Unfortunately, there are many people on TikTok (and real-life) that use both clinical and nonclinical terms incorrectly, thanks to a poor understanding of the concept and its origins

Like many helping professionals, I serve from my history and I grew up in a house full of chaos, and a number of years ago, I happened to meet with someone who was completing her master’s in social work and wanted to meet with me individually for therapy in order to meet her requirements for school. And on our second session, she said, so you grew up in an alcoholic, abusive family and the air left the room. I thought to myself, we don’t say that out loud. And the next thing I thought was, this is what I’m going to do with the rest of my life to help people. I realized over time that not just the trauma piece was important, but the way that trauma impacts relationships.

If you have a teen in your household or have been around a teen, you know TikTok is probably their most used app.

Generation Z (Gen Z), born between 1997 to 2012 is considered the first generation to not only witness the genesis of the internet but to grow alongside it. With the oldest of the Gen Z youth being in their mid to late 20s, we are able to ascertain both the positive and negative effects of being a digital native.

Being the child of immigrants means that on some level, your parents sacrificed the familiarity of their homeland to provide you with the best life possible.

Prioritizing everyone else’s needs can feel like you are at the bottom of the totem pole, carrying the weight of what everyone feels they deserve above your desires.

In relationships, our needs are often experienced in surface-level situations but can have a deeper impact on your relationship.

As human beings, we have two fundamental needs aside from food and water. These needs are to feel as though we belong in the world and to have safety emotionally, physically, or mentally.

As you progress throughout life and you have untreated or what we trauma therapists call “trapped trauma,” your mental health symptoms will continue to worsen.

As people progress throughout life, there are signs that they have not dealt with their trauma, especially to the trained eye. This manifests in two ways. They either internalize their pain and suffering or externalize their pain and suffering.

It is inevitable that at some point during your lifetime you are going to suffer with grief not once, but probably multiple times. Most people have the misconception that grief only encompasses the death of a loved one.

The more significant your trauma, and the more of it (compound trauma), exponentially affects brain development, the immune system, hormonal systems, and even the way our DNA is read and transcribed (replicated).