After being inadvertently excluded from her friend’s engagement party, a Gen Z woman felt “traumatized” and claimed to be suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. She posted her feelings online, offending her friend, who found her use of mental health terminology insensitive.
The woman posted online that she was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder because she was not invited to an engagement party.
Her friend recounted on Reddit how the situation quickly got out of hand. She explained that she was 20 years old and had three close friends from college: Grace, Matt, and Laura.
“Laura is very fond of using mental health jargon,” she wrote in her post. “She deals with a lot of labels used by these influential therapists online. She has been told she has anxiety and depression, but that is the only diagnosis she has received so far.”
The woman then revealed that Matt and Grace had been together for a while and that he had recently proposed to her.
“He had been planning the proposal for a few weeks and even though the proposal was very intimate between the two of them, I was very involved in planning the post-proposal event at a restaurant,” she explained.
Laura told them that she did not want to be involved in planning the proposal because it “reminded her of her parents’ divorce,” but that she would try to make it to the post-engagement party.
“On the day of the engagement, Matt and I forgot to check on Laura,” the woman admitted. “I don’t think it’s Matt’s fault because he was busy with much more important things, but I feel a little guilty for not reminding her. In the end, she didn’t come to the party.”
Frankly, both Matt and the woman were busy with the engagement plans and no one is to blame for the mistake as it was Laura’s personal decision not to interfere.
Laura began posting “dramatic” posts online about the trauma she experienced because she was not allowed to attend the party.
“The next day she started posting dramatic things online about how traumatic it was to see how little her friends cared about her and that she would update her followers on her journey to trauma therapy,” the woman wrote. “She posted that she is in a really dark place now and that she believes she is suffering from PTSD.”
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While no one likes to be left out of outings with friends, especially during important events like an engagement, Laura felt it was inappropriate to diagnose herself with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Not only is this an extreme misrepresentation of the disorder, but it is also insensitive to those who actually suffer from PTSD.
This is exactly why the woman took Laura’s posts so personally.
“I was diagnosed with PTSD by a psychologist in my senior year of high school after something happened to me my freshman year,” she revealed. “I felt a lot of guilt and shame because for a long time I felt like what happened wasn’t bad enough to count. I still have nightmares and flashbacks sometimes, but after therapy it got better.”
“I know I have my own issues… with the word, and it really bothers me when people throw the terms around without knowing their meaning,” she added.
According to the National Institute of Mental Health, to be diagnosed with PTSD, a person “must have symptoms for over a month and the symptoms must be severe enough to interfere with aspects of daily life, such as relationships or work.” Symptoms are very varied, ranging from nightmares and flashbacks to sleep disturbances, negative emotions, and social isolation.
Because of her sensitivity in this matter, the woman snapped at Laura for using such expressions inappropriately.
The woman explained that none of her college friends, including Laura, knew about her previous experiences with PTSD.
“At one point she called me and started explaining how traumatized she was and finally I lost my breath and said, ‘You are not traumatized, stop dramatizing, you got exactly what you asked for,'” the woman wrote.
Later, she felt guilty about her emotional reaction to Laura. Although she did not express her discomfort with Laura’s self-pity and dramatic choice of words well, her feelings were valid.
“I think I was a bit harsh and she posts online (at least without my name) that a friend she thought she could rely on for support is being abused and doesn’t understand what it’s like to be traumatized,” the woman added. “However, I think Laura is honestly being very dramatic about an event that isn’t about her.”
Reddit users agreed that Laura was immature and selfish during an important moment in her friends’ lives. Instead of supporting her friends and being happy for them, she was more focused on how everything was affecting her.
“I can’t stand people who throw around psychological terms with actual meaning to describe just their normal feelings,” one person commented on the post. “This person is absolutely creating their own drama and you want nothing to do with it.”
Weaponized therapy jargon is a real problem.
In this context, it seems clear that Laura frequently throws around mental health terms to get others to feel sorry for her, but in reality, this behavior only pushes people away.
While the woman may have inadvertently forgotten to include Laura in her circle of friends’ engagement plans, she pointed out that Laura might have had a chance to be included if she had not consciously made a point of excluding herself.
Because this is so prevalent, especially among Generation Z, we need to be aware of the issue of weaponized therapy speak, which involves distorting and weaponizing mental health terminology into a form of manipulation.
We need to be careful about mental health terminology, especially when used publicly, as we never know what others are really going through.
Now that we are finally in an era where people’s mental health is recognized as an important topic of discussion, we should choose carefully how we describe our feelings and experiences so as not to undermine the seriousness of such disorders and illnesses.
Francesca Duarte is a writer on YourTango’s news and entertainment team based in Orlando, FL. She covers lifestyle, human issues, adventure and spirituality.
