Trauma, Diagnosis, and the Nervous System: Reframing Trauma Reporting Through the Lens of Medical Dismissal, Gendered Belief, and Embodied Experience

Abstract This essay responds to Hickie et al.’s (2023) inquiry into the changing patterns of trauma reporting across successive cohorts by analysing individual and societal factors through a dual lens of academic theory and lived experience. Drawing on her own history of undiagnosed Functional Neurological Disorder (FND) and Bipolar I, Herson argues that the rise in reported trauma reflects not increased fragility but a cultural and epistemological shift in how harm is recognised, named, and validated. Historically, trauma often went unreported due to the absence of language, belief, and safe conditions for disclosure. Today, greater visibility is facilitated by evolving conceptual frameworks, reduced stigma, and expanded definitions that encompass chronic neglect, emotional invalidation, and systemic harm. The essay also interrogates the role of gendered dismissal and epistemic injustice in shaping who is permitted to be believed. Rather than suggesting an epidemic of trauma, Herson frames the rise in reporting as an emergence - a surfacing of pain long buried beneath silence and denial. By integrating lived experience with clinical insight, the essay contends that understanding mood disorders and trauma requires reframing trauma reporting not as exaggeration, but as a vital form of recovery, coherence, and social recognition.