genius, I'm cured now! Riiiiiiight...
So... what about those children in warzones? In this thread we'll be comparing and contrasting modern "First World trauma", such as familial abuse, with "Third World trauma" like war, genocide, and famine. Obviously, familial abuse can (and regularly does) happen in developing countries with war and genocide also being a sobering possibility in Europe (see: the current war in Ukraine and, historically, Yugoslavia) - heck, kids can even be abused by their family while in a warzone - so I'm merely using the First/Third World Dichotomy as short-hand for the two; not to mention the fact that the Whataboutists from the previous paragraph will cry "First World privilege"... before going on to whine about their own First World problems. Hopefully, we'll be able to shed some light on why some people go through horrific things and turn out relatively fine while somebody else can go through much less but end up completely dysfunctional.
What does the thread's title even mean? What is "isolation" in this context?
By "isolation" I mean having nobody on your side, nobody you fully trust, nobody to confide in. You're dealing with all of the traumatic events completely on your own and, especially if you're a young child, it can feel as if you're the only person in the world who is going through the things you're going through. Even if you might have friends/family on paper, if you're unable to be vulnerable around them then you're still emotionally isolated despite physically being around other people.
My hot take here is that isolation is the reason survivors of "First World trauma" generally develop crippling PTSD while survivors of "Third World trauma" can grow up to be incredibly strong people despite their experiences - although, of course, plenty of the former do turn out strong themselves (I've met a few myself) and plenty of the latter do indeed get PTSD which can be a death sentence in developing countries without access to healthcare/welfare.
Why doesn't "Third World trauma" typically involve isolation?
As "Third World trauma" often comes from large-scale events (such as war, genocide, famine, plagues, and natural disasters) which often affect an entire community, or even whole countries, isolation is much less prevalent as these events happen to multiple people - anywhere from hundreds to millions - all at the same time rather than a single person experiencing traumatic events alone.
A child growing up in these sorts of situations isn't necessarily going to feel isolated; instead they're likely to be supported through these hard times by their parents, siblings, and friends as well as the wider community because everybody is going through the same thing. Everybody around the child understands what they're going through and can empathise... because they're going through it right there with them. This support is often mutual between children as well and, yes, being able to give support to others can do wonders for developing a sense of worth and self-esteem. Even siblings in the West who survived child abuse (without a Black Sheep & Golden Child dichotomy) often stick together in adulthood out of solditary.
Now, let's talk about the Holocaust! No, really, how come many people were sent to the concentration camps, subjected to terrible living conditions and horrific torture which makes you want to vomit just reading about it, yet managed to walk out alive so mentally strong? Once again, not just one person was sent to the camps: these camps contained thousands of prisoners who were all in the same situation together - each of them surrounded by people who were in the same boat and could therefore understand their suffering. They weren't alone in there.
Let's take a deeper look into some of the people in the camps themselves: the Jews. A lot of what I'm about to say also applies to another ethnic group, the Roma, who were subjected to the Holocaust as well and for similiar reasons to their Jewish counterparts. Whild the worst by far, the Holocaust was certainly not the first genocide faced by the Jewish community. You see, Jews were a hated minority in Europe for nearly two millennia leading up the Holocaust since their expulsion from Judea in the 2nd Century by the Romans. For the entirety of this period, Jews had no true homeland nor nation state for themselves and were instead subjected to the whims of the leadership of their host counries.
You might think that being a hated minority no matter where you go would feel incredibly isolating but, as many Jews today will tell you, it's actually quite the opposite: having this hostile external force only serves to further unite the community in shared solidarity with one another. Heck, part of why the Jews were demonised so much was because they, due to centuries of oppression, had developed a strong sense of identity along with tight-knit bonds and mutual support networks within their own small communities throughout Europe. It's precisely these tight bonds and support networks which allow people to persevere through turmoil, no matter how harsh, and come out the other side stronger for it.
Why is "First World trauma" so isolating?
Now it's time to contrast these shared experiences with the isolating experiences in the Western World, especially the atomised 21st Century, associated with "First World trauma". By "First World trauma" we mean trauma, especially childhood trauma, caused by domestic abuse (whether as a spouse or child), physical and sexual abuse, parental neglect, and bullying. Obviously, all of these things are really quite minor compared to entire neighbourhoods being rounded up, herded onto train carriages, and sent to government-operated death camps. My point isn't "being bullied is just as bad as the Holocaust!" and, quite frankly, comparing the severely of the actual traumatic events themselves isn't the goal here anyway; the real focus is on how isolation interacts with said traumatic events.
The thing with "Third World trauma" is that the traumatic events are usually inflicted upon a community by a hostile external force (often an opposing ethnoreligious/political group for war and genocide while the external force is nature itself - exacerbated by government mismanagement in many cases - when it comes to famines, plagues, and natural disasters) which causes said community to band together and support each other in the face of this external threat.
In lot of the "First World traumas" listed above, there usually isn't this hostile external force which affects entire communities. Instead, a single individual, often a small child, is actually antagonised by their own in-group (parents/spouses for abuse at home and peers in the case of bullying) and excluded from the community either through rejection by their peers or through obstruction by abusive parents/partners. These people are deprived of any sort of support network to help them process the traumatic events as they happen and are instead forced to bury the trauma until it all resurfaces later in life.
Since the start of the 21st Century, there often isn't even a community at all. No, I'm not going to use "that damn phone" as a scapecoat here. The gradually process of social atomisation and the death of community in the First World really started with the proliferation of the automobile and the expansion of suburbia following the Second World War (this mainly applies to North America but Europe and East Asia are facing these problems as well) and later the introduction of the home television and eventually the 24-hour news cycle. Smartphones, the Internet, and social media are simply another set of changes, along with rising income inequality and political polarisation splitting communities and families apart, which merely exacerbate a pre-existing societal issue.
Not to mention the fact that this isolation often causes the individual to lack social skills, fail to hit key societal milestones, and develop self-esteem issues which inhibit their ability to maintain steady employment, seek and complete therapy, and develop their own support networks later in life. It is not uncommon for people with these "First World traumas" to find themselves trapped in a vicious cycle in which their unprocessed trauma actually causes them to become even more isolated, and even be subjected to new traumas as an adult, due to their inability to function in society and their lack of a close community, or even a loving family, to fall back on when they inevitably struggle.
And now we come full-circle: these "First World traumas" are often minimised by society at large with that very same Whatsboutism we discussed at the start of the thread - "don't you know there's kids starving in Africa?" - and this can cause individuals to actually feel even more isolated after reaching out for help only to be dismissed as "ungrateful" or "soft" and denied any sort of support from others. This continued rejection and shame can cause an individual to bury their trauma even further which merely lets it fester and worsen, beginning a vicious cycle which ultimately leads a grown adult to slide into a completely dysfunctional mental state, plagued by an inability to form close relationships, regulate their emotions, or even have the will to live... all because of something "relatively minor" that happened in their childhood and should have been processed there and then.
Children are allowed to cry and hug their parents when missiles are hitting the roof of their apartment building and even receive support from the wider community once the dust settles; bullying victims and domestic abuse survivors, on the other hand, are on their own.
Many Thanks,
CumbriaCTB
It's 4am and I've now been awake for an hour thinking about this. You know when you have legitimate problems with your mental health, even if it's diagnosed PTSD, and some normie chimes in with some utterly ignorant drivel like "what about children in warzones?" and "the Jews stayed strong during the Holocaust, why can't you?" because, of course, it's totally impossible to have any sort of mental health issue after the Holocaust happened. Thanks, genius, I'm cured now! Riiiiiiight...
So... what about those children in warzones? In this thread we'll be comparing and contrasting modern "First World trauma", such as familial abuse, with "Third World trauma" like war, genocide, and famine. Obviously, familial abuse can (and regularly does) happen in developing countries with war and genocide also being a sobering possibility in Europe (see: the current war in Ukraine and, historically, Yugoslavia) - heck, kids can even be abused by their family while in a warzone - so I'm merely using the First/Third World Dichotomy as short-hand for the two; not to mention the fact that the Whataboutists from the previous paragraph will cry "First World privilege"... before going on to whine about their own First World problems. Hopefully, we'll be able to shed some light on why some people go through horrific things and turn out relatively fine while somebody else can go through much less but end up completely dysfunctional.
What does the thread's title even mean? What is "isolation" in this context?
By "isolation" I mean having nobody on your side, nobody you fully trust, nobody to confide in. You're dealing with all of the traumatic events completely on your own and, especially if you're a young child, it can feel as if you're the only person in the world who is going through the things you're going through. Even if you might have friends/family on paper, if you're unable to be vulnerable around them then you're still emotionally isolated despite physically being around other people.
My hot take here is that isolation is the reason survivors of "First World trauma" generally develop crippling PTSD while survivors of "Third World trauma" can grow up to be incredibly strong people despite their experiences - although, of course, plenty of the former do turn out strong themselves (I've met a few myself) and plenty of the latter do indeed get PTSD which can be a death sentence in developing countries without access to healthcare/welfare.
Why doesn't "Third World trauma" typically involve isolation?
As "Third World trauma" often comes from large-scale events (such as war, genocide, famine, plagues, and natural disasters) which often affect an entire community, or even whole countries, isolation is much less prevalent as these events happen to multiple people - anywhere from hundreds to millions - all at the same time rather than a single person experiencing traumatic events alone.
A child growing up in these sorts of situations isn't necessarily going to feel isolated; instead they're likely to be supported through these hard times by their parents, siblings, and friends as well as the wider community because everybody is going through the same thing. Everybody around the child understands what they're going through and can empathise... because they're going through it right there with them. This support is often mutual between children as well and, yes, being able to give support to others can do wonders for developing a sense of worth and self-esteem. Even siblings in the West who survived child abuse (without a Black Sheep & Golden Child dichotomy) often stick together in adulthood out of solditary.
Now, let's talk about the Holocaust! No, really, how come many people were sent to the concentration camps, subjected to terrible living conditions and horrific torture which makes you want to vomit just reading about it, yet managed to walk out alive so mentally strong? Once again, not just one person was sent to the camps: these camps contained thousands of prisoners who were all in the same situation together - each of them surrounded by people who were in the same boat and could therefore understand their suffering. They weren't alone in there.
Let's take a deeper look into some of the people in the camps themselves: the Jews. A lot of what I'm about to say also applies to another ethnic group, the Roma, who were subjected to the Holocaust as well and for similiar reasons to their Jewish counterparts. Whild the worst by far, the Holocaust was certainly not the first genocide faced by the Jewish community. You see, Jews were a hated minority in Europe for nearly two millennia leading up the Holocaust since their expulsion from Judea in the 2nd Century by the Romans. For the entirety of this period, Jews had no true homeland nor nation state for themselves and were instead subjected to the whims of the leadership of their host counries.
You might think that being a hated minority no matter where you go would feel incredibly isolating but, as many Jews today will tell you, it's actually quite the opposite: having this hostile external force only serves to further unite the community in shared solidarity with one another. Heck, part of why the Jews were demonised so much was because they, due to centuries of oppression, had developed a strong sense of identity along with tight-knit bonds and mutual support networks within their own small communities throughout Europe. It's precisely these tight bonds and support networks which allow people to persevere through turmoil, no matter how harsh, and come out the other side stronger for it.
Why is "First World trauma" so isolating?
Now it's time to contrast these shared experiences with the isolating experiences in the Western World, especially the atomised 21st Century, associated with "First World trauma". By "First World trauma" we mean trauma, especially childhood trauma, caused by domestic abuse (whether as a spouse or child), physical and sexual abuse, parental neglect, and bullying. Obviously, all of these things are really quite minor compared to entire neighbourhoods being rounded up, herded onto train carriages, and sent to government-operated death camps. My point isn't "being bullied is just as bad as the Holocaust!" and, quite frankly, comparing the severely of the actual traumatic events themselves isn't the goal here anyway; the real focus is on how isolation interacts with said traumatic events.
The thing with "Third World trauma" is that the traumatic events are usually inflicted upon a community by a hostile external force (often an opposing ethnoreligious/political group for war and genocide while the external force is nature itself - exacerbated by government mismanagement in many cases - when it comes to famines, plagues, and natural disasters) which causes said community to band together and support each other in the face of this external threat.
In lot of the "First World traumas" listed above, there usually isn't this hostile external force which affects entire communities. Instead, a single individual, often a small child, is actually antagonised by their own in-group (parents/spouses for abuse at home and peers in the case of bullying) and excluded from the community either through rejection by their peers or through obstruction by abusive parents/partners. These people are deprived of any sort of support network to help them process the traumatic events as they happen and are instead forced to bury the trauma until it all resurfaces later in life.
Since the start of the 21st Century, there often isn't even a community at all. No, I'm not going to use "that damn phone" as a scapecoat here. The gradually process of social atomisation and the death of community in the First World really started with the proliferation of the automobile and the expansion of suburbia following the Second World War (this mainly applies to North America but Europe and East Asia are facing these problems as well) and later the introduction of the home television and eventually the 24-hour news cycle. Smartphones, the Internet, and social media are simply another set of changes, along with rising income inequality and political polarisation splitting communities and families apart, which merely exacerbate a pre-existing societal issue.
Not to mention the fact that this isolation often causes the individual to lack social skills, fail to hit key societal milestones, and develop self-esteem issues which inhibit their ability to maintain steady employment, seek and complete therapy, and develop their own support networks later in life. It is not uncommon for people with these "First World traumas" to find themselves trapped in a vicious cycle in which their unprocessed trauma actually causes them to become even more isolated, and even be subjected to new traumas as an adult, due to their inability to function in society and their lack of a close community, or even a loving family, to fall back on when they inevitably struggle.
And now we come full-circle: these "First World traumas" are often minimised by society at large with that very same Whatsboutism we discussed at the start of the thread - "don't you know there's kids starving in Africa?" - and this can cause individuals to actually feel even more isolated after reaching out for help only to be dismissed as "ungrateful" or "soft" and denied any sort of support from others. This continued rejection and shame can cause an individual to bury their trauma even further which merely lets it fester and worsen, beginning a vicious cycle which ultimately leads a grown adult to slide into a completely dysfunctional mental state, plagued by an inability to form close relationships, regulate their emotions, or even have the will to live... all because of something "relatively minor" that happened in their childhood and should have been processed there and then.
Children are allowed to cry and hug their parents when missiles are hitting the roof of their apartment building and even receive support from the wider community once the dust settles; bullying victims and domestic abuse survivors, on the other hand, are on their own.
Many Thanks,
CumbriaCTB
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