Trauma and Recovery

I'm reading Trauma and Recovery right now by Judith Herman and it is a GREAT book. It's great because Dr. Herman presents data and evidence for her conclusions as well as makes intuitive sense as well. She connects the personal to the political, war to intimate partner violence and child abuse. She has a holistic view of trauma in our world and how they are interconnected. I recommend it to anyone interested in ending violence, fighting for social justice, or healing their own trauma.

A passage:

"Survivors of political imprisonment and torture similarly describe being forced to stand by helplessly while witnessing atrocities committed against people they love...In a tale of survival in the Nazi extermination camps at Auschwitz-Birkenau, Elie Wiesel chronicles the devotion and loyalty that sustained him and his father through unspeakable ordeals...he is haunted by the imagery of the few moments when he was faithless to his father: '[The guard] began to beat him with an iron bar....I watched the whole scene without moving. I kept quiet. What is more, any anger I felt at the moment was directed, not at the [guard], but against my father. I was angry with him, for not knowing how to avoid Idek's outbreak. That is what concentration camp life had made out of me.'

"Realistically, one might argue that it would have been fruitless for the son to come to his father's aid, that in fact an active show of support for his father might have increased the danger to both. But this argument offers little comfort to the victim who feels completely humiliated by his helplessness. Even the feeling of outreach no longer preserves his dignity, for it has been bent to the will of his enemies and turned against the person he loves. The sense of shame and defeat comes not merely from his failure to interceded but also from the realization that his captors have usurped his inner life" (Herman, 1992).

This passage really hit home for me. In the context of my child abuse, my parents were the ones who ursuped my inner life. I thought I betrayed my own humanity and integrity when they took advantage of my helplessness. I thought I betrayed my self by not standing up to them. I also had to turn against my self, whom I would naturally love and care about. And yet how could I stand up to them when they created an environment of terror, just like in the concentration camps? My survival was dependent on my parents. And how could I love myself when my very own parents were not loving me? This is a battle I fight internally every day - to acknowledge that as a human, I could only love my self because it is in my biology to preserve myself - to stay alive. I am the one who survived and persevered. And yet, I also turn against myself and "not love" my self in many ways, big and small, each day. I take on my parents attitude and diminish my healthy, beauty, joy, friendships, achievements, and more...this is both sad and infuriating. My journey now is to separate from the legacies and lies of the past, and it is quite the journey...