‘Drama’ is such an ugly word.
Often spat rather than spoken in contemptuous and critical tones, it is a shaming accusation to receive.
What I don’t think we realise is that the place where the need to describe something as ‘drama’ comes from the same wound that creates drama in the first place.
‘Drama’ is a cry for help where due to insufficient internal resources (the inability to hold ourselves in our emotional experience, creatively express it or calmly ask for what we need, trusting it can come) and external (not having enough support), we act out from our sense of powerlessness to show the world we matter, often in destructive ways.
Drama through having insufficient internal resources, I believe is a result of trauma and internalised oppression. Due to trauma, we cut off certain parts of ourselves, losing our ability to fully embrace our emotional experience as it’s too much for us to handle. Our internal world and the world outside of us feels dangerous and unsafe. And so, unable to contain the emotional overload and the sense of not being seen and mattering, we act out. Those around us who haven’t integrated and healed their own trauma are triggered by this display, and respond by further oppression: “this behaviour is shameful and not welcome.”
What is needed – especially in this new epoch of learning to collaborate collectively and dismantle our internalised oppression, befriending the most tender and wounded parts of ourselves – is empathy and offers of support within compassionate boundaries. Instead, a spiral of shame and further oppression is created.
Hugs to anyone who has been accused of drama without compassion. May we have compassion for ourselves and learn to support each other in becoming more tender and human 