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How #metoo Can Actually Be Harmful

Are we re-traumatizing survivors?

Paige McDonald
Oct 19, 2017
Millennials of Upstate NY
444
How #metoo Can Actually Be Harmful
waow.images.worldnow.com

Lately, #metoo has been going around on social media from Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Tumblr. It is great to see so many people standing up and saying what happen to them wasn't okay and to build a community of women who are standing up and saying this is an issue, because it is. One is too many.

Survivors of sexual assault and abuse develop mental health issues like

PTSD, depression, eating disorders, drug addictions, mood disorders, anxiety disorders etc.

#metoo has been going around on so many social media platforms and it shows how many people of all ages have experienced sexual harassment, sexual assault, and rape in their lifetime. The amount of people who have used the hashtag is scary. The idea that so many women have experienced sexualized trauma in some way is frightening.

I believe that, honestly, the tweet excluding men is damaging. We have been excluding men from sexualized trauma for years. Which feeds into people believe that sexual assault, abuse, harassment doesn't happen to men, but it does. We as a society need to start including men in the issue and bring them into the conversation because this isn't just a women issue. It's a human issue. It doesn't matter what age, gender, sexual orientation, gender expression, gender identity, religion, political view, economic income, weight, height you are. It can happen to anyone.

We also have to remember this can be very triggering to survivors of sexualized violence. Some stories can have details that are similar to other people's stories. As I stated earlier, some survivors have PTSD from their own assault and seeing something online can be re-traumatizing for them.

With everything already online about Harvey Weinstein, Bill Cosby, Brock Turner and so many other stories, and for survivors in colleges, Betsy DeVos coming and changing Title IX and how schools interact with survivors, it can be very traumatizing. As glad I am that there are cases like these bringing light to the seriousness of the issue, I also can't help but wonder will there ever be breaks for survivors? Survivors log on to a social media platform and are hit with the news about yet another sexual assault, abuse, or harassment case on top of dealing with what they are already going through with their own trauma.

Survivors can take a break from social media but its also on TV, Newspaper, magazines, and people are talking about it. TV shows like Orange Is The New Black, Scandal, Game of Thrones, American Horror Story use rape as a plot to move a character arch in a different direction or move it along or even use it as a scare tactic. So there really isn't a break for survivors. They have to deal with their own trauma and also have to deal with being triggered by outside source. What I can say is it does get a little easier dealing with triggers like Harvey Weinstein, does it suck any less? No.

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This article has not been reviewed by Odyssey HQ and solely reflects the ideas and opinions of the creator.
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