TRAUMA SURVIVORS AND THE PANDEMIC: A PARADOX
Trauma and Paradoxical Peace During Pandemic
We are currently in a time of exceptional collective trauma. We are dealing with a global crisis, which has and will continue to have harrowing impact for most. Some people will themselves become ill or have a loved-one affected by this pandemic. Most of us are feeling some level of anxiety, confusion, fear and worry for our individual and collective physical, emotional and financial futures.
As a group, mental health treatment providers are trying to triage current challenges and anticipate future fallout. As clinicians with existing clients, my colleagues and I are also seeing the impact of the pandemic on people who already had trauma histories. I am taking a pulse on my own reaction, as I too have experienced trauma. Many people’s responses, including my own, have been a bit paradoxical. As one sage trauma survivor and service provider wrote in our email exchange:
“It’s amazing in an odd/sad kind of way that a potential latent consequence of this virus has been to level out the brain of trauma survivors in ways that only this kind of experience could do…… Since the world right now is ‘pulsing’ to a fear frequency – and since this is the constant ‘soundtrack loop’ playing to varying degrees in a trauma survivor’s brain all the time, the fact that the world is experiencing it now is probably the best thing that could happen for individual trauma recovery. And it’s so interesting to me that people who haven’t really experienced trauma are getting really dysregulated with all this while many trauma survivors are calm, measured, grounded, and some are experiencing a ‘relaxation’ and calm they never thought possible …”
– A sage muse.
This landed for me and normalized my own disconcerting response – one I initially felt reluctant to share. Personally, the quote above mirrored and expanded on something I had said to my husband:
“The world feels like it is coming to an end, but I feel oddly calm…. like I have been preparing for this for much of my life….”
It is widely understood that trauma can have a neurobiological impact on the brain. One area that is affected is the amygdala. For people who have experienced trauma, this structure can go into overdrive to detect possible future threat. Many Trauma survivors struggle with feeling unsafe in the world. They secondarily sometimes feel as if they are in a different reality compared to non-traumatized people who walk along with less fear and might not understand why those of us who have experienced trauma are so cautious, scared, or “easily triggered.”
People who have experienced trauma are far from a homogeneous group. Each person’s story is different, as are their symptoms. Some people have endured one significant event (e.g., a car accident, an assault), while other people have a childhood history of multiple forms of abuse. A commonality among survivors though, is that experiencing trauma can make people feel out of sync or less connected with the surrounding world. Trauma can lead to social isolation. Interestingly, in the time of Covid this isolation is not only normalized but also quarantine is mandated. In some ways we are all alone, together.
Observations about feeling calmer and more connected could appreciably be unpopular with those on the front lines or for those who have not survived trauma. Further, these observations could feel grossly off the mark for people who have experienced trauma and are having a totally different experience. Nevertheless, for trauma survivors who have been scratching your heads, I wanted to offer that you are not alone in your paradoxical reaction. People in the world have rarely been so physically isolated, but a subset of people could be some peace now that we are finally emotionally together.