As many of you know, my recent Web chat was with Carla from these pages on the topic of posttraumatic growth. The research shows that the majority of people who endured trauma had life enhancing experiences including increased compassion, respect for life, new dimensions of faith, realigned priorities and a sense of purpose in life.
Of course these positive experiences don't happen right away and sometimes take years (it did for me) and not everyone who experienced trauma has this experience.
I told the story in letters to Sam about what happened many years ago when I developed a pretty large decubitus ulcer. When he examined me, the doctor told me that ultimately everything the ulcer needed for healing was already in my body. So all we had to do was access what was already in there and create an environment where that could happen. Medically, that's pretty simple -- keep the pressure off, keep the wound clean etc..
But what about trauma? What is it that helps us husband our internal resources so that we can grow, and what is it that inhibits the growth? I would like to begin a dialogue on this very question and I would like to hear from you about your experiences with what keeps you stuck and what has help you grow to become bigger than your trauma.
I'll start. When the body is traumatized it goes into shock. This is healthy and adaptive as systems shut down and don't make demands. Same with the mind. We have all experienced shock where we shut down. It's not quite depression, not quite confusion and not quite numbness but a combination of all three. Shock helps us keep the bigger emotions of terror and despair and later rage at bay for now. But keeping those emotions at bay over time inhibits healing. It stops our body/mind from getting the nutrients it needs to heal. Just like self-absorption is essential in the short run after trauma. After all, we must focus on our wounded selves in order to care for the mechanics of what we need. But self-absorption in the long run makes our worlds very small and conducive to depression or worse -- self-pity.
And what enhances personal growth? Finding meaning, finding support and nurturing, making the lens of your worldview wider, caring for others, laughing frequently (seriously), faith (we can talk about that later) and the big one... love. Lots of love. And it doesn't matter whether you are being loved or loving others. Personally I think loving others is just a tiny bit better, but I like them both a lot.
I also spoke on the Web chat today about the importance of properly placed hopelessness. So many of us get stuck because we clutch to a past that somehow think we can reclaim or grasp at a future vision that we think will make us happy. If we had no hope for either of those, it opens the door for lots of possibilities.
But like I said -- let's talk
Frankly I don’t know how much insight I have right now into this discussion due to the present chaos that is surrounding my life, but this topic brought to mind an interesting experience I had last week.
I had been over at my parent’s house on Friday with my kids and my niece. They were swimming and my mom and I were kibitzing (as my dad calls it) all afternoon. Finally we head home about 4:30. I am stopped at a red light in a long line of traffic when BAM we are hit from behind. Well the last accident I was in nearly killed us all and left my husband paralyzed. Strangely I didn’t have any sort of melt down. Instead, I get out of my car and approach the lady that has just hit me. She is sitting rather stunned in her car, almost speechless. So I call 911 and then managed to get my car off the road and into a gas station parking lot. I go back to the street to help this other lady. Her car is pretty bad (ultimately has to be towed away) but she gets it restarted and pulls into the parking lot too.
She has a man in the passenger seat that might have been her husband or boyfriend and maybe a 10 year old child in the back. I’m sort of standing outside my car and she finally gets out and comes over. The lady is shaking, apologizing, asking about my kids. I hear myself say to her “Oh, it’s no big deal. Everyone is fine. Don’t worry, it happens.” Well that’s weird. Hummm.....I don’t even feel the least bit angry or annoyed.
She then begins telling me that she has recently moved to the city and that she is having family problems and was thinking about that instead of driving. She also tells me about her son who has autism and is still rather shaken up. She proceeds to tell me all kinds of stuff about her life. At one point I even put my arm around her. I think she really just needed a friend at that moment. It wasn’t an act. I really cared nothing about my car, but instead I felt so much compassion for this lady. Sure I’m going to be a little inconvenienced over this but that isn’t worth hurting this lady. She is already beating herself up. I’m not going to add to it.
Finally the police show up and direct us both back to our cars. When I get in the car my kids are in total shock, their mouths gaping open. They are like..."Geeze Mom, we thought you were gonna go off on her. She just wrecked your new car. It looked like you were even hugging her. What the heck." I just told them that she needed a little kindness and compassion not a hassle.
Is that growth? I don’t know, but I’m sure that my reaction would have been significantly different 8 years ago. What helped me muster this reaction? Maybe this kinder and gentler reaction was always inside me, and perhaps the experience of our tragic accident allowed me to access it on this occasion. Most days I don’t feel like I am growing at all from this past tragedy to our family, but maybe last week I saw a glimmer of some much needed of growth.
Wonderful posts. Thank you all so much. The structure of this is a bit awkward as three of you have brought up different issues, all of which are important. So this post will be for ratherbflyin:
I think I have discovered that the only thing in life that is linear is time. Everything else is like sine waves that hopefully get smaller with time. After the shock wore off, my grief seemed to last forever. Then it seemed like it dissipated and I was doing pretty well, engaging with friends and enjoying my life when something happened and it was back again. This time it didn't last as long. They all come back, and they all leave. And if we get a little bit of that stuff some people call wisdom, we grow to know the comings and goings of these painful and joyful emotions and don't react as much to them.
IAM so happy to hear that you are less reactive to what people might be thinking about you. After all, the only thing you know for sure is what you are thinking about yourself and we know how much that is worth! Many years ago when I was teaching graduate courses, a beautiful young student came up to me and said she could identify with me. This is a woman who had been a model before she went to graduate school! So when she saw that shocked and confused look in my face she said: " just like you, when people look at me they don't see a person they just see this shell that's around me." That was the first and last time I was compared to a beautiful woman, but she was right. So what does this mean? Not much. After all these years, I don't think about what people think about me. It's not that I don't care, it's just that my mind doesn't go there. Lucky me.But I do have several friends who say they don't think of me as disabled. But when I go out to dinner with them, they don't automatically take the paper off my straw or offer to take my coat off, they just don't think of it. Boy, that's good news and bad news, isn't it?
To Trish:I have always had great respect and admiration for your mind, but here you are talking about your heart. There is something about vulnerability in others that opens our hearts to compassion. I'd like to say that this is a very human reaction, but it's not, we see it throughout the animal kingdom. Monkeys tend to groom a monkey that is ill or has just lost a child. Dogs do that with their masters, and humans do that when their minds don't get in the way!Trish has given us a great example of that. Eight years ago you would not have been able to do that because I am guessing that what happened to your mind closed your heart. You were in shock or anguish or despair, probably all of them. And these big painful emotions silence the quiet voice of a tender heart. When the mind is quiet the heart opens. Of course, hearts don't stay open, they can't. So compassionate Trish me have gone home and gotten into another altercation with a pizza guy, who knows?But your story tells us that inside of all of us lives that quiet voice that cares about others that has compassion and a genuine desire to foster well-being and those who are vulnerable. Whether we can access it or not, it's there.
And that compassion is there for us also. I often tell my patients to take a few minutes in the morning and look deeply into their eyes in the mirror. See the person you were with your dreams. See how hard you tried to do the right thing. See the person you are today, your goodness and that quiet voice inside. See how hard you try to live the best life you can with dignity. Look deeply into that person's eyes and you may find great compassion.
As many of you may already know, my beloved Philadelphia Eagles signed Michael Vick to a two-year contract. And as many of you may also know, Michael Vick just served 18 months in Leavenworth penitentiary for animal abuse. Not just regular animal abuse, extraordinarily sadistic and inhumane animal abuse. Now you can imagine the uproar. Everybody was angry at the Eagles, the NFL, the court system for not sentencing him to a longer-term, but most of all angry at Michael Vick. Understandably so.
So I decided that everyone in the Philadelphia area said everything there was to say on every side of the argument (even making up some extra signs that weren't there) and I thought it would be prudent to say nothing.
Then I get a letter from "Peter" who spent 13 years working in the federal prison system and he talked about second chances and compassion.
You can read the article, but essentially I talked about trying to see life through the lens of the other person.
http://www.philly.com/inquirer/columnists/dan_gottlieb/20090824_Ask_Dan__Opening_up_to_the_Michael_Vick_story.html
My follow-up Web chat was about forgiveness.
What does forgiveness have to do with us? All of us have been severely injured emotionally. We have been dealt an injustice and win that happens, our first instinct is to take back what we've lost. When we can't get it, we get angry, indignant and inevitably look to hold someone accountable. A truck driver who caused my accident, a friend who didn't call a doctor soon enough, a doctor who screwed up the surgery -- and sometimes it is ourselves that we hold accountable.
After my accident, I hated myself for the burden I placed on my wife and the depression I caused my parents. But mostly I felt this kind of angry guilt about what I could no longer do for my children.
My heart is closed, my fists were closed (metaphorically) and my mind felt like a war zone.
How could I forgive that truck driver for not stopping? How could I forgive the tire and rubber company that put a defective wheel on the road? How could I forgive myself for causing all this suffering to my loved ones?
Everyone talks about forgiveness, that it is the morally correct thing to do, that it contributes to healing and that it makes the world a better place. Frankly, when I hear stuff like that even though it's correct I hear "blah blah blah". That's what my brain does when I hear empty rhetoric and I consider myself lucky because of that!
We have been wounded, all of us. First, we must do what we need to do to help our emotional wounds heal. And as many of you know, emotional wounds can heal regardless of what's happening to our bodies. As a matter of fact, reading this and sharing your lives is part of the healing process. Connecting with kindred spirits who understand, really understand, cuts down on feelings of alienation and isolation that can make wounds fester.
I'd love to hear your thoughts and experiences about forgiveness and what it takes to heal.
