When It Comes to Trauma, Belief Really Is a Sledgehammer
On nearly a daily basis I’d have to have ‘the talk’. The population of Thurgood Marshall Middle School in Chicago was filled with seventh and eighth grade kids from broken families, whose fathers and uncles were in prison, all angry that society (if they thought about those larger elements at play at all) didn’t seem to care.
I wasn’t black. I wasn’t Latino. I didn’t grow up in a gang family. I did have what can be called traumatic experiences in my life. The first stepfather was a domestic abuser who would frequently pummel my mother and myself out of nothing but a male dominated rage. My first sexual experience was when I was nine years old at the hands of a fourteen year old babysitter and her friend. There was some serious drugs in my system before I hit puberty. Too many failed father figures. A lot of school bullying.
Even back in the 90’s people looking for reasons to fix blame on others for their hardships was prevalent so ‘the talk’ was a reality check for these kids. First was the rude awakening that, for the most part, no one really cared how hard these kids had it. Sure, their parents cared in some cases. A few teachers of note. But the rest of the world, while they might signal their concern, didn’t have enough personal stake or attention to genuinely care about these individual students and their traumatic existences.
Harsh, I know, but true nonetheless. The second part of the dialogue centered on how they perceived their rough times. I believed as I believe today that our relationship to pain is largely determined by our beliefs about pain. I’ve found that belief is more powerful than truth every time and, if one truly frames trauma with long-term suffering, those experiences become both a debilitating obstacle and a crutch to excuse failure.
By simply reframing trauma as a learning experience that, like building muscle or endurance, takes the effort to overcome with it and foment personal growth instead of infirmary, these often horrifying quagmires of life can transform into positives.
Did Americans change following the September 11 terrorist attacks? We provide a tentative answer with respect to the positive traits included in the Values in Action Classification of Strengths and measured with a self-report questionnaire available on-line and completed by 4,817 respondents. When scores for individuals completing the survey in the 2 months immediately after September 11 were compared with scores for those individuals who completed the survey before September 11, seven character strengths showed increases: gratitude, hope, kindness, leadership, love, spirituality, and teamwork. Ten months after September 11, these character strengths were still elevated, although to a somewhat lesser degree than immediately following the attacks.
As it turns out some research tells us that the vast majority of those caught in a moment of trauma — from having bombs blowing up around them for days at a time in combat, to violent rape, to physical abuse — tend to see these terrible circumstances as opportunities to learn. The rest rely upon them like diseases afflicting them for the better part of their lives.
Why? If it’s as simple as reframing your relationship to trauma to turn it into a gain rather than a subtraction, why would anyone choose otherwise?
On my right arm, just inside the wrist, is a tattoo that says “This is Water.” It is the title of the David Foster Wallace commencement address that posits that we are all surrounded at all times by humans that we misunderstand. The speech resonates with me and serves as a reminder that the guy who balks about wearing a mask is still a human being, that the woman screaming in the street that there is no justice for Breonna Taylor is a person, that the universal truth is that we are all almost exactly the same.
The most difficult challenge for me most days, as I am assailed with the customers of a low-rent casino and hotel just off the dwindling Las Vegas Strip, is to find that DFW sentiment while fighting back the impulse to just give in and despise people. The weight of my own personal disdain for humanity run amok is fueled by encounters with, in my snap judgment, fucking idiots and grown up children clawing for attention or a hand out or what they perceive as the treatment they deserve.
When I am my most Spock-like, I can navigate these moments more effectively. Things like “Do you believe that complaining this loudly is going to get you what you want?” float out of my masked mouth. On a recent phone call with a man apoplectic that he wouldn’t be served unless he wore a mask, railing at me about how he was going to sue me, sue the casino, sue the corporation, I listened for maybe five minutes before I asked “Sorry to cut you off but I’m curious. What do you want to happen at the end of this phone call? Do you believe that your anger, your demands, and your threat of litigation will change the policy of the casino for you?”
Why would anyone choose to be debilitated by a past trauma rather than reframe it into a learning experience? Maybe because reframing is fucking hard. According to most therapists, the initial reactions to trauma tend to be depression, a feeling of helplessness, a perpetual trigger to the Fight or Flight response, severe anxiety. When saddled with that noxious cocktail, how simple then is finding a lesson for growth?
The knee-jerk response is that they gain a certain power from being seen as a victim. It isn’t a kind reaction and it assumes a predetermined motivation but it’s there nonetheless. There is a sense of belonging when putting on the letter jacket of victimhood, a joining of the masses of people who boast about their anti-depressants like frat boys bragging about how drunk they got, a club of angry, unhappy, traumatized and broken people with which to feel less alone.
Because in a world of social media, alone and different is perhaps the worst one could be.
Then I stare at my right wrist. My inner David Foster Spock quietly informs me that the knee-jerk response is almost always wrong when it comes to assigning motivations to monolithic stereotypes. He tells me to be less judgmental and more specific at the same time.
Why would someone sexually harassed or racially profiled by the police or beaten by someone trusted choose to allow that experience to define their ability to navigate the world? Because belief is stronger than truth. Because believing that you are broken is tacit permission to be broken. While being broken hurts, believing that pain must include suffering and being crippled infinitely is simply easier than believing the alternative.
The choice isn’t to wear victimhood like a blood-soaked bowling shirt. The choice is to believe that there is no growth from pain.
And so ‘the talk.’
First, no one really cares how hard it is to be you. For all the protests, hashtags, and GoFundMe’s, everyone around you cares far more about themselves than they do your trauma. Harsh but true nonetheless.
Second, it is harder to believe that pain can garner strength but it is truly the only way forward. Anything less is giving up. Anything less is acquiescing to the brutality of existence.
