A Gen Z woman claimed she felt “traumatized” and had PTSD after being unintentionally excluded from a friend’s engagement party. She posted these feelings online, angering friends who thought her use of mental health terminology was insensitive.
This Gen Z woman posted online that she suffered from PTSD after not being invited to an engagement party.
Her friend shared on Reddit how quickly the situation escalated, explaining that she’s 20 years old and has three best friends from college: Grace, Matt, and Laura.
“Laura really loves using mental health terminology,” she wrote in the post. “She has looked up a lot of it from influential therapists online. She has been told she has anxiety and depression, but that is her only diagnosis so far.”
The woman then revealed that she and Matt had been dating for a while and that Matt had recently decided to propose marriage.
“He had been planning the proposal for weeks and while the proposal was a very intimate affair between the two of us, I was heavily involved in scheduling the post-proposal event at a restaurant,” she explained.
Laura said she didn’t want to get involved in planning the proposal because it “reminded me of my parents’ divorce,” but that she would make an effort to attend the engagement party.
“On the day of our engagement, both Matt and I forgot to check on Laura,” the woman admitted. “Matt was busy with more important things so I don’t think it was his fault, but I do feel a little guilty for not reminding her. In the end, she didn’t come to the party.”
Truth be told, no one is to blame for this mistake as both Matt and the lady were busy planning their engagement and it was Laura’s personal choice not to get involved.
Laura began making “dramatic” posts online about the trauma she experienced after missing the party.
“The next day, she began posting dramatic things online about how traumatized she was by how little her friends cared about her and updating her followers on her trauma healing process,” the woman wrote. “She posted that she was in a very dark place and thought she had PTSD.”
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No one enjoys being excluded from going out with friends, especially an important milestone like an engagement, but Laura’s self-diagnosis with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a step too far — not only is it a gross misunderstanding of the disorder, but it’s also insensitive to those who actually suffer from PTSD.
This is exactly why the woman took Laura’s post so personally.
“I was diagnosed with PTSD by a psychologist in my senior year of high school after an incident that happened during my freshman year,” she revealed. “For a long time I felt like it wasn’t a big deal, and I’ve felt guilty and ashamed about it. I still have nightmares and flashbacks from time to time, but I’ve gotten better since going to therapy.”
“I know I have my own issues with the word and it really bothers me when people seem to use it without understanding what it means,” she added.
According to the National Institute of Mental Health:To be diagnosed with PTSD, “symptoms must last for more than a month and be severe enough to interfere with daily life, including relationships and work. Symptoms range from nightmares and flashbacks to sleep problems, negative emotions and social isolation.”
The woman, being sensitive about the issue, lashed out at Laura for using such language inappropriately.
The woman explained that none of her friends at college, including Laura, knew about her past experiences with PTSD.
“One day she called me and started talking about how traumatized she was. I finally lost my patience and said, ‘You’re not traumatized. Stop making a big deal out of it. It just happened exactly the way you wanted it to happen,'” the woman wrote.
She later felt guilty about her emotional reaction to Laura, and although she had difficulty communicating her discomfort with Laura’s self-pity and hyperbolic language, her feelings were valid.
“I think I was being a bit too harsh. She posted online (without my name, at least) that she doesn’t understand what it’s like to be traumatized when one of her friends, who she thought would support her, is an abuser,” the woman added. “But I honestly feel like Laura is exaggerating things that had nothing to do with her.”
Reddit users agreed that Laura was immature and selfish towards such an important moment in her friends’ lives, focusing on how everything would affect her rather than supporting and celebrating for them.
“I can’t stand people who abuse psychological terms that have actual meanings to express their normal feelings,” one person commented on the post. “This person is totally creating their own drama and I want no part in it.”
Weaponizing therapeutic speech is a real problem.
In this context, it is clear that Laura frequently uses mental health jargon to manipulate others into feeling sympathy for her, when in reality all this behavior does is alienate people.
As the woman pointed out, maybe she accidentally forgot to include Laura in her friend group’s engagement plans, but if she hadn’t gone out of her way to exclude herself, she might have had a chance to participate.
Because it’s so common, especially among Gen Z, we need to be aware of the issues surrounding weaponized therapeutic speech, which is the act of misrepresenting and weaponizing mental health terminology as a form of manipulation.
When it comes to mental health terminology, you should tread carefully, especially when sharing publicly, because you never know what another person is really going through.
Now that we are finally in an era where individuals can recognize that mental health is an important issue to discuss, we should choose wisely how we express our feelings and experiences so as not to downplay the seriousness of such disorders and symptoms.
Francesca Duarte is a writer for YourTango’s news and entertainment team based in Orlando, Florida, covering lifestyle, human interest, adventure and spiritual topics.
