Starbucks-Induced Trauma

Mar 13, 2024

Psychotherapist and interfaith minister Nancy Colier asks and answers this question in a Baltimore Sun opinion piece. Instead of a novel understanding of the term, she simply works from the DSM-5, which considers trauma to be exposure “to actual or threatened death, serious injury, or sexual violence”.

But a popular understanding of the term seemingly encompasses any negative experience, real or percieved. The list of things teens present to her as trauma illustrates the chasm between how professionals and patients understand the concept:

  • A friend gave her a dirty look
  • Not being invited to a party
  • A parent yelling at them for skipping school
  • Being asked to redo a school assignment
  • A demanding boss
  • A bad date
  • A discontinued Starbucks drink
  • Getting caught in the rain
  • A Soul Cycle teacher switching studios

She goes on to explain how these patients place a disproportionate value on their own mild irritations, which “undermines and invalidates the suffering of those who have experienced real trauma”. I disagree that it invalidates their suffering (as it remains valid), but it certainly does undermine their care.

In a world of finite resources, therapy appointments are a zero-sum game: every appointment for a maladjusted child triggered over the Starbucks menu is one less that’s available for people who actually need it. Yet, we wonder why the situation has gotten worse despite more therapists and therapy appointments than ever.

Part of the reason we’re getting nowhere on mental health is because these entitled, narcissistic little shits who have never been told “no”. The people with diagnoses in their social media bios consume precious resources at a rate far exceeding their need.

Nancy the therapist offers some sage advice:

Instead of stamping our feet like toddlers, demanding that life be what we want, insisting that we’re entitled to always be comfortable, we’re better off simply offering ourselves compassion for life’s unavoidable disagreeable-ness, and supporting ourselves through the whole miracle and catastrophe that is a normal life. Seeing and claiming “trauma” everywhere we look won’t bring us relief. Relief, paradoxically, arrives when we give up our fight with reality and relax with life on life’s terms (which doesn’t mean we always enjoy it).