Thread by @TheBeetleBox

Given its #IWD & I'm a mental health researcher working on Complex PTSD as well as (like many women) having my own experiences with it, I felt it was important to weigh in and talk about how the understanding of trauma and PTSD Bindel expresses has a long and sexist history 🧵 1/

https://twitter.com/bindelj/status/1500799081190498304

Most initial research done on PTSD was on military (read male) populations, and tended to look at exposures to trauma happening over a brief time period (often even a one off event) happening somewhere far removed from the person's 'normal' life. 2/

People experiencing trauma of this kind have horrendous symptoms like flashbacks, nightmares, anxiety & it has often a substantial impact on their lives, however this is not the majority experience of trauma and defo not the majority experience of traumatised women & children 3/

Judith Herman's 'Trauma and Recovery' was key in changing that by introducing the idea of complex trauma. This is trauma that builds up over time, typically occurs in the context of a relationship (though my work looks at it wrt & relationships with institutions and places) 4/

However most significantly it didn't centre around a single 'traumatic event' but acknowledged that repeated abusive, aggressive or oppressive experiences can have profound and horrific impacts on individuals, not just all the PTSD symptoms that I spoke about above 5/

But also real issues with sense of identity, trusting people in relationships and experiencing high levels of emotional distress and difficulties with emotions. This framework (statistically speaking) is much better suited to women's experiences of trauma 6/

Which are much more likely to have occurred in the context of a relationship with someone they trusted, than a one-off violent event, however because there's not a single thing that can be pointed to as the cause of complex trauma, these experiences are often discounted 7/

And women and lgbt people are much more likely to get labelled with diagnoses such as BPD which tends to lead to even more discrimination and abusive treatment at the hands of mental health services and additional (complex) trauma 8/

Women's experiences of trauma are undermined and questioned because any individual instance pointed to doesn't seem to an outsider like that big of a deal, and women often question it themselves 9/

One of the most heartbreaking things in Carmen Maria Machado's In the Dream House was that her wish (and her feelings of guilt around wishing) that she could have had some physical evidence of the abuse, because otherwise she doubted whether it was as bad as she'd made out 10/

Ive seen people on twitter question whether or not they even have complex PTSD because they dont have flashbacks to a specific traumatic event, & I just feel so strongly that this is because we still have an understanding of trauma that doesn't serve women or oppressed groups 11/

And this is not just in society more generally but also in research!! Despite my general quakerism, I absolutely believe soldiers with PTSD should have access to effective mental health treatment, but also if I see another paper about wounded warriors I'll scream 12/

It's not an accident though that Bindel has chosen to go with this sexist and reductive understanding of trauma, complex trauma as a concept is so important in helping women make sense of their experiences and get appropriate treatment, 13/

But this is even more true of oppressed and marginalised women, women of colour, trans women, disabled women, lgbtqia women, working class women who experience these kinds of accumulated trauma from multiple areas of their lives 14/

And who find it even more difficult to point to just one traumatising event, but who are most likely to have to live with the significant mental health consequences of complex trauma 15/

Solidarity to all women who've experienced trauma today, and to those who's trauma doesn't fit the mould of what people think trauma should be. I'm just genuinely heartbroken that this is still something we have to fight to be believed about. Sending love 💜

One final comment, if you're unconvinced by this thread, just look at the examples @jk_rowling uses of trauma in her response

https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/1500890856265498626?t=AKP_bDSn9JWNaEifzbMCmQ&s=19