CLIMATE CHANGE & TRAUMA

Fear is a natural and understandable response to the changes that now confront life on this planet. How can one absorb the accumulating facts that demonstrate that the trajectory of current human behavior is leading to self-destruction? It is natural to wonder if we, the collective human community, have the ability to face a future that will demand so much innovation, so much resilience and flexibility. What is not natural, nor reasonable, nor prudent is to exploit this fear and uncertainty in order to avoid or prevent the changes necessary to save ourselves.

Understanding trauma, what it is and its consequences, may help us, both individually and collectively, to confront our fears and uncertainties and to chart a path out of destruction to new, life-saving solutions. It is imperative to understand that our collective, human trauma is not in the past; we are living it now. The traumatic process, as described in Searching for Connection, absorbs and engulfs us, making it difficult to be reasonable or to see that pathway out of the darkness clearly. We find ourselves slipping into experiences of terror, rage, numbness, grief, and a desire to isolate ourselves: all markers of the fragmentation of our human community, our progression into the depths of the traumatic experience.

What can we do? First and foremost, we must resist fragmentation and strive toward building the strength of community. We cannot find solutions alone, in a vacuum. We must reassert our connections, not only to other people but to the natural world on which we depend. We cannot continue our patterns of abuse, of each other, and of our planet. We cannot continue to exploit each other and our “natural” resources in response to the panic and dread we are experiencing. Like those remarkable individuals whose stories are told in Searching For Connection, we cannot know what the end of our efforts to save ourselves will be, we only know that we must begin, and keep at it, one step at a time, with courage and determination.

HEADING NORTH

In late June I’ll be heading north to Seattle to give some talks on emergency response and body work, critical incident stress debriefing, and the process of healing after deep loss. I’ll also be searching for connections with friends whom I haven’t seen in years. So much of my learning and growing in the field of trauma happened in Seattle, supported by many wise colleagues. We felt like pioneers, exploring a new field – traumatic stress – creating new forms of treatment and response. Underpinning all of our work was an ethic of social justice.

During the past several decades, the moral compass of our culture has turned away from compassion and the duty to care for others. We see this not only in our politics but in our social and mental health systems that are grievously broken. Bernard Lown, a cardiologist whom I quote in Searching For Connection, coins the phrase “the medical industrial complex,” to describe the loss of compassion-centered medical care, to a profit-driven medical system. But, I agree with Lown when he asserts that we can warm the cold beast of cash with an insistence on honest communication and basic principles of decency.

Last week, two dear friends died of cancer. Medical technology had little to offer them in their last days. Of most help was the counsel of Hospice, and the round-the-clock vigil and love of family and friends. It was a privilege to be a part of each of these family networks of support. The profound mystery and awe of the passage from this life as we know it was embraced and celebrated with tears and song, some laughter, and great tenderness. Coming together in community makes it all possible and bearable.

LISTENING

It’s a wonder how our lives touch and correspond, over waves of air, beyond the borders of towns and time. I had no way of knowing when I wrote my book about grief and trauma that my words would find old friends in the midst of turmoil and pain, and that my voice would lend some comfort from far away. I am so grateful for the connections, old and new, that my book is providing.

Most of my days are now filled with work related to global warming and climate change. I feel challenged to understand what is facing us, and to sort through and evaluate the solutions that are emerging. I’m surrounded by good people in this endeavor. Yet I’m aware also that I must take the time to re-affirm the essential connections within myself and with the natural world to keep my balance through this time of turbulence and change. So why, then, do I put off that walk in the mountains? Why do I resist writing, or forget to listen to the music I love?

If it’s true – and I think it is – that we are living today in the midst of a traumatic process that is global in scope and which threatens to engulf life as we know it on this planet, what new language, new pathways, new understandings must emerge if we are to resist extinction? These are the questions with which I ended my book and which continue to consume me. Like David Abram I think the answers have everything to do with listening. But how?

COMING HOME

I was in LA two weeks ago for the annual meeting of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies. For three days, eight hours a day, I listened and talked and read about trauma. I have attended these meetings since 1986, when the organization began, and each time I am moved to new understanding – not by the facts and numbers and power points presented, but by the depth of sharing that takes place in small moments in and out of the conference rooms. It is the deep, repeated sighs of the Israeli psychiatrist who talked of the unending violence in his country that I remember most. It is the clear soprano voice singing songs composed in the extermination camps of the Holocaust that remains with me. The continuity of this collective dedication to bearing witness to our suffering sustains my hope. It’s good to see old friends, and to hear them affirm our common understandings of the effects of profound trauma. To be in the company of these colleagues is like coming home.

And then we had the national elections, the results of which give evidence of our effort to shake off the denial, pain, and fear that have enshrouded our country for too many years. More hope, and an affirmation of our collective ability to resist silence and oppression: to overcome trauma.

From LA I embarked on a trip to my home town on the east coast to give a trauma talk to therapists and to visit friends and family. Such kindnesses I received! It was another coming home – this one more literal than professional.

Coming home, again, to friends and work and dogs – back on the west coast. I carry with me sighs and songs and smiles and the colors of fall and the renewal of friendships and the history of family and the hope of perseverence and speaking truth to power and the joy of being fully oneself. It’s nice to be home.

TALKING WITH YOU

Now that I have the opportunity to meet interested readers and curious browsers at book-signing events, I’m acutely aware of how each new encounter requires a unique response. The words and phrases I choose to describe trauma, or to explain what I think is important to know about traumatic stress, can’t be “canned,” but must fit the moment and the particular person with whom I’m talking.

For instance, I was delighted to meet a nine-year-old boy and his mother in a local bookstore recently who were looking intently at the cover of Searching For Connection. The boy was intrigued with the image of “Eagle Nebula,” and we talked about not knowing whether you were looking into or out from the heart of the nebula. That’s a bit like some experiences of trauma, with the feeling that where you are in time and space is shifting and uncertain.

This boy, his mother, and I talked about grief and loss. We talked about the sorrow of losing a beloved pet. We weren’t gloomy in our conversation, just talking over important life events. It was a moment of intimate sharing that I treasure. Talking about trauma is like that–it’s a precious moment to talk about the most important experiences of one’s life. I’m grateful for such moments.

Where is trauma located?

Sometimes I know that I’m walking right into the neighborhood of trauma. Other times I’m taken by surprise. Last September I had the opportunity to travel to Washington, D.C. to visit the daughter and infant grand-daughter of a dear friend who had recently died. Together we set out at midnight to explore the war memorials in the Washington Mall. It was a warm night, gentle, and full of expectation.

I’ve been to the VietNam memorial several times before, but never in the middle of the night with darkness making the rise and fall of the wall even more dramatic. Once again I learned that I cannot stand at that place without being filled with grief. It is the grief of my generation. In front of one section of the wall was a lone soldier, kneeling. A few paces further was a single soldier’s cap on the ground. My tears spilled over at the sight of such loneliness. I think we all carry such hidden grief – for ourselves, for those we have lost, for our country. We go about our lives as though the events of the past did not injure us. We forget in order to keep on going. Yet there are places designed to remind us of ourselves: of our losses and our tragedies. By coming together in this place we will know better who we are.

The next morning hundreds of thousands of people enlivened this same space on the Mall, witnessing for peace. There were church groups and latter day hippies and costumed characters on stilts and women in black carrying coffins and women in pink singing for peace. It was a hopeful, festive place- transformed by sunlight and desire and determination. Trauma and hope located together in the same small space.

Finding a Voice

A few days ago I heard a story on the radio that caught my attention and caused me to become very still and listen. The wife of a soldier just back from Iraq was trying to explain her feelings of dread and fear that had consumed her days of waiting for her husband to come home. Even the sound of the door bell, she said, held the danger that it signalled news of her husband’s death. Her husband commented that it was as if she, not he-the soldier-had “Iraqitis:” his word for the post-traumatic jitters, hypervigilance, dread, and rage that is the legacy of so many of our soldiers returning from war.

How many silent witnesses are there in the wake of this and other wars? How many people carry such burdens of anxiety, pain, and grief?

I can imagine that this woman will hear others say: “Get over it!” “He’s home now so stop complaining.” But it’s not so easy to stop the fear, to stop the dreadful apprehension. Just ask an earthquake survivor to “relax and stay calm” when a minor tremor passes by. I imagine many hurricane Katrina and Rita survivors feel their bodies tense and ready themselves for struggle at the sounds of high winds and rain, and the sight of water rising in the street.

I hope that Searching For Connection will help others to find voice for their experiences, and will help family members and friends to listen without judgment, but with understanding.

What is “Searching for Connection?”

Searching for Connection is not a self-help book in the sense of providing advice or outlining specific prescriptions for healing; instead, it is an analysis of the complex issues involved in trauma, conducted in terms we can all understand through stories and personal examples. I draw on my clinical practice as a psychotherapist and my experience as a search and rescue worker. In addition, I use stories from my family, shared cultural history, and narratives about traumatic experiences by other writers, such as Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air, Joe Simpson’s Touching the Void, Beck Weathers’ Left for Dead, Gretel Ehrlich’s A Match to the Heart, Nelson Mandela’s Long Walk to Freedom, Oliver Sacks’ A Leg to Stand On, and Natan Sharansky’s Fear No Evil. These disparate sources are woven together in a tapestry that reveals the common aspects of trauma, survival, and recovery.

Searching for Connection can be purchased in bookstores or by sending $22.95 (plus $4.95 shipping and handling) to Truthsayer Press, P.O. Box 1244, San Luis Obispo, CA 93406. Call credit card orders to: (800) 326-9001 or order online.