Stop Telling People To Get Over It l Ep 42

trauma-informed care, recovery, boundaries, emotional healing

“Just get over it” sounds like typical advice from the outside, but to someone living through trauma, it sounds dismissive and cheapens their experience.

Let's unpack why that mindset fails—and what survivors actually need: patience, consent, compassion, and support that doesn’t turn into an interrogation or Barbara Walters interview (have sat for many of those). 

You rarely know the full story behind someone’s pain and even survivors can still be uncovering the ripple effects years later. I also share what it feels like to be judged by people who know an itty bitty titty fraction of what happened—and why “mind your damn business” can be a very healthy boundary.

We break down the difference between checking in with care versus pushing for details, how to encourage support without trying to control someone’s healing. 

(I make it really easy for you, I literally I give you a sample script for how to ask someone about their recovery respectfully.)

Let's all show up for people better.

Win most, lose some

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Transcript

How To Ask The Question

SPEAKER_00 0:00

And if you're still like, but I really want to ask, but I don't know if I'm close enough, but I really want to ask, I don't I don't know if I'm close enough. And me saying that your opinion isn't valid isn't enough to stop you, we'll make it fine. Just go up to them and be direct, but start with this. Be like, hey, I want to talk about your healing, or I'm curious about your healing and how everything's going on. Are you comfortable sharing and talking to me? If you're not, more than understand, I'm not even sure if I'm valid in asking this of you. And they might be like, no, I'm really desperate to talk about it, or they might be like, fuck off. I'm like, you and whichever one it is, okay. Almost dying taught me how to live. Being struck by a car left me in a three and a half week coma with 15 broken bones and 16 surgeries to complete, including brain surgery. However, I woke up from that coma in an even greater place than I ever foresaw for myself. How? The universe will guide you out of the darkness and into the light if you allow it. Often, spirituality comes off as too highbrow. I'm not about that. Welcome to the podcast that talks and teaches about it through the lens of humor. Together, we'll harness positive energy and use it to work with the universe, all while giggling the entire time. Welcome to Gabriella Rebranded. Win most, lose some. I think the last thing a trauma survivor wants to hear is just get over it. Um, and I don't think we're commonly told that. I think anyone with basic empathy knows that that's insensitive to say to someone. Um, but I am sure it is said a lot of times behind our backs. I wish they would just get over it. It was years ago. They need to move on. I don't get why she always brings it up. Like she's always playing that card, like, stop it. That last one was said to my face one time, but I digress. Um, I also one time had somebody tell me that I talk about my brain injury too much. So, so yes, we we have been told those things. Again, digress, digress. Anyway, to an extent, I get it. Whether you're a hater or someone who wants to be there for someone because you love and care about them, feeling like somebody you love is dwelling on something or refusing to let it go can be exhausting. You don't want someone, someone you love, to let someone dictate their life that you don't feel like they should give that power to. Believe me, I a hundred percent get that. But here's why getting over it doesn't work for trauma survivors. Before I get into the rest of the episode, you guys know what I'm gonna do. Uh, like, subscribe, review, go to my website, sign up for the newsletter, Gabriella Brebranded.com, hit me up on social media at Gabriella Rebranded on absolutely everything. Okay, that's it. Yay. Let's get one thing straight right off the bat. People can only understand the extent of their own emotions and their own experiences. So if you haven't been through what the trauma survivor has been through, you don't get it, you don't understand, stop pretending that you do. From the outside looking in, we don't know how someone is internally affected. And we don't know all the details of someone's trauma and what's been affected and how many things have been affected and in what ways. Chances are you don't know all the details of what happened, even if you know a lot. And even the trauma survivor themselves probably doesn't know all the ways that they've been affected. Learning how much your trauma has affected you and where it's affected you is a years-long process. And over the course of several years, it will show up in different ways at different times. So to pass a judgment on a trauma survivor and where they should be or if they should have gotten over it by now, that's completely invalid. Whenever anyone tells a story about anything, no matter how detailed, you should always assume you're only seeing a percentage of the picture. And you're also only seeing it through their lens, their own perspective. And one person's perspective is not the whole situation. It's not the whole story. The percentage that you know may be higher or lower depending on how close you are with that person, or how sort of neutral or bipartisan they can be when they're telling the story, but it is still only a percentage of what's going on. There is a chunk or several chunks of information and situations and aspects and angles and all the viewpoints, all the lenses on the camera that you don't know. I recently had a traumatizing experience unrelated to the Nissan, but a traumatizing experience nonetheless. And it wasn't something that I was vocal about, especially a huge part of it I wasn't vocal about because it was my business and only my business. And like again, it's trauma. I'm handling as I had to handle it. You know, I have a slow processing speed as a consequence of my brain injury, but I a lot of people, when they go through any form of trauma, it just takes a while to process it. So, like, yeah, I just wasn't I wasn't sharing a lot of it and I didn't have to. Like it was something that affected me. Like it wasn't anyone's business. I had people saying things behind my back and passing judgment, sometimes negative, and offering me feedback on how I should be handling things when they didn't even know what was going on. I wasn't done processing, it was something very serious and very big and very personal. So, to have people coming at me, you best believe I did not stand for an ounce of that. To those that implied I should get over it or let it go, mind your damn business. You're speaking out of your ass. You don't know what's going on. And that's how it is for all trauma survivors. Everyone is speaking out of their ass when they speak about someone else's trauma or someone else's individual experience. Everyone handles pain differently, and everyone's healing is not linear. So where someone is in their process of healing may not be where like you personally want it to be, but like it's healing isn't about what you, an outside party, personally wants. They may be taking longer to heal than you expected them to. They may be going through different cycles, whether it's grief and anger and overscheduling themselves or shutting themselves down and anxiety and hypervigilance and sadness and overscheduling themselves. Like there's tons of cycles of healing that we all go through. The only thing that you should be doing when observing a trauma survivor's healing is checking in to make sure that they're safe. And they may not want to share all the details with you. That's it, that's their prerogative. Just make sure that they're safe. It's their own journey. And if they want to talk with you more about their healing process, they will lead that conversation. Do not press, do not ask questions that they don't offer up. Now, it is best case scenario that they have someone that they are being entirely transparent with as they're healing. That's just a safety thing, of course. You can ask and check in to make sure that they have someone to talk to about all of it, whether it's a therapist or a family member or a really trusted close friend. You can encourage them to find a person they feel comfortable opening up to if they don't have someone yet. But we can't control other people as much as we may like to. We can only control ourselves. All trauma survivors differ in how transparent they are about what they went through and their healing process and when they where they are in their healing. You may get someone like me who is grossly transparent and loud about the Nissan and aspects of my story and everything that happened to me. But even me that seems so like I scream about everything has a lot of things that I keep very, very close to my chest. I've noticed that I scream and am very vocal about smaller things and medium-sized things and even a lot of big things, especially the ones that seem more obvious, so that no one even considers like other things that could potentially go on. Like I've bamboozled everyone around me to think that if I ever have a problem in my life, I fucking scream about it. So that like no one even considers that there may be other things going on that they don't know about. I'm a little bit of an evil genius, I'm a Scorpio moon, I can turn that manipulation on if I want to. The select things that I am private about, I'm really private about. So the last thing I want is someone blowing them up or interrogating me about them. Someone can only heal if they personally are ready to heal. You may have someone that you love so much that you desperately want to go to therapy and they definitely need that therapy. There may be very obvious things happening that they need to be in therapy, but unless they themselves want to commit to it, it's not gonna happen. Even if you somehow force them there, it probably won't be productive. Someone can only heal if they are ready to heal. And believe me, I know that, as do my parents. If you are a super close friend of a trauma survivor or a family member of a trauma survivor, you can just ask them, hey, I'm not gonna like pressure you to talk about this, but if you would like to talk about any aspects of your healing, like I I'm so happy to ask questions and listen. Because there is a chance that sometimes trauma survivors are so desperate to talk about what they're going through, but they don't want to be the one to bring it up. But you should always one, only, only, only do this if you're a close friend or family member. And then you should also always add that little bit of a disclaimer of like, I'm not gonna necessarily push you to talk about what you don't want to talk about. But if you want to talk about it, I would love to ask you questions. I'm curious about your healing. Trauma can make you feel really, really lonely. I mean, it does not can. Trauma does make you feel really, really lonely. So there is a chance that they want at least one person to talk about their trauma with. You can ask if they've considered therapy, if they've considered a support group, if they are craving that sense of communication and community and feeling lonely. If you want to press a little more and ask them things like if they've considered medication or whatever, only do that if you're super, super, super close with them. And if you have any doubts, if you're close enough to ask that question, that's your answer right there. You're not close enough to ask that question. So just so don't ask it. Don't ask it. And your opinion, whatever it is, it's invalid. Not every opinion is valid in every conversation. And also always remember there is no one trick pony for healing. So just because you're like, well, I know that that person went to that support group and that really looked worked for them, or I know that girl fucking loves Lexapro. It's been really good for her. Everyone's healing is different, everyone's brain is different. So, like, do not like compare one trauma survivor to another trauma survivor, no matter how similar. Okay. Just like everyone's healing path is unique because everyone's brain is unique. And if you're still like, but I really want to ask, but I don't know if I'm close enough, but I really want to ask, I don't know if I'm close enough. And me saying that your opinion isn't valid isn't enough to stop you. That's fine. I mean, it we'll make it fine. Just go up to them and be direct, but start with this. Be like, hey, um, I want to talk about your healing, or I'm curious about your healing and how everything's going on. Are you comfortable sharing and talking to me? It if you're not, more than understand, I'm not even sure if I'm valid in asking this of you. And they might be like, no, I'm really desperate to talk about it, or they might be like, fuck off. I'm like, you and whichever one it is, okay. Sometimes just being direct and asking the damn question and not playing all this like theoretical, I don't know if I should, I don't know, dancing around everything is like the best case scenario. So if you have a trauma survivor in your life and you just wish they would get over it, and you only have good intentions and you love them so much, and you just want to ask questions because you're you're so curious and and you care about them and it's all well-intentions. So why are you not supposed to press? And why are you not supposed to ask these invasive questions when it's all good intentions and you just want the best for them? Let me break it down for you. It's fun to talk about Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey, but do any of us actually know what the fuck we're talking about? No. We say our opinions to like our friends and stuff like that because they're celebrities and they have a public life. But would we ever say them directly to Taylor and Travis? No. One, uh, because I don't think any of us anytime soon are going to be in a situation where we get to have a sit-down uh interview of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey. Um, but also two, we don't say our opinions to Taylor and Travis because that would be fucking ludicrous. We don't observe them on a day-to-day basis. We do not know what the fuck we are talking about. Talk about speaking out of your ass. Like, as much as I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall when Justin Bieber heard Lose You to Love Me by Selena Gomez for the first time. I wasn't, I wasn't, so I don't know anything about that situation. I wish I did, but I don't. And it's the same when trauma affects us, normies, non-celebrities, okay? And even when trauma affects celebrities, it's it's always the same, okay? It's the exactly that. Everyone is entitled to their own wrong opinion, but not everyone is entitled to share that opinion. Everyone is on their own journey and healing as they may. Not everyone's gonna handle things the exact same as you or heal the exact same as you. Isn't that what makes humanity fascinating? How boring would it be if every single person you knew handled things exactly as you did, had all the opinions that you did, you never got to have fun debates. None of you had any original ideas from the other because you all had the same ideas. None of you had any special skills that were different than the other because you all had the same skills. I mean, like, think about what's that episode? I think it's in the fairly odd parents, where it's like the gray people and everyone's gray and they're just like a gray blob walking around. Someone's gonna listen and know what I'm talking about. Like, that's what life would be if everyone handled everything the exact same as you. We are all a sum of our own experiences, and trauma is its experience. So it impacts you. It's a piece of you, it's there, and you can't just get over a piece of yourself. And that piece may be remodeled, renovated, reduced, expanded, redesigned, foreclosed, rebranded, but it is there and it always will be. I am stronger than my trauma, I am bigger than my trauma, but that doesn't mean that my trauma didn't impact me. There have been so many changes to my life and me as a person and my life path because of my trauma. And that is true of all trauma survivors, no matter how big or small. So, no, we can't just get over it and we shouldn't deny it or resist it. That just makes it worse, still there, but worse. We have to accept it and accept that it's there. Only then can we do what we should do with it. Just let it be and learn to work with it, however that may be. And we ourselves might not be consistently satisfied with where it is and how it's looking and what it's doing and where the construction's at. But that's why remodels, renovations, and rebrands exist. Okay, that's it. This has been Gabriella Rebranded Wimmos Loosum.