Trauma Slut

A trauma slut is someone who, either actively or passively, becomes the go-to person for friends, colleagues, or family members to offload their emotional baggage or traumatic experiences. This individual often exhibits a unique blend of empathy and resilience, enabling them to absorb and respond to these intense emotional disclosures without being overwhelmed. Whether it's a heart-wrenching breakup story, workplace drama, or family feud, the trauma slut is the one everyone turns to for a sympathetic ear and a shoulder to cry on.

After spending hours consoling her friends about their various problems, Saikat realized he had become the group's trauma slut.

by Saikonaut March 20, 2024

trauma block

Trauma block Trau-ma blo-ck is a term used when one’s memories are often blocked out due to traumatic experiences relating or corresponding to the traumatic experience. The brain does this as an effort to block out and overwhelm residual painful feeling due to trauma.

“I don’t have much memories of my childhood cause most of it is Trauma blocked”

by - Atlas (I’m proud of you <3) March 28, 2024

Childhood ship trauma

A weird ship that you found as a kid with unlimited internet access and hate with your entire soul. Usually from cartoons from late 1990-2010’s and involves, incest, pedophilia, and/or, enemies to lovers

Friend 1: I hate the humanized bill cipher design

Friend 2: Ewwww! Don’t mention that, that’s my Childhood ship trauma

by ButcherOfZoos July 20, 2022

Atheist trauma

Atheist trauma is the psychological and emotional suffering caused by negative experiences in contexts of atheism, such as militant atheism on social media, manipulation, anti-pseudoscience activism, abuse (emotional, physical, sexual) by atheist figures, or the existential crisis surrounding theism vs. atheism, as in the case of a person with faith who experiences an existential crisis after being exposed to various militant atheist content on social media, generating guilt, shame, anxiety, confusion, and even PTSD, being a legitimate response to toxic and authoritarian environments. It is not the presence of faith itself, but damage to mental health that affects identity and can lead to the need for spiritual and personal reconstruction, separating abuse from genuine belief.

Atheist trauma often goes hand in hand with scientific trauma, which refers to the psychological and emotional suffering caused by negative experiences in scientific or science communication contexts, such as scientific activism on social media, scientific debates that end with accusations of scientific relativism, postmodernism, denialism, anti-science, "relativism," abuse by scientific figures, or the existential crisis surrounding what is science and pseudoscience. It almost always goes hand in hand with anti-pseudoscience trauma, which is the psychological and emotional suffering caused by negative experiences in anti-pseudoscience contexts, such as anti-pseudoscience activism on social media, manipulation, anti-pseudoscience activism, abuse (emotional, physical, sexual) by figures who combat pseudoscience, or the existential crisis surrounding what is and what is not pseudoscience and whether or not one's identity is based on pseudoscience.

Even though there is no formal recognition of atheist trauma, scientific trauma, and anti-pseudoscience trauma, they are still valid conditions that do exist in fact.

by AbzuInExile January 24, 2026

Atheist Trauma Syndrome

The legitimate psychological injury resulting from exposure to toxic, authoritarian, or abusive environments within atheist or anti-theist communities, not from atheism itself. It encompasses PTSD-like symptoms—anxiety, shame, guilt, and identity fragmentation—triggered by militant online harassment, dogmatic bullying from atheist figures, or the profound existential crisis induced when coercive "debunking" tactics dismantle a person's worldview without offering compassionate support. The trauma stems from the social and rhetorical violence experienced in these spaces, leaving individuals isolated and psychologically wounded, often requiring recovery that involves separating the valid philosophical stance of atheism from the harmful behaviors of its most aggressive proponents.

Example: A young person from a moderate religious background, curious about science, joins an online atheist forum. They are immediately bombarded with vicious ridicule of their "fairytale" beliefs, called "stupid" and "brainwashed" by prominent members, and pressured to publicly renounce their family. They develop severe anxiety, lose their sense of meaning, and feel profound shame for their prior beliefs, yet also feel alienated from the hostile atheist community. Their trauma isn't from losing faith, but from the brutal, dehumanizing process through which it was attacked and stripped away. Atheist Trauma Syndrome.

by Dumuabzu January 25, 2026

Atheist Trauma Denial

The reflexive dismissal, minimization, or gaslighting directed at individuals reporting Atheist Trauma Syndrome. It employs tactics like claiming "atheism is just a lack of belief, it can't cause trauma," blaming the victim for being "too sensitive" or "illogical," or accusing them of secretly wanting their "comforting delusions" back. This denial protects the self-image of atheist communities as purely rational and benign, refusing to acknowledge that communities built around any identity, including a non-belief identity, can cultivate abusive power dynamics and inflict real harm.

Example: A person shares in an online space that a famous atheist speaker's relentless, mocking rhetoric triggered a depressive episode and existential terror. The response is flooded with comments like, "Truth hurts, snowflake," "You're just mad your sky-daddy got called out," and "This isn't trauma, it's cognitive dissonance. Grow up." The denial pathologizes the normal human response to social aggression and frames cruelty as a necessary part of intellectual enlightenment. Atheist Trauma Denial.

by Dumuabzu January 25, 2026

Atheist Trauma Syndrome Denial

A more specific, clinical-sounding form of Atheist Trauma Denial that actively disputes the syndromic nature of the injury. It argues that the collection of symptoms (anxiety, identity disturbance, hypervigilance) does not constitute a legitimate psychological syndrome because it originates from a "rational" source (criticism of religion). This denial often comes from those with a simplistic, hyper-rationalist view of the mind, rejecting the well-established principle that the manner of discourse—not just its factual content—can be pathogenic, especially when it involves manipulation, verbal abuse, and social ostracization.

Example: A therapist identifies a client's symptoms as consistent with complex trauma stemming from prolonged harassment in an atheist activist group. An online commentator, citing the client's story, writes a lengthy blog post titled "The 'Atheist Trauma Syndrome' Myth," arguing that what's described is merely "education-induced discomfort" and that recognizing it as a syndrome medicalizes healthy skepticism and protects religious fragility. This denies the client's lived reality by imposing an ideological filter over their psychological diagnosis. Atheist Trauma Syndrome Denial.

by Dumuabzu January 25, 2026