Collective Trauma and Grief

You are not alone.  That may bring some comfort, but it may not help with the intensity of the feelings.  You may even roll your eyes at that statement but there is pervasive trauma happening to people everywhere across the globe.

There are many who have lived through severe Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), domestic abuse, sexual abuse, narcissistic abuse, war, accidents, illnesses, generational trauma, racial abuse or any type of traumatic experience that lives with you.  The mind and body never forget. 

Many are being triggered by current events, news and the very familiar experience of not being believed or dismissed by those who identify with the perpetrator or perpetrators.  It is as if the trauma that lives in you is being repeated over and over.

There may be those of you who do not identify with trauma or deny trauma.  You might feel an unrest in your gut and heart that something is not right.  Life could be pretty good for you, so you carry on as if nothing is happening.  But if you do care about others, you may feel helpless to help. 

It can be similar to witnessing two passenger trains about to collide and all you can do is watch in horror.  Some of you may remember the feeling you had when you watched the plane fly into the World Trade Center or seeing the children locked in cages.  Your life is forever altered by just witnessing the event.

We generally respond to a traumatic experience with a fight, flight or freeze response.  What does this mean?

We really don’t know how we are going to respond to a traumatic event.  Our response in one event can be different from another traumatic or life-changing event at another time in our life.  Some of us can have a fairly consistent response over time and events.

There of those of us who automatically come out fighting.  The adrenaline and cortisol rush in and our most basic, Reptilian Brain response is to fight, scream, yell or some may jump into action such as a first responder would do.  After the adrenaline and cortisol allows us to go from primal thinking to more executive thought we may have an inherent attitude of “I going to fight this to the bitter end”.

There are times when we may literally run away.  We escape as quickly as possible.  We might want to forget, “put the past behind us” and try to carry on as if nothing happened. 

The freeze response is what the possum does.  Plays dead, not moving, barely breathing and all movement is frozen.  Thinking can be frozen.  This response can later elicit feelings of guilt, but it may have been a wise response to the particular situation.  Think of the children, students of mass shootings who laid for long periods of time as if they were dead.  It saved their life.

All three responses can serve a necessary purpose depending on the particular event and circumstances.  Our bodies and minds have an amazing ability to react as needed when needed.  

It has been my belief that trauma, post-traumatic stress functioning and grief go hand in hand.  Mental illness such as depression and physical illness can happen during the Exhaustion Phase of stress.  Much is happening to many.

During this collective time of trauma and grief, I am not going to tell you how you need to or should respond.  Although trauma is happening collectively, coping techniques are going to be individual and graduated.  Hopefully they will be positive, thriving skills that are developed in your own special way and in your own timeline.

I would suggest that you become educated about the stress reactions, stages of stress, stages of grief and trauma.  I will offer articles, resources and links and would love for you to share your ideas and experiences of the individual positive coping skills you are developing.

Let’s keep this learning process and conversation growing.  Let’s talk about it.