Is trauma a commodity now?

TikTok, therapy apps, tell-all memoirs - and how I tried really hard not to sound dumb

In recent years I’ve often found myself increasingly preoccupied with the cultural space that trauma occupies. I think everyone has experiences that are, if not ‘traumatic’ in the strict clinical sense, then trauma-adjacent: stressful, unsettling, the after-effects linger in your system for days, a chemical trace of fear that makes your breath quicken and your fingertips tingle.

As a journalist (and especially as a female journalist), you’re often encouraged to turn those experiences into copy: the tell-all essay that positions you as a survivor of sexual assault, grief or mental health crisis, alcoholic, drug addict etc - pick your slot in the carousel of traumatic confessions (no shade, I’ve written my fair share of these).

The appetite for these stories was supercharged with the advent of social media, mental health influencers and particularly TikTok. A few years ago there was a unique kind of lawlessness to how mental health was positioned on that particular platform. From addiction influencers who livestreamed their cocaine binges to people posting live from respite care after a suicide attempt. I found it fascinating that the darker the stories, the more followers and engagement these accounts got.

At some point, trauma had gone from a clinical diagnosis to something closer to cultural currency.

That’s what I explore in my latest piece for The Sunday Times. Seeing it in print this weekend was both thrilling and a little unnerving - partly because it feels like the conversation around trauma is not an easy one to have and certainly not from the perspective of an impartial bystander. You’re talking about people’s lived experiences, their pain and I worried that, in trying to compress the theory of trauma-as-commodity into 1400 words, I would come across as glib, heartless or dumb. Maybe I did?

There is real power in naming our pain, and in sharing our stories. But there’s also a whole industry built around turning both the story and the sharing into a product. And in the meantime, the definitions of what even counts as a ‘trauma’ have widened beyond recognition.

📰 The full article which appeared in this weekend’s Sunday Times is below, available to paying subscribers. The bits in italics where cut for space, I’ve added them back in due to vanity.