How will a traumatized country heal?

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Thank you everyone for your thoughts and willingness to share on my previous thread. I decided to start a new thread to share more of my thoughts.

"If we change the govt....but not ourselves, we get more of the same." (Bokomon)

The community of 12 step programs seems to be one that has a structure to avoid organization that does not contribute to the "group consensus". I personally have come to trust the 12 tools and community more than family, organized church or government. I have looked upon the explosion of 12 step groups as people searching for authentic face to face community; a type of family for our society whose families are fractured and separated by long distances.

I mentioned the "how can we ever again trust ourselves?" because trauma changes people. Look at the Vietnam vets, rape or assault survivors, trauma survivors. Many have Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome (PTSS) with flash backs intruding into their present lives when traumatic memories are somehow triggered, leaving them doubting that they can trust themselves, let alone anyone else. I think Y2K might leave many trauma survivors, if they survive at all.

People who went through the 1029 market crash and the resulting depression were traumatized. Many COULD not trust banks and markets ever again.

After 14 months of lurking on Ed's forums, I'm convinced that many posters are not only suffering from anticiipatory grief but also anticipatory traumatization. I struggle with both myself.

The Vietnam Vets have shown us much about PTSS; their distrust in the government and VA resulted in the Vet Centers with trauma groups and Vets reaching out to Vets to try to help them "come home".

I suspect they show us a bit about how trauma might be healed. First attempts came from the VA and failed; Vietnam Vets traumatized do not trust the government or the VA.

So, if Y2K leaves people traumatized, how will the country function and heal if so many do not trust it, the media, each other or themselves?

-- Leslie (***@***.net), September 24, 1999.

-- Leslie (***@***.net), September 24, 1999

Answers

My family went to NC for a beach vacation and we visited the historic colony of Jamestown. I was amazed at the dramatic death toll which took place every winter for the first few years. Each summer a boat load full of new inhabitants would arrive. By the next spring well over half of the colonists were dead..freezing, starvation, indian raids.

They suffered this same fate for many years until they discovered that tobacco grew well on the little island, and with tobacco they had a good reason to attract trade ships.....message is they didn't stop dying in droves until they had a local economy.

Ironically, the tabacco trade was what made colonial Americans rich and most of our early laws about land were written to protect the interests of tobacco farmers.

Hundreds of Americans died in building the first Transcontinental Railway. Quite a number of men died building Hoover dam.

The odd thing about these histories is that one never reads about how the survivors heal.

The fact of the matter is that trauma has been a big part of human history. The ancient Indian Vedic texts (similar to the bible to that nation) believe that humans create their own trauma by the laws of interaction called Karma. Karma is misunderstood in the west.

Stevine Levine, an author who worked a lot with dying people has stated that for some ill people and their families, the moment of death is the actual moment of healing.

The funny thing about people suffering trauma: they are usually not in a state to analyze it during the fact.

I almost died when I was 14. I spent a very long wet cold night without a tent in a blizzard. Since then I am acutely more aware of other people about the dangers of hypothermia and preparation for cold weather. I would call the experience traumatic in a way...but I just got through and went on living. My life seems just a little sweeter. I also appreciate a warm bed just that much more.

Maybe Leslie is right about the value of the 12 step program. It is primarily used to help people find the courage to face addictions of all types and to personally take responsibility for their lives. Many people could be shell shocked next year and need help getting their lives together.

-- Thom Gilligan (thomgill@eznet.net), September 24, 1999.


If the outfall from y2k is bad, tragedy may facilitate the bonding of small resillient community-type units, forged of new common interests and challenges faced. The severity and immediacy of the challenge may be sufficient to overcome other differences. New definitions of "us" may emerge.

-- marsh (armstrng@sisqtel.net), September 25, 1999.

If there is great suffering, people will come together. And if there is hunger, people will be scrambling to do whatever it is to eat. They will be WORKING and while still using their minds, there will be much tedious hand labor. With that labor, when its done for you and yours, comes a great deal of healing satisfaction. Those that are too traumatized will not make it. They will lay down and die be it out of sheer inability to go on... or a bullet for having tried to take from others. I am not quite sure what the factors are that will make some people strong and break other people. I think that those of us who have already had the experience of feeding ourselves and being off the grid and selfsufficient, have a better chance as we have a different mind set. Obviously those of us with a little piece of land will fare better than those in Apts in the city. Those who have been on the y2k forums on the net have a better chance at making it as they have been making that transition of mind set. Mind set will be as great a key to survival as all of our preps. If you think you can, there is a damned good chance that you CAN! Other wise you will be lead to the shelters! I have done a few preps for people other than our family, but what I have really donein a big way is gather seed. I have tons of seed. But I will parcel seeds out by counting them. There will be no seed wasted if I can help it. I will raise a lot more nonhybrid seed this coming fall in half of my garden, while I use up my hybrid seed for consumption in another section. Taz

-- Taz (Taz@aol.com), September 25, 1999.

that should read that I will raise more non hybrid seed this coming SPRING, not fall.

-- Taz (Taz@aol.com), September 25, 1999.

Taz,

While I think everyone should prepare themselves as best they can, I am not at all sure being rural and having land will protect someone from trauma. There are few rural places someone with a bicycle and a lot of determnation and luck can not get. How many converge upon the so called rural safety is unknown. How those in rural safety respond to those converging upon them will have consequences, some of which could be traumatic.

It terms of the trauma that history teaches, it is important to remember that the average age of death was pretty young - late thirties if one was lucky. It often takes a bit of living before traumatic memories intrude on present living.

It is my belief that the traumatized Vietnam Vets would have described themselves as as hardy as anyone; until the traumatic memories became intrusive in their lives many years later. Many traumatized Vets chose the white knuckle approach; they might describe themselves today as hardy; only someone trained to recognize traumatic reactions might inquire about their inability to connect and keep jobs or relationships.

People can suffer from secondary traumatization just being around or watching people suffering or dying as witnessed by the many traumatized Vietnam nurses, most of whom would have described themselves as hardy enough not to be traumatized prior to their service.

Rather than think ourselves somehow better quality people or better prepared people or hardier people or better insulated or located or armed people, before the event, I think we might seriously consider that we might OURSELVES be tramatized or have one we care for traumatized or live in a traumatized America, since we do not know what will happen.

How might healing occur in a traumatized America, where people think nothing bad is ever going to happen, and certainly not to them?

-- Leslie (***@***.net), September 25, 1999.



I guess we will know soon. The British are expecting that the maximum damage to their society and economy will occurr in the March-July time frame as enterprises fail. Whth only 56 workdays 'till the END, and only 30 workdays 'till Thanksgiving, it is too late to do much now but PRAY.

-- K. Stevens (kstevens@ It's ALL going away in January.com), September 25, 1999.

Talking 'bout y2k and pharmaceuticals last night - we got to wonderin' just what will happen to the 80 million or so who are on Prozac, Zoloft, etc. What about the folks on blood pressure meds, heart meds, diabetics, asthmetics, chronic sinus types, bladder infections, yeast infections, etc.

Healing might be defined as being able to fit into a group consensus. Or healing might be defined as achieving a bouyant bodily state of optimal equilibrium.

I doubt there will be a mental healing within my remaining lifetime, 48yo. My guess is several generations and the result being a society(ies) considerably different than that we currently enjoy (or not as the case may be).

We are nearing a watershed time period. The potential for radical changes is so great I find it difficult to make society building contingency plans, the y2k disruptant factor is both too great and too unknown.

Contingency plans always contain within themselves the seed that is the present, and that is the one thing that we are fairly assured will change in a non-rebilitative way.

-- Mitchell Barnes (spanda@inreach.com), September 25, 1999.


Leslie - I am of the generation that remembers Viet Nam. Although I am female and did not serve, I have worked and spoken intimately with many who did - some who still suffered deeply from that trauma.

I think about the movie "Saving Private Ryan" and the beach scene. Surely there could not have been a battle more traumatic than that. One would have to disassociate from the horror of what was happening. However, from all appearances, the vets from WWII did not have the same numbers of soldiers who suffered long term trauma as Nam. Why?

The assumption most seized upon is the lack of support at home.

My discussions with one Nam Vet give another insight. He told me that in Nam, soldiers were intentionally isolated and shuffled so that they would be disoriented and more likely to blindly serve. They were prevented from group identity.

Soldiers in WWII, on the other hand, were "grouped," often by the area from which they came. They went through war as a group as much as casualties would allow. This area grouping did not occur in Nam. The soldier I spoke with felt that this made a big difference in the almost universal numbers of those traumatized in Nam. They had lost the buffer of social context.

My father served in WWII and is now 80. This week he is flying clear across the country to attend a reunion of those who served on his ship. Even after all these years there is still that sense of "us," that sense of group.

-- marsh (armstrng@sisqtel.net), September 25, 1999.


The serious trauma make take a generation or so to heal. PTSS could be yet another factor in the upcoming depression.

-- Mad Monk (madmonk@hawaiian.net), September 27, 1999.

I've always believed that the effect of trauma is determined by how you regard the traumatizing event - whether you see it as a dragon come to devour you or as a challenge to be met. I'm speaking here as both an adult child of an alcoholic and as someone who has had a near death experience (congestive heart failure).

I could have just languished in self-pity about my childhood experiences, but instead I've chosen to focus on the gifts I got. There were certain survival skills that were necessary to develop, to keep out of trouble, when the old man was on a bender. These skills have served me well.

Yes, there are certain other arenas, where people with more "normal" upbringings are more developed than I, but life's full of trade offs.

I'm doing all I can to keep the outlook that a world changed by Y2K disruptions are just the next great adventure in human cultural evolution.

I guess I might not have to wait long, for the ultimate test of my view.

P.S. Yes, I did got thru a twelve step ACA program, and found it very helpful. The best part, was finding out that others had been thru the same thing, and had a lot of the same reactions. The loss of the feeling of isolation was very healing.

-- Bokonon (bok0non@my-Deja.com), September 28, 1999.



Having gone through the "standard" CISD/CISM team training, there are a lot of things here that are fairly good and fairly accurate.

One of the concerns I have is exactly the Critical Incident Stress problem. If you have the opportunity, you should hunt fown a Mitchel Model CISD/M seminar, at least the intro 2 day course. One of the things you get out of this course is the fact that Critical Incidents happen to EVERYONE and the threshold is different for EACH PERSON.

Other things you learn include the fact that most of the "symptoms" that the person having a response to an overwhelming critical incident are normal human coping mechanisms. the real take home lessons amount to basically, "No, you aren't crazy, you are processing/dealing with an overwhelming event, and this is how your body and brain deal with it, in a 'normal' maner".

Find the course, or hunt down an instructor like Rich Gist and bend his ear for a day or two. (Just kidding, though those of you in OKC probably know who he is.)

Chuck Who went through the training because he wanted to and for self preservation, since his wife was on the board and might not be home for the 3AM phone calls.....

-- Chuck, a night driver (rienzoo@en.com), September 28, 1999.


HE won,t let us suffer?? we don,t LIE[SYSOPS] we don,t flame & de-fame-we HONOR HIS SON -we don,t delete HIS WORD-we don,t intentionally'single out individuals[sysops]we are alway,s fair?????

-- ''IN GOD WE TRUST??? (dogs@zianet.com), September 28, 1999.

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