It can. It can also reinforce the trauma. Or it can do nothing.

It all depends on how someone interprets it

Personally, I have struggled with people telling me I’m insane or mentally ill or denying my experiences in life, but there are stories in the media and the internet that have shown me I’m not insane, my experiences are just rare and outside of the cultural norm and people tend to reject my experiences because of that. I actually identify with a lot of the shit minorities deal with a lot more than the majority experience, because I am an ‘invisible minority’ for most of my adult life, but I did not grow up as such.

I remember the first story that really made me feel seen was a story was a news article in 2007 about working class Latino kids and the issues they faced attending Harvard. Because that was what I was and I literally went through all the same struggles as the students in the article, but nobody had every acknowledged them as struggles. The concept of a ‘first generation college student’ didn’t really exist when I attended university, especially if your skin is white.

Whenever I expressed any frustration or discontent with my situation and the way people treated me people just told me I was a ungrateful selfish prick and I deserved to suffer and I had no right to complain because I was so ‘privileged’. I was not mentally ill or insane, I simple was the object of many folks anger because I was different than them.

That said, I did have a few good professors and friends who were also part of that invisible minority and really helped me deal with those problems. It wasn’t all bad.