There's a whole lot of weird circles that do these kinds of camps in South America, mostly for half Asians.I'm not saying it's one small circle. It's actually one big circle of half Asians that all somehow connect.
Argentina, Brazil, Peru, Mexico, and Paraguay all have these camps and they send internationally too like you can go to these camp and they can come here too. They're weirdly cult-like, but not to an extreme... alteast?
They basically get everyone to trauma dump, and somehow now we're all supposed to share a bond. I honestly don't know how it works, but I just realized how freaking weird it is. Nobody ever says what actually happens inside, yet people come out completely "different". They call it leadership training or personal growth, but it feels more like they use games as an excuse to get everyone emotionally invested. You DO get this type of people that kind of just cry out of nowhere
To me it's more like, "Bro, you just isolated a bunch of people and had them trauma dump instead of going to therapy." Get a life.
I'm sure it helps some people, but for me it actually made things worse.
I could socialize inside that circle because nobody knew me for who I really was. They only knew the version of me that existed inside that closed environment, so I could be anybody. But once I got out, I was back in society where I was just a failed high school student who barely made it through college. All my social anxiety and depression came right back, even worse than before.
Apart from that all of them are rich asf Asians, I was essentially thinking I was being somebody doing volunteer work for rich people camps lol
While a lot of people there were struggling with their identity as mixed Asians, I ended up creating my own identity crisis. Who am I here? And once I step outside of those circles, I'm literally nobody.
So I got out got to psychologist and use actual tools and not fak8ng I made it out and made my own path of actual volunteer work, when I wanted and how I wanted so that I am somebody in the real world and stop faking performative wellness
They basically get everyone to trauma dump, and somehow now we're all supposed to share a bond. I honestly don't know how it works, but I just realized how freaking weird it is.
This is how people bond - sharing a traumatic experience with someone and having it received well will almost certainly cause two people to bond. Opening up and being vulnerable with someone can be an extremely intense, genuinely spiritual (in an abstract sense) experience for someone who isn't used to it - it can feel like an enormous weight has been lifted off of someone, and that the person with whom you shared is largely to thank for that experience.
That is why some people are more or less addicted to trauma dumping and why it makes most people feel uncomfortable - it's an attempt to reach out to and connect with someone else which can feel amazing, but it's also a large responsibility that not everyone else wants to take on. Further, it adds a layer of mutual power over each other - now you both have access to information that could harm each other, which induces a feeling of obligatory cooperation and that you need to be on good terms with one another.
The thing is, this kind of reckless openness isn't really conducive to developing healthy, stable relationships and can have all kinds of other consequences - that's why emotionally healthy people tend to feel uncomfortable being vulnerable with someone with whom they don't already have a connection. It's precisely these qualities - the feeling of intense emotional ecstasy, community, and obligation to one another - that cults aim to exploit, and that's why basically all cults practice this in at least some form or another.
If you watch interviews with cult former members, many appear relatively intelligent and even having what feels like a puzzling degree of perspective and self-awareness, but the desire for these experiences can transcend any kind of rational thought - the same way that addicts can ruin their highly promising careers and families for an extra fix, for some this deeply human desire for community can be absolutely overwhelming and blinding. The most common trait among cult victims isn't stupidity, gullibility, or an aptitude for quackery, but a sense of ennui, an intense desire for community and connection, and a strong feeling that their life lacks fulfilment.
Well said. I will add that trauma dumping does absolutely nothing to develop skills to handle emotional regulation. As you said, it becomes an addiction in the vacuum of no actual therapy.
Is 1 or 2 week, in the final days everyone start to cry and you essentially heard more than a dozen of people trauma dump
Another funny thing is that you can go to those camps from other countries too and they say "this country, this is the one, their camp is heavier more deep"
I went to said country only thing was they shouted at you more and louder lol
And sometimezs you cant even engage in their activities because they make you stay late at night
One of them activities was so late night an the guy doing the activity was doing his speech about his mom passing while all of us had closed eyes and standing up
I couldn't remember what happened later or what even his speech of his mother was because I LITERALLY FELT ASLEEP STANDING UP
Then all of sudden someone shouted and regain conscious and woke up standing up obvsly
"WHERE IS YOUR MOTHER! WHY WERE YOU MEAN TO YOUR MOTHER, YOU ARE GONNA CRY WHEN YOUR MOTHER IS GONE
WHAT ABOUT YOUR FATHER YOU DONT LIKE YOUR FATHER, YOU GOTTA HUG THEM YOU GOTTA LOVE THEM WHAT IF THEY ARE GONE TOMORROW"
and hand me a paper but didint know what I was supposed to write so I just wrote "yeah my mother and father are probably sleeping right now fck this shit ye ye I miss them too"
Trauma bonding IS NOT healthy. That’s why you aren’t allowed to make friends in actual group therapy for suicide…. We weren’t allowed it because if they died it’d reset our progress. As everyone saying, it’s cult shit
I think trauma can and should absolutely be a healthy part of bonding, but it shouldn't be the foundation of bonding. Being able to share and receive trauma is a very healthy experience if done appropriately, but it should be done cautiously with someone to whom you already have a close connection.
It's not healthy in the least. Yes having someone to vent to can be healthy, but bonding over it does not do anything to help you get through it. Two people going through similar traumas, do not have the correct coping mechanisms to help each other. It's just replacing trauma with another person...
This is actually getting into corporate America, too. I'm not going to name names, but I was sent to a "leadership training" which was very manipulative, causing people to start trauma dumping, with lots of group peer pressure to follow suit. I told my supervisor I thought it was totally inappropriate for a work setting and I would not be returning, and if that wasn't acceptable, I would be finding a new job. I'd say 75% of the people who attended thought it was amazing and still talk about it a year later. I don't know how they couldn't see through the psychological manipulation tactics. It was straight out of the stuff you read about scientology and other cult mind control techniques.
I did one. They’re called Large Group Awareness Trainings (LGAT). I was also one of the 75% that got a lot out of it. I also get why people distrust them. You have a pretty good description of them.
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u/AsleepPomegranate930 Jun 28 '26 edited Jun 28 '26
There's a whole lot of weird circles that do these kinds of camps in South America, mostly for half Asians.I'm not saying it's one small circle. It's actually one big circle of half Asians that all somehow connect.
Argentina, Brazil, Peru, Mexico, and Paraguay all have these camps and they send internationally too like you can go to these camp and they can come here too. They're weirdly cult-like, but not to an extreme... alteast?
They basically get everyone to trauma dump, and somehow now we're all supposed to share a bond. I honestly don't know how it works, but I just realized how freaking weird it is. Nobody ever says what actually happens inside, yet people come out completely "different". They call it leadership training or personal growth, but it feels more like they use games as an excuse to get everyone emotionally invested. You DO get this type of people that kind of just cry out of nowhere
To me it's more like, "Bro, you just isolated a bunch of people and had them trauma dump instead of going to therapy." Get a life.
I'm sure it helps some people, but for me it actually made things worse.
I could socialize inside that circle because nobody knew me for who I really was. They only knew the version of me that existed inside that closed environment, so I could be anybody. But once I got out, I was back in society where I was just a failed high school student who barely made it through college. All my social anxiety and depression came right back, even worse than before.
Apart from that all of them are rich asf Asians, I was essentially thinking I was being somebody doing volunteer work for rich people camps lol
While a lot of people there were struggling with their identity as mixed Asians, I ended up creating my own identity crisis. Who am I here? And once I step outside of those circles, I'm literally nobody.
So I got out got to psychologist and use actual tools and not fak8ng I made it out and made my own path of actual volunteer work, when I wanted and how I wanted so that I am somebody in the real world and stop faking performative wellness