Healing in the Wake of Tragedy

By Dr Sarah Wayland

Healing in the Wake of Tragedy
Traumatic events, and exposure to traumatic experiences, shake us to the very core and the resulting pain can be almost unbearable for many. However, we may have hit on the key to understanding how to best help people to recover from it – community connectedness.

Adam* still remembers the moment his father broke the news to him. His sister had died suddenly and violently, a young woman here one moment and then gone the next. Almost 25 years has passed since that day but the very fabric of what defines Adam is impacted by the events surrounding the loss of his sister.

In the beginning, he thought the traumatic memories would diminish in time but they haven’t gone away; they have ebbed and flowed as those upsurges of grief have shifted over the years. “My world view was changed forever because of that catastrophic loss,” Adam explains, “but I don’t expect that will ever change for me, for my parents, her high-school friends as well as the small community we grew up in.”

Now a father himself, he finds the loss of his sister impacts his young daughter, a daughter who never met her aunt but still reels from the way she was taken from them. Adam says the loss touches all aspects of his life – it triggers anxiety about bad things happening, he is wary of others and he no longer looks at the world through rose-coloured glasses – but he does have a very clear sense about what he is grateful for.

Adam describes it as a lasting legacy of the shock, sadness and growth that came with the loss of his sister, something that those around him struggle to comprehend given she died so long ago. Trauma has a way of binding together people with shared experiences and helps them to shape how they make meaning from their lives, in an effort to find peace from what has happened.

So, how can we understand healing and trauma from both the perspective of the person who experiences it and those interconnected through family or community?

HIGH IMPACT

Traumas, and exposure to traumatic experiences, are part of much of the populations’ lives. Trauma can include natural and man-made disasters, psychological and physical traumas, acts of deliberate violence, and even events that can be culturally or spiritually violent or distressing.

Judith Herman, a Harvard-based researcher and psychiatrist, defines trauma as “events [that] involve threats to life or bodily integrity, or a close personal encounter with violence and death. They confront human beings with the extremities of helplessness and terror, and evoke the responses of catastrophe.”

As a community, we are also exposed to the traumas of others who are not known to us, through the broadcasting and sharing of news in mainstream media and social media. These events also have the capacity to injure us as well as other people who surround us. Irrespective of these definitions, trauma can sometimes be judged by the community as whether an event is serious enough to make a lasting impact.

Despite the awareness of trauma and its effects, there is a commonly held view that people will be momentarily impacted and that, over time, the pain will diminish. Our conversations about trauma often sit on a linear, more straightforward, path. The concept is that if something takes place, we take time to process that trauma and then eventually, our life returns to normal.

However, recent research, as published in the NCBI article, ‘Understanding the Impact of Trauma’, tells a different story. We now see that trauma, irrespective of when it occurs and, in some circumstances, of whether it happens directly to us, can have long-lasting impacts.

The ripple effect touches who we are, how we parent, our family and friends, and the community around us. A shift in conversation is required, one that identifies a traumatic event as not just a moment in time but a life event that can shape who we are and what we value – for better and worse.

 

THE LONG-REACHING EFFECTS

Trauma rarely has one victim. When professionals first intervene following a traumatic event, the focus is usually on the person who was exposed to the trauma. We must not lose sight of the fact that living with, or growing up alongside, that traumatised person can also be profoundly impactful.

Donna Jackson Nakazawa, a campaigner who raises awareness of childhood trauma and healing, speaks in her groundbreaking book, Childhood Disrupted, of the sudden loss of her father at the age of 12 – and the chronic physical illnesses she endured for decades afterwards. She explains that it wasn’t until she was 51 that a doctor finally asked her about the childhood traumas she experienced as a way of understanding how she might heal.

Trauma can shape the way that relationships progress, how conflict is managed within families and how successive generations respond to life events.

FINDING MEANING IN SUFFERING

The language that is shared about trauma is often negative. We speak of disorders from surviving trauma, about difficulties in sustaining relationships and triggers that might shape the way a person engages with their community.

However, there is also scope for post-traumatic growth. This growth is often seen through people pausing and reflecting on what has occurred to them and to seek opportunities to learn from how they are reacting. Employing a mindset that focuses on growth rather than being fixed on a cycle of fear, blame, shame and anger can provide a chance to make meaning from what has occurred.

We see this in communities around the globe when they seek out new ways to become resilient after traumatic events. With the March 2017 terror attack in London, which resulted in the death of five people in the Westminster area, the language initially focused on seeking ways to blame or make sense of disenfranchised individuals who use terror as a way of gaining control. Yet, community initiatives that symbolised connectedness slowly began to emerge in the days after the attack. Images of distress were replaced by solidarity – of Muslim women wearing blue, to signify peace, standing together in a moment of silence on Westminster Bridge to show support.

In these ways, where growth comes from trauma, communities continue to acknowledge the loss but also speak about how they might move forward from what has occurred.

The threads of trauma passed down from generation to generation can change the stories of communities as well as families – they bruise and wound people but they also offer opportunities to reflect on new ways of healing, understanding values and reclaiming a new sense of self.

Despite more than a quarter of a century passing since Adam’s loss, he still sees the way the trauma has reverberated within and around his family. For some, like Adam, this becomes their new normal where the world is changed but there are also possibilities for moving forward.

HOW CAN YOU HELP?

Phoenix Australia, the Centre for Posttraumatic Mental Health, suggests help for anyone experiencing trauma can be both practical and emotional.

Practical ideas include assisting with childcare or food shopping in the early days, offering help with transport to appointments, watching the news on behalf of the individual or fielding phone calls to limit exposing people to the retelling of their trauma.

Emotionally, the ripple effects of trauma can last for weeks, months and even years after the event. People who experience trauma may want to talk about ways that you can help. But if the person is not in a position to suggest helpful ways, there are various options to consider. For example, limit suggestions of what has worked for you or for others you know. Instead, listen to what they have to say with empathy. If the trauma is impacting their day-to-day life or becoming more complicated, suggest that they seek help.

It’s important to accept that events unrelated to the trauma may be challenging for people. Life experiences such as having children, moving or exposure to other world events can trigger reminders of what has occurred, so honour this.

WHERE TO TURN FOR HELP

If you need support, call Lifeline Australia on 13 11 14, or Relationships Australia – Trauma and Support on 1300 364 277.

For New Zealand, you can call the 24/7 Helpline on 0800 543 354 or Victim Support on 0800 842 846.

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