Secular Trauma Syndrome

The chronic condition stemming from unresolved Secular Trauma, characterized by a defensive, hyper-rationalist worldview, deep-seated distrust of communal belonging, and a persistent, often unacknowledged, existential grief. Sufferers may exhibit abrasive atheist militancy as a defense against their own sadness, or conversely, a hollow, consumerist approach to filling the "god-shaped hole." Symptoms include an inability to engage with metaphor or ritual, social alienation, and a cynical aversion to any form of transcendence or collective meaning-making, having equated all such things with their traumatic religious past.

Example: A former evangelical becomes a strident, online atheist who attacks any expression of spirituality as "stupid." They are deeply lonely, find art and music meaningless, and fill their life with cynical debate and empty productivity. Underneath the intellectual superiority is a secular trauma syndrome: an unprocessed grief for the community and cosmic certainty they lost, and a terrified rigidity that ensures they will never be "fooled" again by any belief system. Their rationality is a fortress built around a wound.

by Dumu The Void January 27, 2026

Videogame Trauma Syndrome

The chronic condition resulting from unresolved Videogame Trauma, characterized by a pathological relationship with interactive media and a fragmented sense of self. Symptoms include: involuntary flashbacks to in-game events, aversion to specific game genres or mechanics associated with the trauma, an inability to play games "for fun" (everything becomes a high-stakes performance or trigger), and the blurring of in-game achievements/ failures with core identity. The sufferer may also exhibit social withdrawal except through gaming, yet find that activity itself is now a source of pain, creating a paralyzing double-bind.

Example: A former World of Warcraft raider who was bullied out of their top guild for a single mistake now, years later, cannot click on any multiplayer game icon without a wave of nausea. They start single-player games but quit minutes in, consumed by a phantom sense of letting an imaginary team down. Their friends are all gamers, so they become isolated. They have videogame trauma syndrome: their primary mode of social connection and identity has become a minefield of psychological triggers, leaving them culturally homeless and chronically dysregulated.

by Dumu The Void January 27, 2026

Mass Media Trauma Syndrome

The chronic condition arising from Mass Media Trauma, marked by a pathological relationship with information, characterized by doomscrolling addiction, apocalyptic thinking, and social withdrawal. Sufferers are simultaneously addicted to and terrified by the news, unable to disengage. Symptoms include catastrophic cognitive biases, paralyzing cynicism, the inability to plan for a future perceived as doomed, and a shattered "assumptive world" where basic beliefs about safety, order, and human goodness have been systematically dismantled by media narratives.

Example: A person refreshes five news apps hourly, jumps at every phone alert, and can only talk in terms of systemic collapse. They've abandoned career plans ("the economy will be gone in 5 years"), don't want children ("the climate is doomed"), and view any positive event as "propaganda." They are exhausted, isolated, and functionally depressed, yet cannot stop consuming the very content that makes them ill. This is mass media trauma syndrome: a state of informed helplessness and addictive despair manufactured by their media diet.

by Dumu The Void January 27, 2026