March 27, 2021
I’ve been thinking about trauma a lot this week. On Monday, March 22, Boulder, Colorado became yet another city to be home to a mass shooting. 10 murders including a police officer, in a grocery store in the middle of the day. It’s been quite a week including a range of emotions, some familiar, some new. The week started with a shocked numbness and the inability to sleep coupled with worry, sadness and anger. There is a lot known and a lot unknown. Through it all I’ve been trying to wrap my head around so many things, including both actions and emotions.
Trauma is defined as “a disordered psychic or behavioral state resulting from severe mental or emotional stress or physical injury”. Emotional stress, that’s the simplest way to put it.
Everyone deals with emotional stress differently. Probably because of how we are wired individually and I think also because of how much trauma we’ve experienced in our lifetime.
My health diagnosis is very traumatic. For me and my family in particular. The evolution of emotions I experienced this week mirror the emotions right after my diagnosis - shocked numbness, sleeplessness, worry, sadness, anger.
Upon reflection, my life experience and education leads me to deal with the trauma of this mass shooting in a very specific way. I’m certain this response is shaped by other trauma I’ve experienced and processed over the years.
When I was 8 years old my uncle was killed in a car accident, a year later my aunt died of metastatic breast cancer. When I was 10, I sang for at least 3 funerals (my teacher was the organist at the church). Of those funerals two were for teens, one died in a car accident and the other committed suicide (he lived across the street from us). The other funeral was for a woman in the community who committed suicide, she had children my age whom I knew. At 12 the brother of a friend passed after a long illness. At 13 my grandfather died. At 18 a friend of my best friend (and friend of my sister) was killed in a car accident at only 17 years old.
That’s a lot to process. Death was kind of a common part of life, one that was sad but happened and you dealt with it and moved on. I learned that life is not fair at an early age. Over the years, I’ve learned that in spite of this exposure to death, my life has been pretty privileged in that I haven’t had to deal with many other hardships.
In the U.S., it seems that many of us have become complacent - we don’t realize how good we have it compared to most people on Earth. We are very focused on ourselves and what we are due without stopping to think at a high level about others. When we do encounter a traumatic situation we often don’t know how to deal with it. We find reasons to either distance ourselves from it or to try to make others feel better about it or even to justify it. As I write these sentences I see parallels to both my diagnosis of cancer and the mass shooting in Boulder.
Most people don’t know how to respond when they learn someone else has a terminal disease, or that they’ve been impacted by a mass shooting. I’ve observed many people try to compensate for not knowing how to respond by saying *something* and that is often not helpful or sometimes much worse. On the flip side, some people want to reach out but don’t know what to say.
So what should we do when someone we know has trauma in their lives? I don’t claim to have the right answers, I have thought about what I find helpful and not so helpful.
What have I found not helpful?
“At least ….” any response starting with “at least” minimizes the experience.
“I also ….” this flips the focus to you and away from the person dealing with trauma.
Expressing hopelessness - “There is nothing we can do to change things.” “This is just the way it is.” “It is what it is.” Honestly, I have no idea why anyone would respond this way. It’s not helpful and certainly not uplifting. In most cases these are false statements as well.
“I understand…” You are not in that person's situation and so there is no way you can fully understand.
If you care about the person who is experiencing trauma let them know you care by simply reaching out. Simply saying “Hi, I’m thinking about you today.” is appreciated. You don’t need to do more than that. Text, call, email, whatever you are comfortable with.
If you truly want to check in on them, ask how they are doing or if there is anything they need. Don’t offer this though if you are not willing to listen to what they are saying. Listen to hear what they are saying, not to respond. Only ask if you are really willing to both listen and help.
Life is not fair. It’s filled with trauma and disappointment that is balanced by wonderful moments of joy and love. We are all navigating our lives individually while being connected to others. Commit to living your best life and being the best friend, family member, or community member you can be. If we all do this, together we can navigate anything we encounter.