Why We Dissect Other People’s Trauma
When the Internet Decides the Story
I don't know about you, but it feels like my entire feed has turned into a giant courtroom lately. Whether it’s a celebrity’s public breakdown, a TikTok creator getting "exposed," or some high-profile scandal, the internet reacts with a singular, frantic energy. We want the timelines, the receipts, and the body language analysis, zooming in on old posts like we’re part of a forensic team trying to solve a cold case. But if I'm being honest, I think our cultural obsession with dissecting these stories is actually masking a much more uncomfortable reality: we aren't really looking for justice. We are looking for an escape from the discomfort of not knowing.
When we see someone’s trauma or a messy situation playing out in real-time, it’s deeply unsettling. It makes the world feel a little less safe, especially if a story is jagged, the "victim" isn't perfect, or we can't immediately tell who the "villain" is. To fix that feeling, we rush to a conclusion. We decide the story for them and build a narrative we can wrap our heads around—mostly so we can put our phones down and feel like the world makes sense again.
As both a survivor and a secondary survivor, I’ve seen this from both sides. I know exactly what it feels like to have the most private, painful parts of your life held up to the light for strangers to dissect. The truth that often gets lost is that when you’re actually living through the story, there is no "narrative arc." There’s just survival, the fog of trying to remember, and a healing process that is anything but a straight line. When the internet decides your story for you, they aren't just getting the facts wrong; they’re stripping away your agency and turning your life into a spectator sport, demanding you perform your pain in a way that’s easy for them to digest.
“When the internet decides your story for you, they aren’t just getting the facts wrong; they’re stripping away your agency and turning your life into a spectator sport, demanding you perform your pain in a way that’s easy for them to digest.”
We’ve fallen into this trap where we think "knowing the full story" is a prerequisite for empathy, telling ourselves we'll wait for all the facts before deciding if we should care. But if our compassion is conditional on having every single piece of the puzzle, it isn't really compassion at all; it’s a transaction.
Stories involving trauma are rarely "clean." They’re cluttered, nuanced, and full of gaps. If you wait for a perfect, 100% verified narrative before you decide to lead with kindness, you’re going to be waiting a long time. In the meantime, you’re just participating in the same dissection that keeps people from being able to heal. Look, you don't actually need the full story to lead with compassion. You don’t need to know exactly what happened behind closed doors to decide that another human being deserves dignity, and you certainly don’t have to be a judge or a jury to just hold space for someone’s pain.
The next time a new story starts blowing up online, try this instead: Just sit in the uncertainty. Accept that you might never know the "whole truth," and realize that your "right to know" ends exactly where someone else’s healing begins. We don’t have to decide their story for them. We just have to remember they’re human.
Jessi Bixler is an entrepreneur, marketing strategist, and the author of The Story We Share (Next Thing Press, 2025), a memoir about the ripple effects of sexual assault through a family and the systems that respond to harm. She speaks to leadership audiences and advocacy organizations on what people carry and how it shapes how we lead.
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