Elisa A. Escalante/ LCSW/ 11-07-2025
I learned early on in my career that I cannot ask someone “Have you experienced any traumatic events?” Why? Because I had to recognize that if I want the truth, I need to be specific so that the client cannot minimize or deny what they have been through. They don’t necessarily do this on purpose. It’s a defense mechanism that is often modeled or abused into people. Trauma is a very subjective word that holds stigma. People interpret what it means differently. Some people are taught to believe they are not allowed to be traumatized. Trauma get’s minimized through generations. For the majority of my career, I worked with military members and veterans; a population that minimizes their own mental health symptoms for the sake of their reputation and career. And many clients that have suffered from childhood trauma may have been groomed by their abusers into believing that the abuse was ‘normal’.
Starter prompts that indicate minimization:
“It could have been worse” or “There are people in the world that are going through worse…” These statements minimize peoples experiences by using a compare and despair lens. Naturally, if we only compare ourselves to people that have been through ‘worse’, we will then see our situation as ‘not that bad’. However, one person having ‘more trauma’, does not eliminate another person’s ‘lesser’ trauma. This is a subjective thing, anyways. Truthfully, people use these lines to minimize because they either do not want to hear about someone else’s pain, or they do not want to deal with their own pain, so they focus on someone elses.
“My Dad/ Mom used to beat me, I only yell at you, so…..” This is a common tactic that parents may use in order to justify their parenting style. In this example, the parent has the perception that verbal abuse is a non issue, and only physical abuse can do harm. But physical, sexual, and verbal abuse are all traumatizing. As well as abandonment and neglect; medical, educational and / or emotional. There are many different ways children can be traumatized. Comparing/ minimizing the specific type of trauma invalidates all forms of abuse. Parents are using their own minimizing defense mechanism in order to protect themselves. It helps them believe they are not doing harm; it also bleeds into denial territory.
“My coworker was exposed to X,Y,Z, and I didn’t go through anything like that… so…” This is a very common line from military members and the veteran population. They know people that have sustained severe injuries in combat, and therefore they feel guilty even bringing up their own personal traumatic events in combat or stateside. This is another compare lens, and it may protect their mind from just how deeply their traumas or stressors did impact them. They may also be worried about sharing their own hardships due to fear of being stigamizated or judged. Or, perhaps, they worry someone will invalidate their experience, so they minimize it first, before anyone else can.
“You have a roof over your head and food/ clothes, what could you possibly be upset about?” This statement is used by people that assume that if someone has housing, food, and essential items, that they simply cannot suffer from a mental illness. The reality is, there are plenty of people that have a stable home and income, and still suffer from trauma/ grief and various other types of life stressors or mental health conditions. Our social environment is one realm, our physical/ biological health is another. If we only focus on the basic needs such as food/ shelter, we neglect all of the other ways in which someone can struggle. This is not to say that poverty does not come with its own type of unique struggle. It’s highlighting that the condition of PTSD umbrella’s over many different types of life traumas.
Combo Defense mechanisms
Humor with minimization: It is not uncommon for people to joke about their life stressors/ traumas in order to find a way to emotionally deal with the heaviness of it. It could also be useful to use humor as a more comfortable way to share with others. Some people do not want peoples pity and would prefer to keep the conversation light. Or perhaps there is guilt over the idea of ‘burdening’ someone with their trauma story.
Minimization with Gaslighting: Though this is an abuse tactic, it is worth mentioning in case someone is on the receiving end. Abusive people quite frequently find ways to lead their victims into questioning their own reality. This can happen by either minimizing the abuse that they subjected the victim to, or denying that it happened all together. The goal is to make the victim feel confused about the facts. They may start to feel like they are the one that is over reacting or crazy, because the abuser refuses to take accountability.
Intellectualize to Minimize: Some people use intellectual/ logical facts in order to avoid fearful emotions. For example, going on a dangerous mission overseas but looking up the statistics of their chance of being killed overseas versus the statistics of them dying in a car accident stateside. This could offer some comfort and assist their brain in being more optimistic. They can convince themselves, with numbers, that they will likely avoid mortality even in dangerous situations. And, some people will only discuss their trauma with the facts, while not talking about their emotions associated with what happened to them.
Functionally Mental 