Trauma Talk is a Q & A about all things trauma related. Emily Healy answers your questions and shares her personal point of view. You can submit your questions here.
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Let’s talk about trauma.
Why? Because we don’t talk about trauma nearly enough. On Thursday, September 18, 2025, a student at Elgin Community College was taken by federal ICE agents from the K-building parking lot. In an event that shook the entire campus community, what happened at ECC called upon our students, instructors, and administrators to respond. And we have. A grassroots action spread news of the incident by word-of-mouth. A campus-wide email was later released, and the College took action, hosting a series of events to discuss what happened.
The events on our campus show not only the significance of the role of our community in helping to support each other, but the potential that trauma has to impact us. While trauma is beginning to emerge in public discourse as a more commonly-discussed topic, a lot of us hear this term without knowing what it actually means. And we desperately need to talk about it.
The word trauma comes from a Greek term meaning “wound,” and initially referred to the physical harm people sustained from accidents or acts of violence. Even today, the term is still used in medical and surgical contexts, such as the trauma centers in hospitals that provide care for patients with life-threatening injuries. Traumatologists, the people who study and treat trauma, refer to these single-incident situations as acute traumas. However, there are multiple types of traumas people can experience.
We know that people have been suffering from trauma for as long as there have been human beings. There are mentions of combat-related traumas in ancient texts dating back thousands of years, even including the Bible. Given the pervasiveness of trauma in times of war, it shouldn’t be too surprising that we can find historical references to its impacts, even if the word “trauma” wasn’t explicitly used. In fact, it wasn’t until the 1800s that trauma began to refer to the serious psychological wounds that people suffer.
Following World War I and World War II, the impacts of combat on returning soldiers began to receive more significant attention. Initially described with terms like “shell shock” or the “thousand-yard stare,” the lasting mental wounds that surviving service members exhibited could no longer be ignored. Some of those who left to fight the war returned as shadows of their former selves, and many reported feeling haunted by the echoes of the battlefield. But despite increased recognition, these impacts were often seen as proof of cowardice, a shameful deficit in moral character. Open hostility often met the very people who first suffered greatly and then dared to survive.
It wasn’t until 1980 that the condition we now call post-traumatic stress disorder was first included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Health Disorders. The DSM is a guide used by healthcare professionals like therapists to diagnose psychological and physical conditions. Contrary to popular belief that PTSD is a disorder primarily affecting veterans, the majority of people diagnosed today have never served in the military. This indicates that PTSD has more far-reaching impacts than only the front lines.
What’s more, the belief that PTSD is a disorder primarily impacting men is also inaccurate. In fact, women are twice as likely to receive a diagnosis in their lifetimes. The most recent DSM statistics show that while lifetime prevalence in men is between 4.1% and 5.4%, between between 8.0% and 11.0% of women are impacted by PTSD, double the rate of their male counterparts. As of the most recent DSM update in 2022, rates of PTSD in transgender populations were not yet available, but are in significant need of additional study.
If we think back to the way trauma was originally clinically identified in the 1980s, the DSM defined it as an incident that was “outside the range of common experiences.” This definition was far too narrow because it focused only on singular, extreme events. But what about those of us who have experienced repeated situations of harm over and over, again and again? In the years since PTSD was first formally recognized, we have come to learn that trauma is much more common than previously thought.
The reality is that many of our experiences are not outside the range of what can be considered traumatic, but well within it. And trauma is around us all the time. Having to make a decision between paying for rent or paying for food is trauma. Being part of a society that doesn’t provide healthcare is trauma. Living under the threat of government agents disappearing people is trauma.
I believe that the word trauma is not used nearly enough, and that we need to start saying it. We need language to describe our experience, and the systems that try to suppress these conversations further disempower the already disempowered. Speaking truth is a deeply liberative act. We empower ourselves by calling it what it is: Trauma. Out loud. Over and over. Again and again.
Emily K. Healy is a tenured instructor of sociology who brings both compassion and her expertise in trauma to the campus community. Healy holds multiple professional certifications, specializing in traumatic grief and advocacy for survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault. As a spiritual care provider and training chaplain, Healy’s philosophy is rooted in empathic witness for each individual’s story. Her approach to trauma-informed care believes that people are not pathologies, centering consent, harm reduction, and honoring that healing is among the hardest work we will ever be called to do.
