once the trauma’s over, we tend to look back and wonder. and part of that looks like “why didn’t i just… [fill in the blank]” or “i should have, could have, would have….” there are lots of stories you can put in there. i have boatloads on file, whatever the occasion.
and yes, other people think that way too. if you’re the partner/loved one of someone who has been severely traumatised then most likely you’ve thought about it, at some point. maybe it read more like, “but you’re an expert judo artist,” or plain old shock, “how did this happen?” but it’s probably there nonetheless.
it’s pretty normal. far as i can tell it takes years of training not to think that way and even then, some of it usually sneaks back in.
we think like that for a reason, though, and it’s because you, me, the postman all want to feel like we have some effect on the world around us.* that we’re not helpless even when we are.
so we have to bring ourselves back slowly by changing the way we measure success when it comes to the kinds of extreme trauma that can cause PTSD. success just isn’t what it used to be –
normally, we all have quite a few tools available that help us deal with life, as we know it but that’s the point: trauma isn’t life as we know it.
when the adrenaline kicks in, you don’t necessarily have access to those tools. your options can be very limited. you’re in ‘fight, flight or freeze’ mode and that’s all you can remember of the world. it’s a deliberate survival tactic on the part of the mind. clever, no?
it isn’t about skill or empathy or strength in that kind of situation. it’s a roll of the die and you and your whole human physiology are very much aware of that, and only that.
one of the ‘nice’ examples i have, the funny one i tell people is how i am sitting in the lounge room of my new apartment when two young lads, high as kites, jump over my fence.
they can’t see me. i glimpse them. enough to know, in the cold of my bones, that they weren’t planning on asking for a spare cup of sugar.
there is no thought, then. no time for it. only act or not, lock it down if you can. protect. so as they’re prying open the window i scare them with a booming impression of my father at his good old Aussie worst but i was lucky. one word, Oi!
you take your chances based on the information you have at the time and there’s no such thing as ’should’.
this isn’t a game. the importance of your life will always trump the fact that you’re a professional or a kick-boxer or had a phone that you might have had time to dial, if only you weren’t quite so busy dealing with the nightmare that has suddenly emerged from its container and which stubbornly refuses to issue you with a map and compass.
if you get out in even vaguely one piece, you did it right.
if you managed to get out and you still had the strength to get up the next day, you did it right.
if you’re here, today, you did it right.
it isn’t even a question. you did it right.
now repeat that a few million times because it’s the only way it’s ever going to sink in…
then repeat it some more because it’s the only kind of truth that’ll give you the courage to heal. and if you’re looking to be there for a survivor then you probably want to remind them of these things, from time to time.
* for those who like a little psychobabble with their tea — this is clinically referred to as one’s perceived ‘locus of control’. it’s part of that pesky human need to discriminate one thing from the next. trauma can, unfortunately, skew your bell curve… just a touch.
Ah, ahem, *cough*, yessss!! Erm, I want to borrow a time machine and even if I can’t stop the events that caused my PTSD, I want to at least go back to the time directly afterwards, and perhaps on a visit on a monthly basis thereafter to remind myself of this very thing.
This is how we hold ourselves responsible and how we stop ourselves from being able to get better in any way. Because we’re too busy worrying about what we would have done. If we could’ve.
My body used to have very physical reactions afterwards. Like, moving as though I had a concrete baseball bat in my hands that I could smash over his head. Not to kill him, just to stop him. Incapacitate him. That’s how bad the fantasies of “if only” got. So bad they were physical movements I felt in my body.
Not helpful, and definitely not what happened. I got out of that situation alive, which is way more than I expected.
Now, where’s that time machine?? ;P
good question!! and if you find it, let me know!
Great post CK.
I dont suffer PTSD but can very much understand the replaying of events over and over, and the agony that comes from that repeated cross examination of yor actions.
The “why didn’t?” questions are a form of torture as I guess, we look for a level of blame / culpability in ourselves (that being so much easier).
Thanks for sharing it.
I do the shoulda coulda woulda with everything, not just the traumatic events. I’m the queen of this kind of thinking.
That’s a really good way of putting it.
Thanks for that post, it’s really powerful
I needed that
I always blamed myself (and probably still do, since I have yet to really grow past the trauma), as did some members of my family and other well-meaning people. Recently I had a friend visiting in Paris for the summer and everywhere she went, it seemed, she was accosted in some way. Followed on the Metro, approached, ogled, touched. Another female friend that’s been in Paris for more than 20 years said, “That’s because she has that open and friendly American face.” This sounds reasonable, and was not meant as any sort of criticism of my visiting friend. But, the blame always gets shifted to the victim somehow, and the bad behavior of the perp is ignored. This is a minor comment, from a well-meaning person, but it’s indicative of the ubiquitous victim-blaming mindset. Yes, we can all be more aware and careful and more closed off when we are out and about. But there are people who will still harass you, even if you do what everyone thinks is “right.”
Last week, I went to dinner with the same friend who has been here for years and who made the comment. After dinner, we walked back to our building and I decided to go to bed and she decided to continue down to the end of the block to have one more drink at our friend’s restaurant. It was seconds after I went into our building that a car with three men came speeding down our street, screeched to a halt next to my friend as she was walking, and two men jumped out and started to push her into their car. Luckily, an old Chinese man came out of his building at that moment and stood by her. He was harassed and verbally abused by the men from the car, and they all peed on his building’s front door. But the Chinese man stood silently until the men left and then turned and walked my friend to the restaurant.
She didn’t deserve or somehow attract the harassment, because she had a too-open attitude or facial expression or was dressed in a certain way or was out too late (it was only 10pm) or whatever anybody can come up with as some fault on her part. It just happened. As these things do. The fault lies in the minds and hearts of the hooligans, not in hers.
“She didn’t deserve or somehow attract the harassment… It just happened. As these things do. The fault lies in the minds and hearts of the hooligans, not in hers.
right on, lisa!
i try and put the emphasis on /me/ or whomever having done it right, these days…without crossing over to the ‘dark side’. it’s harder than i’d like yet it’s the only response i can summon to so many years of ‘oh, but you did it so wrong. here, let me explain…’ because what i really want, eventually, is to feel that no matter what anybody else says or thinks, or does or doesn’t care or know about the matter… it’s ok. it’s just, ok.
of course there are all sorts of other ‘victories’ i don’t even allow myself to imagine, so i consider it success that i’d even contemplate the nature of that ‘ok’ place.
i guess a bunch of it starts with acknowledging we live in a culture of rape. there, i said it, you can all run screaming into the socio-political night — or we can all try and listen. it starts when lisa and i tell you that no matter what, you didn’t deserve it and you didn’t somehow bring it upon yourself… and it ends when we all finally actually wholeheartedly believe that.
someday, maybe, i might actually experience what it feels like not to feel wrong all. the. time.
Hey, I purposely dressed up sexy and used my fake I.D. (I was 17) to get into the rock n’ roll bar near my college and I flirted with the owner of the bar because, after all, wow!… he was the OWNER!… and I ditched my best friend to go home with the owner (she tried to stop me from going) and he held me captive in his home for two days while he amped himself up on cocaine and beat and raped me repeatedly until he finally fell asleep.
Most people would say that this was my fault. Even nice people say, “Oh you were too young to have good judgment.” But that’s STILL laying it in my lap. I WANTED to have sex with the guy. I still think that was ok and if he’d turned out to be the nicest guy in the world, it would have all been fine. I DIDN’T want to be beaten, nor held captive for two days under threat of more beatings. We are allowed to be sexual. We are allowed to say no to certain sexual practices that we don’t like or want. We have the right to stop the proceedings anytime if we feel threatened or if our partner isn’t honoring our requests. Just because we wanted to have the sex in the first place, doesn’t mean we immediately lose all our rights or can’t say stop if it gets too rough or we change our mind.
With all of that said, for the last 30 years I’ve avoided wearing tight or low-cut clothes because when I got out of the hospital after the rape, my mother said I deserved what I got because of the way I dressed. I must have believed her, even as I resisted her. So, I sure can write the logic above, but somewhere in my cellular being, I still think I have some sort of control over the craziness of other people by controlling what I wear, do, say, eat, think, whatever. But you can get raped if you’re wearing a flour sack or look like crap or have no makeup on or you’re just walking down the street in your own neighborhood within a 1/4 block of your home or whatever. It’s a random act, yet we think we had some sort of power to attract it or make it happen.
Well now, look at me just talking away. Must’ve needed to do it. Thanks for providing a safe place to do it. :-)
you’re welcome! and wow, i’m glad you said it, damn it!
i really, really get what you mean about that cellular level. i think somewhere along the way, once we hear it enough from every direction, we accept it… the path of least resistance and once again, the path of our survival.
i mean, when it’s your mother saying it? when it’s those ‘nice’ folks, too? then what? yeah. i get that. i’ve been told i’m a liar more times than i can count, in every way possible and then some. i think we all have, on some level. the second we start thinking, hey maybe that skirt was just one inch too short then that’s what we’re telling ourselves — even in our own private, supposedly inviolable thoughts. that’s the terrible thing.
is it senseless? definitely but random? i’m not so sure. i think the trouble is that everyone looks at those things that a PREDATOR (which is exactly what someone who coerces, kidnaps and rapes and assaults an underage girl is, let us not forget) sees as attractive and blames us… when ‘beauty’ is in the eye of the beholder, so to speak.
we’re told to be attractive but not too attractive, to be bold but not too bold, to be sweet but not too sweet… hang on a minute!
who’s the keepers of the keys? who says where that mysterious line is… oh, right, the guy on the other side of the bar who just happens to be deciding at that minute of that hour of that day of your life because *why*?
and that is the part that very much isn’t random.
there’s an underlying cultural compass that says the only way we line up straight North is if we cede say-so over our sexual experience as soon as some dude wants us to. simply because he expects that and will suffer no less, regardless what we suffer for it… and after that it’s just “he said, she said” and remember, what he says always comes first.
just the sheer illogical, mind-bending we all go through to end up in the place where the things that seem most relevant are our fucking clothes, make-up and lack of screaming hysteria at the merest hint of sex! where the bruises and the blood and the blind-eyes don’t seem so bad because hey, we asked for it, all of it…
actually no. we didn’t. and one day, i hope and pray and will put my fist through a wall or two until i make it happen, that will actually be that.
(yes, i know rape happens across gender lines. i am making broad points, please and thank you, ‘k.)
one of the (many) other things that gets me is that a rapist isn’t ever really known as a rapist. even if you prove it. it’s not referred to as something he is. we are rape victims/survivors. they are men who happen to have done something society frowns upon but who will serve their time, or not – in most cases – and keep being men, just as they were before.
but we walk out of the hospital or the bedroom, the car or the office and there’s no going back. even if you never say a word, like you said lisa, it’s that cellular authority.
rant much, CK? LOL evidently i had a few things waiting to be said, too. so that’s kinda cool. thanks, lisa :)