Trauma and Living with Trauma

I have been aware of trauma and many of the impacts of trauma for pretty much my entire life and certainly for my entire adult life. Once I entered graduate school in my late twenties, studying clinical psychology and doing practicums in real, live clinical environments, my awareness of, knowledge of, and intimacy with both my own experienced life traumas as well as the lived trauma of others, grew exponentially.

It was at this point that I also began doing active research into trauma and various approaches to treating trauma. Somewhere along this multi-faceted and circuitous journey, I’m not exactly sure at what point, I seemed to have developed a more or less fixed attitude towards certain groups of people living with trauma. This attitude was one of viewing certain groups of people living with trauma as being extremely intense victims of a cruel, cruel world, of such people being almost totally devoid of agency and ego strength, as believing such people were to be treated like extremely fragile little china doll like people requiring that everyone tiptoe around them as if we were tiptoeing around freshly laid quail eggs in a large open pasture hidden within very high grasses and with the singular commandment to not step on any of the eggs. In other words, I developed an attitude about certain people living with trauma that held the belief that these people were somehow almost completely defenseless, necessarily entitled to all kinds of special treatment and considerations yet also highly victimized people whom everyone else should go to extraordinary and superhuman lengths not to offend, add more trauma to, nor even breathe on too heavily. This approach didn’t just come to me in a dream or something. It really did seem to be the way a significant number of people in my life at a certain point, thought about and approached such things. I don’t say that in a blaming way. I take complete responsibility for my active and non-coerced participation in this rarefied horsey crap. Somewhat recently however, I have in fact discovered these beliefs to not only be quite dysfunctional and not particularly helpful, but to also being very potentially damaging and limiting—insulting even, to many a person living with trauma. Praise God!

I, of course, know I am not the only person on the planet that either previously or currently thinks of at least some categories of people living with trauma in such ways—more or less or give or take a few degrees on the Likert scale. If hard pressed though, I somehow doubt many such people would be as honest as I have just been in admitting that this is how I thought of at least some people living with trauma. People who still think like this know it might sound rather extreme or even silly to a lot of other people to describe people living with trauma in such perhaps extreme ways. However, if one were given an opportunity to deeply yet surreptitiously observe how these same people engage with people living with trauma, one would see clear indications that such beliefs show up in their attitudes towards working with people living with trauma no matter what they publicly admit to or not.

I believe it would be challenging for me to have what I would consider to be a highly mutually respectful, progressive, and spacious discussion about trauma and how to address it with quite a few people. I believe many people who would want to be a part of such a discussion or who would naturally be drawn to such a discussion, in general, would be people living with trauma themselves or those who view themselves as being fierce advocates for those living with trauma. And so I am unsure how good such people would be at not bringing their own unconscious or disowned biases, rigid beliefs, and personally unexamined agendas into such a discussion. As I have said, I used to be such a person and one who has had many conversations with other such people and so my expressed skepticism about engaging in a mutually respectful and spacious manner, in such discussions is, I believe, justified and based on much personal experience. And at the same time, I’m open to being wrong about that.

And yet I believe both I and such people are sincerely interested in advancing how people living with trauma are treated both in the world at large and in terms of medical and psychosocial and targeted supportive treatment. I also believe both I and such people sincerely want a better world and life for people living with trauma. And I also believe both I am such people desire opportunities for healing for people living with trauma. And so I am going to go forward here. I believe the best way for me to go forward is with a combination of statements and questions regarding trauma and living with trauma.

So here are some of the statements I am able to personally and currently make around trauma and living with trauma. This list is not to be considered exhaustive:

1.  Living in an often cruel, angry, unjust, and violent world traumatizes everyone who lives in such a world, in some very real ways.

2.    Going to bed hungry at night can be trauma inducing

3.     Merely “surviving” in life, in whatever way(s) that is experienced by a person, can be trauma inducing.

4.      Not all people living with trauma are exactly nor even largely the same.

5.       Not all people living with trauma experience living with trauma in the exact same ways.

6.       Not all people living with trauma in the world, in our immediate environments, in our families and communities, and within the helping professions matrix that provides services to people living with trauma, experience equal acknowledgement of the fact that we/they are indeed living with experienced trauma.

7.       Like with many other areas and domains in life, certain forms of real trauma are more legitimized than other forms of real trauma. For example, for all kinds of multiple and diverse reasons, the trauma that men and boys experience as a result of sexual abuse, sexual assault, and rape, up until very recently, have been routinely downplayed and minimized.

8.      There is something in the world that is in some circles referred to as, The Pain Wars. This is a real thing. In The Pain Wars people who belong to one or more historically, traditionally, and/or contemporarily oppressed, disenfranchised, and marginalized groups, fight or compete with each other or jockey for the “title” and “privilege” or for the “recognition” of being the most oppressed, disenfranchised, or marginalized group or groups on the planet either historically, traditionally, currently, or all three. Often this same type of thinking is extended to the vast and diverse world of people living with trauma. This is one of the numerous ways competition consciousness has revealed itself in our modern world. I believe this is wrong-headed. I also believe this is counterproductive, and very destructive to our individual and collective healing.

9.      I keep myself abreast of all of the latest research and treatment options available to those living with trauma. I am currently engaged in an exhaustive degree of research on Lifespan Integration as developed by Peggy Pace, M.A. for conceptualizing, understanding, and treating trauma and other syndromes and conditions. I am also studying new innovations in neural plasticity and other “cutting edge” research as it applies to treating people living with trauma.

10.  I understand the situation where some people who are living with trauma and who are in public environments such as a classroom setting, in a church service, attending a Buddhist sangha, attending satsang, are at a work meeting, and in many other countless such situations where he or she may hear or see or otherwise experience something that is experienced by him or her as traumatizing or re-traumatizing. I also understand that when this occurs in a situation where the person is not provided with a natural or planned opportunity to process the various and potentially numerous difficult and disturbing thoughts, physical or emotional sensations that can arise, that such can be experienced as extremely disconcerting, panic inducing, and very, very scary. I also understand that such a person may also experience disorientation and/or even disassociation. Despite my deep understanding of all of this, I have come to a place where I am no longer comfortable with such a situation being viewed nor addressed as one in which the “intent versus impact” construct is the only or even the principal way in which such situations are either viewed through and/or addressed. This is primarily because the intent versus impact construction, in my understanding, is to some degree, built upon the idea of harm having potentially occurred—even if in some future investigative or other process that is instituted or engaged in, it is decided that no harm was in fact done. I am still uncomfortable with this construct being the only or primary tool used because even if it is decided that no harm has been done, the situation was still predicated under the broad rubric of potential harm being done. I would be very interested in exploring other rubrics through which such situations could be understood through instead of through the intent versus impact rubric. For me this is very analogous to being accused of a crime in which one has ultimately been completely exonerated of. As we all know, there are certain crimes in which a complete and total exoneration still leaves a tangible veneer of at least suspected guilt because, among other reasons, the rubric in which innocence was determined under is still part and parcel of the criminal justice system rubric, even though the word “justice” appears there as well. This is because of the existence of things like circumstantial versus hard evidence, varying preponderances of proof, varying margins for error, and so forth and so on. Additionally and perhaps even more importantly, this intent versus impact construction, grounded in potential harm occurring, also seems to cast people living with trauma too strongly, in my opinion, in the inescapable role of victim and people who always have to be rescued or protected by other people who may consciously or unconsciously cause us/them harm specifically via our status as people living with trauma.

Here are some of the personal and current questions I have. Some of these questions are designed for you to simply ask them of yourselves to ponder. This list is not to be considered exhaustive:

1. What is trauma to you, really?

2.   Is it possible to live in the 21^st century and not be personally impacted by trauma, even as a newborn baby?

3.   What are some of the aspects of the relationship between experienced trauma and personal responsibility or personal ownership in addressing ones experienced trauma?

4.    What, for you, are some of the aspects of the relationship between experienced trauma, personal responsibility or personal ownership in addressing ones trauma, and the complete healing from a specific incidence of trauma?

5.      What, for you, are some of the aspects of the relationship between healing from trauma and being on a conscious journey of spiritual awakening?

6.      Are you able to identify some the potential or actual ways, if any, that your best intentions in how you address other people’s trauma might possibly in reality be, paving the road to Hell for them, as it were or places you in a position of being codependent?

7.      Do you personally believe that complete healing from a specific traumatic experience or multiple incidents of trauma is possible? If so, what does complete healing mean to you? What are some of the things this concept implies for you?

8.      There are two terms that come to us from classical psychoanalysis and that are now pretty much recognized as potentially playing a role in virtually all forms of therapeutic and counseling relationships. You may or may not be familiar with them. These two terms are transference and counter-transference. Do you believe it is helpful or not helpful to explore how these terms may play a role in how people interact with other people who are clearly living with trauma and vice versa?

9.      What, in your opinion, is the primary goal or a potential set of life goals, in general, for someone living with trauma?

10.  If one is a pastor, priest, minister, Buddhist teacher, satsang leader, or other spiritual or religious leader and someone such a person provides spiritual or religious guidance to in a community setting/context requests that you, in your role as a spiritual or religious leader, never are to ever even mention or even allude to the fact that sexual abuse and/or sexual exploitation can occur between a spiritual leader and a member of such a community. This person also reveals to you that even your passive acknowledgement of such a possible occurrence in spiritual communities is experienced by him/her as re-trauma and as such is totally unacceptable. How should one, as a spiritual leader, respond to such a request? What if the person additionally states that if he/she cannot be absolutely assured that you will not unwaveringly honor his/her request, you will be viewed as personally and wantonly endangering the person’s safety in the congregation/community and as such the person also states that he/she will permanently leave the congregation unless such total assurances can be given by you. If you as the spiritual leader decides to honor this request, how are you supposed to know what else you may innocently speak of in a sermon or Dharma talk that might be unwittingly traumatizing to another person in the community? Perhaps mentioning the recent murder of a black citizen in the community will re-traumatize someone else in the community who unbeknownst to you, is in the community and has experienced such personally in his or her life. Also, is honoring any such requests always an incredible slippery slope with absolutely no end in sight or are there ways in which such requests can be honored without becoming a slippery slope? I am assuming that many people reading this will believe some type of further conversation(s) should take place between the spiritual leader and the community member in question, perhaps also bringing in some other people as well. OK, in that case, is there a particular approach or set of goals that should be present with such a further conversation? (BTW, this is not a hypothetical. I was the spiritual leader of a community and was presented with this exact scenario by someone in that community.)

That’s all for now…