Trauma and Me

power of the written word

Recently I posted, ‘Where Were You on September 11, 2001?’

It was about traumatic incidents and hope.

I had actually started writing another article that looked at trauma from a different place, a very personal article about a distressing situation that affected me. I decided not to write that article. It was not my tragedy, so I pondered the question:

‘Have I the right to delve into another family’s pain in order to highlight how it affected me?’

After a lot of soul-searching, I changed my mind. My logic in writing what follows is in acceptance of the fact that many people suffer psychological trauma, much of it far more serious than I suffered. However, it is my guess, that many sufferers at the ‘lesser’ level, perhaps will identify my journey and how I got back on my horse.

What follows describes my ‘distressing’ situation and what I did to address it and regain control.

I must be clear; I am not a Physician, a Psychiatrist, a Psychologist, or a Mental Health Nurse. I am simply a person who suffered a low level of psychological trauma because of an incident.

Nor is it my intention to rank my situation as more or less than other people's suffering. What I write is just as I found it, no more, no less. Also, what I found as a solution may well work for some but may not work for others.

In this short piece, I will first take you through the incident that pierced my psychological armour. I will then recall the situation that made me say,

‘enough is enough’

and the steps I took to face down my particular demon.

The Call

I was a Police Sergeant negotiating my way through a normal day in a small Scottish town until the call was received.

‘We have a report of a shooting in your area.’ There was no additional information, so it was unclear what kind of shooting incident it was, and whether there was, ‘a gunman’ involved.

As we entered the living room, we first saw an infant, no more than five or six weeks old, asleep in a wickerwork basket, a peaceful, serene scene in a normal house.

The smell of cordite and the woman lying motionless on the floor, bleeding from a wound to her head with the strange-looking firearm lying near her told us this was no normal house, not that day.

The woman who called us, the injured woman’s mother, was on her knees on the floor, head in hands, repeating in a strangely quiet voice, as if telling us would somehow help,

’She was unwell, we were supposed to be with her at all times. My car would not start, and her husband had to go to his work. She was only alone for ten minutes. ‘It is all my fault’.

The husband arrived home very soon afterward, and I took him and the injured woman’s mother into the kitchen.

A short time later, via the house telephone, I am informed that the injured woman had been pronounced dead at the hospital and that further assistance was on its way.

I gathered my thoughts and entered the kitchen. There is no standard, textbook, or the best way to deliver terrible news. I had done it before and I would do it again, however, this felt different.

The husband, now widower, and the mother were standing at the far side, holding each other in a tearful embrace, the infant clutched tightly between them. I had a ridiculous thought that they were deliberately at the furthest point from the door to somehow delay my approach. They stared at me, expectantly, still with a look of hope. It is the eyes.

I killed all their hope.

Their world had just collapsed. As they held each other, I put my arms around them. I am not sure if a better officer than me would have found words, I could not.

I will never forget that scene.

The landline in the house started to ring. They looked at me, urging me to answer it. I did. For some reason, I thought it would be the Duty Inspector looking for an update.

How wrong I was.

An anxious woman’s voice asked who I was and what I was doing in her sister’s house. It was now my turn to be shocked, I had been caught on the hop, suddenly I was not in control and did not know what to say, my mind was racing. Was this really her sister, where was she, and how would she react? I told her I was a police officer. There was a scream and then nothing. The line was still open, but nobody was responding. After what felt like an eternity, another woman’s voice spoke and asked what had happened.

I enquired who she was, ‘I am her manager,’ referring to the lady who dropped the telephone. An instant to decide, then I told her who I was and what had happened. She kindly told me she would take control at her end, and she thanked me.

Later that day I was asked, instructed more like, to justify that decision and why I had divulged the death of the woman to a complete stranger on a telephone call.

Later that day I attended the mortuary to identify the woman’s body before the post-mortem. None of the family were well enough to do that.

Viewing and identifying the woman was my watershed. It was the actual moment I saw her, a beautiful woman, completely naked, unblemished, apart from a totally out-of-place blood-stained white bandage around her head.

I have never been able to get rid of that vision.

It will stay with me till it is my turn to be in a mortuary.

What was it about that incident that got through my guard? Even today it is difficult. I have tried to fathom it, why that incident? I had dealt with much more, much worse. I held a young man who died in my arms, I crawled through the wreckage of a car wreck and tried to revive a husband, wife, and their son, to no avail and much more. I was a police officer; it is what we do.

I can only come up with questions.

Was it the pristine condition of the house, the incongruous scene, the child, informing her husband and mother, the unfortunate, awkward telephone incident, the fact that the gun and the bullet she used were both manufactured by her father in his garage workshop or was it simply that a beautiful woman had been so tormented, so ill, that she took what she thought was her only path?

Only questions, no answers, there is not always an answer.

If I found it difficult, my goodness, how did her poor family feel?

The Impact

Strangely, the ‘distress’ did not immediately emerge, certainly not on the day, probably because I was so busy dealing with the situation. I don’t know.

My negative reactions emerged a day or two later when relating the events of that day to a meeting of senior police officers. I, without warning, got emotional and found it difficult to contribute to the meeting. It was a very awkward and uncomfortable feeling; I got no sympathy. I felt I was the weak link and I wanted to crawl away.

Any time after that, when I recalled and tried to give an utterance to that day, I got very emotional and shed tears. That situation lasted for many years and continued well into my retirement.

My solution was to push the memory into the recesses of my mind and lock it away.

And for years, more than thirty, it stayed in that recess of my mind, locked away. Oh, there were fleeting moments when it tried to emerge, but I quickly surpassed such memories and changed the subject.

Then it all came to a head one night about six years ago.

It was at the ‘official’ launch of my book, ‘The Fearn Bobby,’ in front of more than fifty guests. My role, organised by the Publishers, was to read out a few short passages from my book and answer questions and sign copies of the book for purchasers.

All was going well, with the occasional ripple of applause and a couple of laughs. Then I got to ‘The Call’. I knew it was a risk, but I thought, it was a long time ago, I will be fine, I can do this. It will be good for me.

It was not fine.

As I started to read that section of the book, I had a feeling; why am I doing this? However, I ploughed on, then came to a shuddering halt. I stepped back from the microphone and feigned a cough to cover the lacuna.

I stepped forward to continue and found I could not speak. I was in tears and overcome with emotion. I just stood and looked at the ceiling. Nowhere to hide. After a few moments, which felt like an eternity, I held my hand up and apologized, and said I would skip that story. What they did next was wonderful.

They actually applauded.

I was humbled.

When I got home my wife, and I discussed the situation and she insisted I got help.

Regaining Control

I read all I could about Trauma and ways of tackling it. In Particular, I wanted to identify what was happening to me and why.

I found it strange that it only happened once in a blue moon. Was that normal? Was it really Trauma or was it something else?

I did establish that Psychological Trauma, like Physical Trauma, can have different levels of impact on a person and that they do not all require the same intervention, and what I described as my malaise was in fact a legitimate Psychological traumatic condition.

I would not quantify the level of the trauma I suffered as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Perhaps distressing is a more accurate label.

I continued to focus on Psychological Trauma and unearthed an article by Dr. Alyssa Barbush in which she states, ‘… there is no quick fix and there are no “cures” for trauma.’ Some individuals are successful in eradicating the impact of traumatic memories on their lives, while others report significant improvement in their quality of life. Regardless, one thing is for sure; When trauma is on the table, avoidance does not work,

‘… the best way out is always through.’

I then found a reference to James Pennebaker, a social psychologist at the University of Texas at Austin, who in an article dated 1986, referred to the impact of a certain kind of writing on mental health. Since Pennebaker’s article, over 200 research studies have reported that ‘emotional writing’ can improve people’s physical and emotional health.

I found that interesting and researched further, concentrating on the value of writing as a route to improving emotional health.

Joan Didion, American journalist, author, and anthropologist, wrote the following,

‘Many trauma survivors I’ve worked with described the strength they found as they faced their trauma and told their story. They said they felt like they could face anything, as they saw their fear lessen and found greater freedom in their lives. It takes courage to tell your story, and witnessing your own courage shows you that you’re not only strong but also whole.

Louise Desalvo, who wrote the book, ‘Writing as a Way of Healing: How Telling Our Stories Transforms Our Lives’, points to the myriad scientific studies about the efficacy of using writing as a restorative tool and adds that following the Holocaust, many survivors wrote accounts of their experiences.

One such survivor; Victor Frankl, whose 1946 book Man’s Search for Meaning was written over a period of nine days. It was originally published under the title A Psychologist Experiences the Concentration Camp.

DeSalvo opines that this type of immersive, reflective writing process can help people piece themselves back together after even the most unimaginable times.

I will draw a veil over my research with the following: There are shedloads of essays, articles, and books on this subject, and I have referenced but a few. I do hope even these few references are helpful.

Before moving on to my last section, My Solution, let me take back a few centuries and quote RUMI, the Sufi mystic and poet.

“The wound is the place where the Light enters you.”

My Solution

I sat for two days and ripped every part of that memory out of the recess of my soul where I had tried to confine it for all these years, by writing a poem:

the call

The call transformed an unremarkable day,

urgent words, short, staccato, detached.

‘She has been shot; I think?’

Response immediately, to the modest street,

the unspeaking, bewildered, waving woman,

pointing, gesturing, to the ordinary house.

On the carpet, a beautiful, bare-footed woman,

beside her a glowing cheeked infant,

content in a wicker basket.

A bloodied, otherwise pale forehead,

cordite scent, discarded firearm,

proclaimed this to be no ordinary house, not today.

‘She will be alright?’ implored the hitherto

speechless mother of the mother of the child,

being ushered to the sanctuary of the kitchen.

Ambulance crew, unruffled, controlled,

worked to apply the pristine, white bandage,

to the pale, bloodless, yet bloodied forehead.

Then they were gone with

their fragile, hoarse, rasping, patient,

still breathing, still the mother of the child.

The message came a short time later,

only three simple words,

‘… dead on arrival’.

In the sanctuary kitchen, waited

the mother of the mother of the child

with the father of the child, pressed close.

The sanctuary door opened, and four tear-filled eyes,

framed in two tear-stained, crumpled faces,

stared in hope at the visitant.

I hesitated for an instant, a lifetime

and in a disembodied voice, that seemed not mine,

I tore every last glimmer of hope from that sanctuary.

Ian McNeish

In writing our stories, we retain authorship over our lives.

Deborah Seigel-Acevedo