It seems to be a busy time right now for nature-driven and man-made disasters. Nature is whipping the United States with tornado after tornado and with flooding on the Mississippi. In Canada, the Assiniboine and the Richelieu are flooding in record proportions, the northern forests of Alberta are burning, and there's been so much rain in Eastern Canada that we're seeing rare occurrences like land-slides. The volcanoes in Iceland and Italy are erupting, Japan just got slammed with a record earthquake and the tsunami, and the ground shook in Europe as well.
In the man-made area of global events, the Arab Spring is losing steam as despots and dictators dig in their heels and cling to power. Libya, Syria, Bahrain and Yemen are sending their armies out to shoot down students and mothers, they're making journalists and photographers disappear and they're blowing up villages from afar.
So far, 2011 is not going too great for a good number of very ordinary folk. No wonder that crackpot preacher thought the world was going to end last Saturday - he had enough going on in the world to match to any prophet's grocery list of events of impending doom. Floods, fire, earthquakes, brimstone, war, famine and the rising price of gas certainly sound like the perfect ingredients to put into a Rapture cake.
The events are also turning out to be Psychology's Christmas, because according to the psychologists, all of the people facing the myriad apocalyptic events thrown at humanity at the moment will be Traumatized. They are all, to the last person, likely to have Post Traumatic Stress and will all, to the last person, probably need counseling. The CBC ties into PTSD for the unfortunate victims of the flooding in Manitoba in this article. According to this take on things, first you face the initial 'impact phase', then comes the 'post-event phase' where you feel anger and helplessness, and then it's on to 'recovery' where you have to 'adjust to the new reality'. And then, you might possibly face PTSD, where you might get flashbacks or be hyper-vigilant.
I don't want to be flippant about what some people are facing at the moment, and I don't want to trivialize events, but having to move out of your home because of spring flooding when you live near a flood-prone river is not "trauma". In centuries past, that would be called "life". If you ask a mother in Yemen what she would call losing a daughter to a violent attack at the hands of a mob of men, and worrying about her son being killed in a protest, and not knowing where her next meal will come from, she might answer "Tuesday", not 'trauma'.
I think Western 'civilization' has been so spoiled, coddled and comfortable for the past 50-75 years that it has forgotten what real trauma really is, and it has listened too closely to Western psychologists trying to justify their existence by telling every one that every non-pleasant event in our lives is 'traumatic'. I call bullshit on most of the trauma that the psychologists shove in our faces with the complicit cooperation of the media. So here's my line in the sand on what I could accept to put a label of "trauma" on, and where I would have sympathy for people with PTSD:
- If you went to Iraq, Afghanistan, the Sudan, Darfur, Rwanda or another war-torn area where you learned what drying blood or burning human flesh smells like, you may say you have seen and known trauma. I cannot fathom being somewhere where your daily existence requires you to take the risk of being blown up or shot into consideration every moment of the day. I can even less imagine boarding a plane and, after a few hours, walking among people in Europe or North America who have nothing better to bitch about than traffic or the 'trauma' of grandma dying (in a clean hospital where she was cared for). That must be a total mind-fuck (use of profanity required here, there's no other way of expressing that).
- If you survived one of the last 2 tsunami events of the last 10 years, you know trauma. Whether witnessing the devastation, or actually being in the water, you have the right to the use of the word 'trauma' and I will respect your PTSD. This also applies to other sudden-onset, violent disasters like tornadoes. If you were in the Superdome in New Orleans, you have my respect. If you were knocked about in debris, if your loved ones were torn from your grasp, if you have sifted through rubble looking for the bodies of your parents or babies, if you have rushed to the scene of a flattened home, school or daycare looking for your children or spouse, you are legitimately traumatized.
You see, I think those types of events are shocking and traumatic. What I do not consider traumatic are the "shit happens" events of regular life that so many people want to use as fodder for bitching and complaining and moaning and garnering attention to themselves. Some examples:
- Death of an elderly family member, whether through natural causes or from disease. Sad? Of course. Does one need to mourn? Definitely. Is it trauma? No.
- Seeing a car accident happen to others. Upsetting? I agree. I would go home and have a stiff drink, hug my family, and sleep uneasily if I witnessed an accident causing death. Not at all pleasant. But PTSD? Um, no.
- Loss of material possessions. You are not traumatized because your car got trashed or because you need to replace a roof because a bad storm blew through town. This leaves me on the fence about the bad flooding referred to in the CBC article: you live near the river, it floods regularly, and it flooded so gradually that you had time to pack some necessities and get your family and dog out safely to a shelter where you have food and a bed. It sucks, it really does, and I'm so sorry you lost the afghan grandma made before she died and your wedding album... but shit happens. I just can't bring myself to elevate the icky-ness of a slow flood to the level of, say, hiding under the bodies of your schoolmates while mercenaries hack everyone around you down with machetes, or trying to hold on to your child while the black, cold waters of the ocean pulls him out of your arms when only 30 minutes before you were just trying to get him to do his homework.
I just wonder at what point the Western world took any and every unpleasant, uncomfortable, sad or unexpected event that causes stress, grief or changes to the status quo and decided that they were all "Trauma" that required one to seek counseling. Life happens, shit happens, and we all have to brush ourselves off and start things over again when it does. Getting on with it should not automatically require a therapy session. Especially when you worst 'trauma' would be somebody else's best day ever.
That's for the grown-ups. The subject of what the western world thinks is traumatic to a child is another blog for another time, but I'll give you a preview : it has nothing to do with a dying goldfish or moving to a new house.
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