It is mysterious that human suffering powerful enough to destroy life can also transform it. Sometimes those whose life experience is enough to leave anyone feeling broken beyond repair manage to have hope and an immeasurable depth of compassion for others. People who have lost loved ones risk reawakening the rawness of their grief by becoming supportive of others who are bereaved. History demonstrates that entire cultures subjected to the worst abuses imaginable have found hope for the future by honouring the memory of their past, daring to speak of reconciliation from the depths of their wound.[1] There is no one magic formula for healing in this mystery. Taken from the Greek tramatos, meaning an injury from an external source, trauma is the physical, spiritual and emotional wound caused by circumstances that are, in some way, a threat to life. The traumatic wound touches us as a whole: mind, body, and spirit. The threat of physical death is only one possibility. Emotional abandonment is equally devastating, especially when it happens in early life. A severed sense of connection with God can feel like spiritual annihilation. Betrayal of trust that leads to injury is a traumatic event. Trauma cannot begin to heal until safety is established, and only then as part of a lifelong process.[2] Trauma changes our assumptions of identity, safety, and relationship with the world. Whatever the source of trauma, healing takes shape in the act of breaking out of isolation and connecting with other people and the deeper meanings of human experience.[3] Transformation of the trauma requires holding in it the presence of a larger experience of reality that captures the cyclic nature of trauma, its life-threatening origins, and its paradoxical truths. The same underlying human resilience that saves one’s life (at the cost of a traumatic wound) becomes a passageway for new life.[4] There is a vital connection between how an individual recovers from trauma and the belief systems of the society or culture context in which that person lives.[5] A sudden, violent, or preventable physical death is traumatic for those left behind.[6] When the God I have cried out to for help seems to fail me, the loneliness is devastating. Fundamental to healing is recognizing one’s humanity, including limits and terrors in the face of death, and seeing through the wound. Pain held in a vacuum will never be able to be transformed.[7] Healing from trauma is as multi-dimensional as the wound itself: physical, psychological, and emotional aspects to the wound must be addressed.[8] Transforming trauma is impossible without spirituality: a belief in something more than what is currently seen or understood.[9] Some questions that needs to be asked are: How do we pray or feel ourselves in God’s presence when one of the fundamental elements of trauma is that trust has been ruptured? How do we make a reconnection with the God who knows our story, holds the memory, and gives us the gift of hope and belief in the future? How does the hollowness of trauma become the hallowed ground where we meet God in a transforming way?[10]
The stress response is important for
survival as it helps us leap into action to get us out of harm’s way. However,
once the danger has passed, if the stress response continues, this response
actually becomes damaging on the emotional, physical and spiritual levels.[11]
The blood that thickens in anticipation of needing to clot a wound and save
life can also clog the arteries of the heart and cause death, particularly if
there is an underlying genetic susceptibility to such illness. Prolonged stress
causes fatigue, muscle tightness, and headaches. Sleep may become difficult or
non-restorative. Long-term stress makes people more prone to illness because of
immune system dysregulation.[12]
Eating patterns are altered and people may have emotional outburst. Emotional
and physical withdrawal from others is a sign of not having the resources to
maintain interpersonal relationships. It also can impair memory and
concentration.[13]
Guilt about survival is common in circumstances where others have died. “Why
not me?” can easily become as haunting a question as “Why me?” The feeling that
others might have been saved if a different action had been taken, or if one
had not acted in the interest of one’s own survival, runs counter to the
reality that the trauma response is not national or planned in advance. At the
heart of trauma is powerlessness, an inability to change the outcome of events
for oneself or for other people. The first act in recovering from trauma is
often the recognition that a normal reaction to unusual events is not a source
of shame.[14]
The anxiety of PTSD is fed by the inability
to keep what happened in the past from intruding into the present. The symptoms
cluster in three groups: intrusion of the memories, constriction or numbing of
feeling about the trauma, and arousal of the central nerve system. PTSD causes
major disruption in all aspects of life, especially in interpersonal
relationships.[15]
Symptoms must persist for longer than three weeks. Most survivors of public
traumatic events are able to function at a fairly high level, in part because
so much attention is given to processing the trauma. Yet difficulties are
common, and the memory continues to impact the present. The wound remains deep,
even after people have moved beyond some of their initial responses to the
trauma.[16]
The healing process begins not with trying to push the symptoms away, but
rather with trying to understand and befriend them for the great protection
they have been. These symptoms are not sign of weakness or failure. The
transition requires mercy on oneself for not having acted any differently
during the trauma itself, on others for their responses to the distress, and on
humanity for the evil capacity that trauma so often reveals. Making peace with
memory requires respecting the reactions and processes at work in the face of
trauma as in service of life, not proof of hysteria or some type of failure.[17]
Dissociation is the experience of not being
present to reality as a way of maintaining an illusion of safety. It is a
common form of defence that is taken to an extreme in traumatic situations.[18]
It not only occurs on an individual level but can also occur on the social and
cultural level. Robert J. Liften interviewed people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki
who had survived the nuclear bombs and noted a general lack of emotion in
describing the initial destruction of the attack and the subsequent loss of
life from radiation-induced diseases. The long-term danger of numbing of
emotions lies in the fact that individuals who cannot process their pain suffer
greatly and humanity as a whole is deprived of the opportunity of learning the
actual consequences of actions.[19]
Recollection of trauma often feels like a
terrible flood that has the power to destroy life.[20]
Both flashbacks and intrusive memories are the reality of the wound breaking
through consciousness. It has been suggested that part of the reason intrusive
symptoms present as they do stems from the fact that memories of events that
happen in moments of extreme stress must work their way from implicit to
explicit memory. Intrusive symptoms are part of a process that seeks to restore
equilibrium by bringing dissociated material to consciousness. The disruptive
symptoms are a signal that the traumatic material is in need of attention.[21]
Trauma in childhood interrupts the natural flow of development that initiates
and strengthens the very resources required to face future threats in an intact
way. A traumatised child will have great difficulty establishing a sense of
agency or personal empowerment in life. The elements most needed in dealing
with trauma, including establishing a support system, retaining hope for the
future, and practicing healthy habits, are the ones most impacted by childhood
trauma.[22]
The claiming of dissociated memory, the restoration of social connections, and
the creation of reliable areas of safety are all part of the healing process
and become its first fruits.[23]
Memories that leads back into bitterness and violence is itself damaging
because it is impossible to grow beyond the power of the events themselves.
There is always a reason to look for someone to blame and to try and exact
revenge in the face of the inexplicable. Much more is required for compassion
to be born: it is a holding of the truth in a self-forgiving way. Nothing can
change what has happened. The memory is just a recollection, not ongoing fact.
Memory that is properly recognised can become a source of life.[24]
Grief can refer both to the damage or
injury inflicted and the process of recovery from that injury.[25]
Grief shuts down the body’s normal appetites and desires: loss of appetite,
unable to rest, diminished sex drive, concentration and focus are numbed. Grief
deepens the knowledge that are no guarantees in life, and that what we expect
in the future may not come to pass.[26]
The most familiar model for the stages of grief include: denial, anger,
bargaining, depression, and acceptance. The cycle does not progress neatly and
is a process.[27]
When there is an accident or disaster, there is always eerie coincidences of
people who would have been there if they hadn’t missed the boat, stayed home
sick, or been stuck in traffic. The survivors would be thanking God for mercy,
but there is always a question that haunts[28]:
what of those who were not saved, who made the launch of the ship, who were at
the point of impact? Did God choose for them to die for a purpose?[29]
The need to find a reason for injury or survival is a defensive strategy. If
only there is a reason, or a mistake can be identified and judgment made, the
reality of lost control and powerlessness can be avoided.[30]
Bargaining is: I do not yet know how things are going to work out; I will
attempt to influence the outcome in some way. Ultimately, the bargaining will
fail because there is no way to reverse the loss. Nothing can change reality
and so a way to live with it must be found. With the loss of bargaining power
comes total vulnerability, and with it comes another choice: how to live in the
presence and reality of the loss.[31]
Depression is the process of withering, the loss of energy for day-to-day
activities. The perception that it is better to be dead than to face the pain
of a loss should be taken seriously. It is wise to get professional help
because it is a medical condition that can be effectively treated.[32]
The orphan trains was a controversial historical social service movement in the US from 1850-1929[33], which transports children without proper adult care to the west to be adopted by families. Many children found good homes, but many others were adopted only for the labour they provide. Siblings were separated. Some sickly children travelled the length of the train lines and were consistently rejected for adoption. Oral histories taken fifty years after the last orphan train revealed that the grief of the orphan train children was closely held inside or consciously ignored. Many of those children discovered the intensity of their grief only later in life when threatened again with separation.[34]
Victor Frankl was a psychiatrist whose work was deeply influenced by his experience in a concentration camp. He pointed out that human beings have a fundamental need to believe in the future, not just a hope for one’s individual future but an embrace of future possibilities for humanity. If that belief is lost, it is impossible to live well in the present, and perhaps impossible to live at all. When trauma destroys belief in the future, there is no container for grief and so it remains unprocessed and grows in power. Any reminder of the loss and anything that awakens the grief is to be avoided.[35] “Death ends a life, but not a relationship.” Relationships continue beyond the grave. If a relationship was one of great pain, grieving for that relationship is a complex process, because hope of the situation ever improving has been extinguished by the death. Without the experience of grief there can be no letting into consciousness the reality of relationships, events, and their losses, and so no surrender to the new reality.[36] When the prophets of the Hebrew Scriptures expressed profound grief for the losses of their people, it invokes the memory of God’s fidelity and opens up the possibility for a new way of understanding and living. Grief acknowledges that a link has been severed: living into that truth frees the soul to believe again in the future and to imagine a new possibility.[37] The greatest act of faith for those encountering grief is to stand in its presence and make no attempts to explain it away. Only then is grief freed to reveal its imaginative possibilities, the most vital of which is the desire to love again.[38]
The orphan trains was a controversial historical social service movement in the US from 1850-1929[33], which transports children without proper adult care to the west to be adopted by families. Many children found good homes, but many others were adopted only for the labour they provide. Siblings were separated. Some sickly children travelled the length of the train lines and were consistently rejected for adoption. Oral histories taken fifty years after the last orphan train revealed that the grief of the orphan train children was closely held inside or consciously ignored. Many of those children discovered the intensity of their grief only later in life when threatened again with separation.[34]
Victor Frankl was a psychiatrist whose work was deeply influenced by his experience in a concentration camp. He pointed out that human beings have a fundamental need to believe in the future, not just a hope for one’s individual future but an embrace of future possibilities for humanity. If that belief is lost, it is impossible to live well in the present, and perhaps impossible to live at all. When trauma destroys belief in the future, there is no container for grief and so it remains unprocessed and grows in power. Any reminder of the loss and anything that awakens the grief is to be avoided.[35] “Death ends a life, but not a relationship.” Relationships continue beyond the grave. If a relationship was one of great pain, grieving for that relationship is a complex process, because hope of the situation ever improving has been extinguished by the death. Without the experience of grief there can be no letting into consciousness the reality of relationships, events, and their losses, and so no surrender to the new reality.[36] When the prophets of the Hebrew Scriptures expressed profound grief for the losses of their people, it invokes the memory of God’s fidelity and opens up the possibility for a new way of understanding and living. Grief acknowledges that a link has been severed: living into that truth frees the soul to believe again in the future and to imagine a new possibility.[37] The greatest act of faith for those encountering grief is to stand in its presence and make no attempts to explain it away. Only then is grief freed to reveal its imaginative possibilities, the most vital of which is the desire to love again.[38]
Traumatic grief follows a loss so
devastating that it evokes the trauma response, whereby there are intrusive,
avoidance and arousal symptoms. These usually result from sudden or unexpected
events. Sometimes there is a denial of the circumstances of the death, eg. A
suicide becomes an accidental drowning, etc. Denial creates impacted grief.[39]
This type of grief, like material dissociated form memory, lives in its own
protected space within the body and mind. It cannot come to the surface, but
its presence presses against consciousness and sometimes causes damage to the
surrounding tissues of relationships. If there is no opportunity for expression
at the time of loss, impacted grief can become disconnected from its source.
The awakening of grief is then confusing and traumatic in its own right.[40]
Social withdrawal is common in all forms of grief but in traumatic grief it is
a greater impairment. The healing of traumatic grief requires that the symptoms
of intrusion, avoidance, and arousal be acknowledged and stabilised. The trauma
symptoms need to be addressed before engaging in the process of working with
the grief itself. To stabilise the symptoms is to open the possibility for
healing of the grief. Then the transformation of grief into a process of living
again begins to occur.[41]
Traumatic grief has a particularly strong component of guilt that makes it seem
disloyal to feel better and go on with life. The pain itself can be understood
as a way of keeping the lost person alive.[42]
Witnesses to trauma must be willing to step into the void of having no answers,
solutions, or understanding of something that cannot and will not be explained
away. The most compassionate witnesses of all are the ones who have shared
similar experiences and are living testimony to the possibility, instead the
reality, of survival.[43]
Anger is an emotion that is as natural to
humanity as fear, joy or sadness. It is a natural response to threat. When
wounded, animals become angry and frightened in order to protect themselves and
survive. Human anger is similar: it is meant to mobilise us for definition and
survival. It can be a protective crust of a tender wound. Feeling and
expressing anger protects the heart from feeling its pain and grief.[44]
Like impacted grief, anger needs to be respected and used as energy for change.[45]
Anger provoked by trauma can be especially threatening because it feels out of
control.[46]
Anger must run its course along pathways and time periods that are not of our
choosing.[47]
Anger calls for creativity in its expression so that the energy not only will
break the silence of trauma, but will be directed to daring to fight like hell
for the living. This is the anger that creates a new and safer world.[48]
When the evil of events is simply beyond
what can be understood and there is no penitence on the part of the
perpetrator, forgiveness and reconciliation are not possible. Under such
circumstances it is wrong to press people to forgive their abusers. The hope of
authentic forgiveness always originates with the wronged party, who must be
able to see the humanity of the other through an acknowledgement of evil.[49]
The most powerful hunger for God is known
in the feeling of seeming absence.[50]
The seeming loss of God is, in actuality, a passage into a deeper relationship
with the God who is beyond our projections, images or understanding. The loss
of the image of a protective God carries with it the experience of presence in
the midst of the human reality of suffering. The intellectual understanding or familiar
image of God is challenged by trauma.[51]
Through our embrace of life’s wounds, each
of us can offer others our tiny bit of manna for the journey toward wholeness.[52]
None of us can create the Promised Land where there will be no more suffering
or sorrow. Still, within the wound there is the capacity for hope for nothing
less than communion with the mysteriously compassionate and wounded God. The
nature of God’s wound is the passionate fire of living memory; the I AM of
human history. It is the energy of transformation.[53]
[1] Teresa Rhodes McGee, Transforming
Trauma: A Path toward Wholeness (Maryknoll: New York, 2005), xi.
[2] McGee, Transforming Trauma,
xii.
[3] McGee, Transforming Trauma,
xiii.
[4] McGee, Transforming Trauma,
xiv.
[5] McGee, Transforming Trauma,
xv.
[6] McGee, Transforming Trauma,
13.
[7] McGee, Transforming Trauma,
14.
[8] McGee, Transforming Trauma,
16.
[9] McGee, Transforming Trauma,
17.
[10] McGee, Transforming Trauma,
18.
[11] McGee, Transforming Trauma,
22.
[12] McGee, Transforming Trauma,
24.
[13] McGee, Transforming Trauma,
25.
[14] McGee, Transforming Trauma,
28.
[15] McGee, Transforming Trauma,
33.
[16] McGee, Transforming Trauma,
34.
[17] McGee, Transforming Trauma,
36.
[18] McGee, Transforming Trauma,
40.
[19] McGee, Transforming Trauma,
44.
[20] McGee, Transforming Trauma,
51.
[21] McGee, Transforming Trauma,
57.
[22] McGee, Transforming Trauma,
66.
[23] McGee, Transforming Trauma,
67.
[24] McGee, Transforming Trauma,
70.
[25] McGee, Transforming Trauma,
74.
[26] McGee, Transforming Trauma,
75.
[27] McGee, Transforming Trauma,
76.
[28] McGee, Transforming Trauma,
79.
[29] McGee, Transforming Trauma,
80.
[30] McGee, Transforming Trauma,
80.
[31] McGee, Transforming Trauma,
81.
[32] McGee, Transforming Trauma,
83.
[33] McGee, Transforming Trauma,
83.
[34] McGee, Transforming Trauma,
84.
[35] McGee, Transforming Trauma,
87.
[36] McGee, Transforming Trauma,
88.
[37] McGee, Transforming Trauma,
89.
[38] McGee, Transforming Trauma,
90.
[39] McGee, Transforming Trauma,
93.
[40] McGee, Transforming Trauma,
94.
[41] McGee, Transforming Trauma,
95.
[42] McGee, Transforming Trauma,
96.
[43] McGee, Transforming Trauma,
97.
[44] McGee, Transforming Trauma,
100.
[45] McGee, Transforming Trauma,
101.
[46] McGee, Transforming Trauma,
103.
[47] McGee, Transforming Trauma,
105.
[48] McGee, Transforming Trauma,
114.
[49] McGee, Transforming Trauma,
133.
[50] McGee, Transforming Trauma,
152.
[51] McGee, Transforming Trauma,
154.
[52] McGee, Transforming Trauma,
158.
[53] McGee, Transforming Trauma,
159.
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