Why it’s Okay to want to Distance Yourself from Other People’s Trauma

Taking Time Away from Other People’s Trauma to Better Yourself

We are connected to other people (electronically) more than we ever have been before. It’s so easy to be scrolling through your favourite social media app to come across stories of trauma, yet many of us have our own traumas that we are still processing. Sometimes it is good to talk about traumatic experiences. It is not always possible to burry your head in the sand. That said, if you have experienced trauma (which a lot of people have to some degree), it can be easy to become emotionally available beyond your own means.

Disclaimer – I am not a therapist, just someone sharing their experiences on how creating boundaries and distancing myself from others trauma helped me to grow.

Trauma Dumping and Oversharing

Sharing experiences and connecting to others can be part of the healing process. If you have a high level of empathy (which can also come from understanding what people are going through), then sometimes there is a point at which you have to put boundaries in place to be there for yourself. If you are always recounting trauma of others, this can also mean that often you are relating this to your own experiences. It creates quite a negative outlook of your world. Part of healing is to embrace all the good things in life. We need boundaries for that reason.

Boundaries

When I was younger, I was emotionally available all the time. Now I’m thirty, I’m not as emotionally available (at least not to as many people). I have bills, responsibilities, full-time work, relationship, friendships and hobbies to balance. creating boundaries between me and those where the relationship is becoming too focused on being emotionally available to support someone experiencing trauma, it helps me balance this. Not by abandoning that person, but by not prioritising their needs over my needs and responsibilities.

I feel that having boundaries is respectful not only to yourself, but to the person who you are communicating your boundaries to. For me, it’s telling someone that, “I respect you, I want to continue this relationship, but this is what I need from you…”

You could say, “I need space at this point… or I’m busy here… or I would like to do an activity today”. Obviously there is importance in having understanding and respect for what others. Being too available however, can cause you to have negative feelings about a person. It could lead you to start resenting your time with that person or avoidance. Boundaries are communication of your own needs.

Under stress, I know I can put down very harsh boundaries especially to anyone I feel is attacking those boundaries. It can be good to seek help from a professional, if you struggle to create healthy boundaries. It can also be helpful to understand how you are not a professional, and there may be circumstances where this is what they actually need.

Losing friendships

This year, I lost a few friendships because of these boundaries.Friendships were lost, not due to me abandoning them, but through them not respecting my boundaries. They were not okay with me having them, and so falling out with me. Good friends are there for each other in tough times. Yet good friends also respect boundaries, especially when communicated. Friends expect support or free therapy as the basis of the friendship. I am not a therapist. Most people are not therapists, and friendships alone are not a substitute for therapy. Therefore, should people expect support beyond my means, I can not accommodate that without draining my own resources. It requires balance.

It’s not a nice feeling to lose a friendship over a boundary. It can feel disrespectful. Some people seem to require support for negative behaviour. Supporting negative behaviour, it does not help anyone grow.

Why should we reduce our exposure to other people’s trauma online?

The content we interact with, view, share and read online can shape our view of the outside world. Algorithms suggest and present us with the content it thinks we want to see. When we expose ourselves to negative content, we get similar negative content suggestions. That will be our view of the outside world. Similarly if we only expose ourselves to positive content, we might believe that everything in the world is great! If that’s not reflective of our situation, it could push us to achieve these things. It could make us feel like everything is going well for everyone but ourselves. We should understand that this digital world we’re exposed to, is curated based on our preferences. Suggested content is not representative of day to day life for most people. It is often just a highlight reel of people’s best and worst experiences.

How do we create boundaries between us and digital content?

In response to phenomena like online trauma dumping, many platforms have equipped us with tools to reduce the effect that certain types of content has on us. For some platforms, such as medium we can simply press an option that allows us to see less of a particular piece of content. We have the ability to block and mute people. On social platforms we can go and purposefully interact more with content we want to see. Admittedly, that also creates an unrealistic bubble of information. We should accept that when we are in a community of people, we are more aware of what the community is doing. We are less aware of what is outside of it.

I was student from 2012 – 2018. I was able to vote for the first time. I was in a community of people who thought labour would win the UK elections. We also thought that Joe Biden had a good chance of getting elected. I had very little exposure to people with alternative views. I thought labour would win, they did not win. The danger of curated content is that if we fail to see that its curated for us, we can be in a bubble where we feel that more people experience the same opinion as us than there are who actually do. We can read and learn about other communities to better our understanding of them, but a lot of content curated just for us will be about our own world view and not represent the entire worlds view.

Changing the content that we view will not stop the rest of the world existing. We should try to stay aware of this. Focusing too much on the negative also won’t do us many favours either.

How having boundaries has helped me…

Having boundaries has helped me in so many ways. It allows me to recognise friendships where I’m respected. It prevents me from feeling drained. It helps me to focus on my hobbies and wellbeing. It helps me to focus on basic things like organising my home, making the time for dates, friends and family. It helps me balance work and life and helps me to feel happier.