Thread by @Respexy

I rarely make "I have an MSW and..." tweets but I guess this is worth it: I have an MSW and it is impossible to "trauma dump" on your THERAPIST.
Even in relationships with laypeople, "talking about your trauma a bunch" is not even what "trauma dumping" MEANS.

(CW abuse, violence) "Trauma dumping" is when someone posts like "LOL my mom didn't know the difference between a booty call and a butt dial" and someone else replies, "Must be nice to have a good relationship with your mom, my mom tried to drown me in a bathtub."

It is definitionally talking about your trauma in a way that blindsides someone and violates the social context. That is not applicable to most conversations about trauma between laypeople, and it's IMPOSSIBLE TO DO in therapy.

I said a few weeks ago that I knew "trauma dumping" was going to become as meaningless as "gaslighting" in record time, but oh boy I did not have my money on
"I'm a therapist and my patients are trauma dumping :-("

Because Twitter loves edge cases, I am trying in good faith to come up with an example of when telling your therapist about your trauma during a therapy session could genuinely be "trauma dumping".

Like, it would be possible to "trauma dump" on your therapist OUTSIDE of session if you, say, cornered her in the grocery store!

I guess if you were seeing someone for a VERY specific, limited scope thing? Maybe it would be possible to trauma dump on, say, the hospital social worker who evaluates whether you're in the right frame of mind to donate an organ? I don't know much about that kind of practice.

I love to come back to my threads more than 12 hours later because I had More Thoughts, so here we go.
"Trauma dumping" can also be when you criticize someone's behavior and they come back at you with all their traumas to make you feel bad for criticizing a trauma survivor.

Also, sometimes behavior that is experienced as "trauma dumping" can be intentional and serve a purpose!

If someone makes a rape joke and in response, someone else abruptly and shockingly discloses that they are a rape survivor, the joker might experience that as "trauma dumping" (and it may blindside them and violate the social context) but there is a valid purpose.

If you have, say, lost a loved one to COVID and bashed someone over the head with that fact when they wouldn't wear a mask, they might think you are "trauma dumping" but in my opinion, you shouldn't care!