If you can walk away with just one piece of information from our proposal, let it be that we know, and acknowledge that not everyone can just decide to "get better." The idea that we can one day wake up and change our lives is becoming more and more prominent by the day. Why do we treat illness as a failure? Why is it that we praise the well-regulated, but look down at people who struggle to overcome a trauma so debilitating that leaving their home is their version of success?

The origin of healthism can be attributed to the factors such as the broad range of health information in books and the internet, consumerism (particularly of natural remedies and supplements), wellness culture and an overall distrust of science. Many of these traits can be linked to middle class health culture. Greenhalgh (2004) depicts how the emergence of a class with enough disposable income and time to focus on health has prompted the ideology of healthism. It pushes the definition of health away from our state of autonomy and towards a constant self-improvement mechanism that can never fully be achieved. Given its positioning as an ideology promoted by higher socioeconomic classes, it can be determined that it lacks acknowledgment for those who are limited to resources that are promoted as being "healthy."

Upper classes often promoted on social media portray an unattainable version of trauma recovery. Their trauma, like every one elses, should not be disregarded, but it is important that we ensure we do not forget the resources they have access to as a result of their positioning. While such a culture aims to promote freedom of choice, it lacks recognition of PTSD victims living in poverty, war torn regions, have limited access to healthcare or are living with disabilities as a result of their trauma. Suddenly the burden of our struggles are shifted away from structures that should be of aid to us, and is placed on the individual, making it a moral obligation that is so out of touch with members of society already struggling under these systems. You didn’t inflict trauma on yourself, such factors are not individual and should not be individualized. Individuals with PTSD should not be made to feel as though they have made poor personal choices, when what happened was a result of external harm. Traits associated with PTSD are recognized as unhealthy under healthism as they fall outside of traits deemed to be possessed by a healthy individual (ex= regulated nervous system, self controlled etc). Trauma interrupts these patterns, overriding the ability to maintain "choice."

The narrow minded beliefs that incorporate healthism culture fail to acknowledge the strength that it often takes an individual to survive trauma. Trauma responses are not a weakness, they are adaptive. Critique the ideology, not the individual.