Experiencing serious trauma can change your life, and rarely for the better. People who have experienced trauma are more likely to experience a range of other things - chronic mental illness, addiction, homelessness, marriage breakdown. Trauma rewires our brains, changes the way we react to situations, makes us prone to 'fight or flight' in situations which are benign for other people.
You would think that the bigger the trauma, the more serious the effect, but this is not necessarily so. Case in point: last year I read and reviewed Jimmy Barnes' two-volume autobiography. Barnes suffered a horrendous childhood, witnessing domestic violence, experiencing physical and sexual abuse, being abandoned by his mum and left with his siblings to fend for themselves while their dad spent all his time and all the family's money at the pub. Hardly surprising that Barnes' adult life was a train wreck of addiction, violence, self-destructive behaviour, promiscuity and near death before he eventually sought help.
This year I read a very similar story from one of the greats of British rock'n'roll, Eric Clapton. Clapton's tale is almost a carbon copy of Barnes', with his personal train wreck including a heroin addiction in the 1970s, which he kicked only to turn his life over to alcohol for the following two decades. Along the way he ruined the lives of two women who loved him, burned money and relationships left right and centre and almost killed himself before he sought help. Although he doesn't spell it out explicitly, the latter part of his book shows him going assiduously through the 12 steps to recovery pioneered by Alcoholics Anonymous - examining his own life, admitting his powerlessness in the face of his addiction, turning for help to a higher power, acknowledging the hurt he had caused others and attempting to make amends, and 'giving back' to help others in the same situation.
Yet the first part of Clapton's tale is curiously different to Barnes'. Certainly he too experienced defining childhood trauma. His mother was in her teens when he was born, fathered by an anonymous American soldier, and he was brought up by his grandparents. Until he was eight or nine he believed they were his parents. His world shifted ninety degrees when he learned the truth and his attempts to reach out to his mother were met largely with disinterest on her part. Not something you would wish on anyone. Yet on the surface it hardly bears comparison with Barnes' horrific abuse story. Clapton was brought up in a loving, secure home by his doting grandparents. He always had enough to eat, lived in safety, was supported through an education. He even started his working life as an apprentice in his grandfather's building business before music took over.
Nonetheless the result of the two traumas, and their ripple effect through the lives of these two men and those close to them, were the same. I guess the message might be that it doesn't matter so much what the trauma is as what you do with it.
A few years ago I was blown away by reading Victor Frankl's classic Holocaust memoir, Man's Search for Meaning. In 1942, when he was in his mid-30s, Frankl was interred with his wife and parents and was later sent to Auschwitz and on to Dachau where he was freed, traumatised and emaciated, in 1945. This, surely, is the ultimate in trauma, a deliberate program of torture, humiliation and dehumanisation which ended the lives of seven million people and scarred the survivors for life.
Frankl, it seems, was not exactly a saint, but neither was he the kind of destructive wrecking-ball that Barnes and Clapton became. Instead, he went into the camp a budding psychiatrist with some interesting ideas (and a manuscript the SS burnt) and emerged to become one of the seminal figures of 20th century psychotherapy. He believed that the key to surviving traumas great and small, including the greatest of them all, was to find and cling to a sense of meaning and purpose. This, he said, was the difference between surviving the Holocaust intact (but hardly unscarred) and losing hope and one's sense of self. This key insight was the foundation of his influential school of psychotherapy which he labelled 'logotherapy'.
There are some authors who contend that meanings and values are "nothing but defence mechanisms, reaction formations and sublimations". But as for myself, I would not be willing to live merely for the sake of my "defence mechanisms", nor would I be ready to die merely for the sake of my "reaction formations." Man, however, is able to live and even to die for the sake of his ideals and values!
Recently, thanks to a recommendation from my friend Mari, I read another Holocaust memoir, The Choice by Edith Eger. Man's Search for Meaning, written in 1945, presents an air of serenity which must surely be a front. The Choice, written in 2017 when Eger was already past 90, is far more honest, if that's a fair way of putting it.
Eger was also a psychologist, and in fact a protege of Frankl's. She entered Auschwitz in 1943 not as a mature professional but as a young girl, barely 16 and still in high school. Her mother was sent straight to the gas chambers on arrival at Auschwitz and Edith and her sister Magda survived by sticking by one another, helping one another and sharing any food they could. Each had the opportunity to escape individually, but came back so they could stay together. They both made it through, but only just.
When the war ended and the American soldiers arrived to free them they had not eaten for days. Edith lay amidst a pile of corpses and was so close to death herself that the soldier searching for survivors initially passed her by. With a supreme effort of will she was able to move her hand just enough to make him look again and realise she still lived.
It is quite possible that both girls would have died after liberation but for a bizarre series of events. A pair of drunk American soldiers entered their room one night shortly after their release intent on rape, only to be interrupted. The next day, sober and remorseful, they returned to beg forgiveness and thereafter visited daily for six weeks, bringing food, helping them to relearn how to walk, talk and count. After a couple of months the girls were strong enough to ride the train back to their Hungarian home town (forced, as Jews, to ride on the roof) where their older sister, having spent the war in hiding, was waiting for them and nursed them back to physical health.
Of course, there were more and deeper wounds than simply the physical ones. For Edith in particular they were compounded by the need to flee the Communist regime after her husband was imprisoned. In one way, her concentration camp experience helped her, teaching her to do whatever it took to survive in a lawless environment. Yet living as a penniless foreigner in a strange country (the USA) just added one more trauma to those she had already experienced. She struggled with relationships. She experienced flashbacks and panic attacks. She sabotaged herself and those around her. At one point she decided to end her marriage and lived as a single person for a couple of years, learning in the process that it was not her husband who held her back but herself. In the end they reconciled and re-married.
In a sense, she didn't 'recover'. She still has panic attacks. Near the end of the book she talks of her reaction on entering a hall to speak to a group of American soldiers - something she does often - and experiencing a powerful flashback. It took a while for her to realise what had triggered it. The regimental insignia on the walls was that worn by the young soldier who rescued her from the pile of dead bodies half a century before. Some traumas never go away.
What she has done is not 'recover' from her trauma, but learn to live with it and to use it to benefit others. As a psychologist she treats other people who have suffered severe trauma, helping them to find meaning and purpose in their lives, to learn to live with the pain and turn it to good. Her suffering, evil in itself, has been redeemed.
***
This year I read a very similar story from one of the greats of British rock'n'roll, Eric Clapton. Clapton's tale is almost a carbon copy of Barnes', with his personal train wreck including a heroin addiction in the 1970s, which he kicked only to turn his life over to alcohol for the following two decades. Along the way he ruined the lives of two women who loved him, burned money and relationships left right and centre and almost killed himself before he sought help. Although he doesn't spell it out explicitly, the latter part of his book shows him going assiduously through the 12 steps to recovery pioneered by Alcoholics Anonymous - examining his own life, admitting his powerlessness in the face of his addiction, turning for help to a higher power, acknowledging the hurt he had caused others and attempting to make amends, and 'giving back' to help others in the same situation.Yet the first part of Clapton's tale is curiously different to Barnes'. Certainly he too experienced defining childhood trauma. His mother was in her teens when he was born, fathered by an anonymous American soldier, and he was brought up by his grandparents. Until he was eight or nine he believed they were his parents. His world shifted ninety degrees when he learned the truth and his attempts to reach out to his mother were met largely with disinterest on her part. Not something you would wish on anyone. Yet on the surface it hardly bears comparison with Barnes' horrific abuse story. Clapton was brought up in a loving, secure home by his doting grandparents. He always had enough to eat, lived in safety, was supported through an education. He even started his working life as an apprentice in his grandfather's building business before music took over.
Nonetheless the result of the two traumas, and their ripple effect through the lives of these two men and those close to them, were the same. I guess the message might be that it doesn't matter so much what the trauma is as what you do with it.
***
A few years ago I was blown away by reading Victor Frankl's classic Holocaust memoir, Man's Search for Meaning. In 1942, when he was in his mid-30s, Frankl was interred with his wife and parents and was later sent to Auschwitz and on to Dachau where he was freed, traumatised and emaciated, in 1945. This, surely, is the ultimate in trauma, a deliberate program of torture, humiliation and dehumanisation which ended the lives of seven million people and scarred the survivors for life.Frankl, it seems, was not exactly a saint, but neither was he the kind of destructive wrecking-ball that Barnes and Clapton became. Instead, he went into the camp a budding psychiatrist with some interesting ideas (and a manuscript the SS burnt) and emerged to become one of the seminal figures of 20th century psychotherapy. He believed that the key to surviving traumas great and small, including the greatest of them all, was to find and cling to a sense of meaning and purpose. This, he said, was the difference between surviving the Holocaust intact (but hardly unscarred) and losing hope and one's sense of self. This key insight was the foundation of his influential school of psychotherapy which he labelled 'logotherapy'.
There are some authors who contend that meanings and values are "nothing but defence mechanisms, reaction formations and sublimations". But as for myself, I would not be willing to live merely for the sake of my "defence mechanisms", nor would I be ready to die merely for the sake of my "reaction formations." Man, however, is able to live and even to die for the sake of his ideals and values!
***
Recently, thanks to a recommendation from my friend Mari, I read another Holocaust memoir, The Choice by Edith Eger. Man's Search for Meaning, written in 1945, presents an air of serenity which must surely be a front. The Choice, written in 2017 when Eger was already past 90, is far more honest, if that's a fair way of putting it.Eger was also a psychologist, and in fact a protege of Frankl's. She entered Auschwitz in 1943 not as a mature professional but as a young girl, barely 16 and still in high school. Her mother was sent straight to the gas chambers on arrival at Auschwitz and Edith and her sister Magda survived by sticking by one another, helping one another and sharing any food they could. Each had the opportunity to escape individually, but came back so they could stay together. They both made it through, but only just.
When the war ended and the American soldiers arrived to free them they had not eaten for days. Edith lay amidst a pile of corpses and was so close to death herself that the soldier searching for survivors initially passed her by. With a supreme effort of will she was able to move her hand just enough to make him look again and realise she still lived.
It is quite possible that both girls would have died after liberation but for a bizarre series of events. A pair of drunk American soldiers entered their room one night shortly after their release intent on rape, only to be interrupted. The next day, sober and remorseful, they returned to beg forgiveness and thereafter visited daily for six weeks, bringing food, helping them to relearn how to walk, talk and count. After a couple of months the girls were strong enough to ride the train back to their Hungarian home town (forced, as Jews, to ride on the roof) where their older sister, having spent the war in hiding, was waiting for them and nursed them back to physical health.
Of course, there were more and deeper wounds than simply the physical ones. For Edith in particular they were compounded by the need to flee the Communist regime after her husband was imprisoned. In one way, her concentration camp experience helped her, teaching her to do whatever it took to survive in a lawless environment. Yet living as a penniless foreigner in a strange country (the USA) just added one more trauma to those she had already experienced. She struggled with relationships. She experienced flashbacks and panic attacks. She sabotaged herself and those around her. At one point she decided to end her marriage and lived as a single person for a couple of years, learning in the process that it was not her husband who held her back but herself. In the end they reconciled and re-married.
In a sense, she didn't 'recover'. She still has panic attacks. Near the end of the book she talks of her reaction on entering a hall to speak to a group of American soldiers - something she does often - and experiencing a powerful flashback. It took a while for her to realise what had triggered it. The regimental insignia on the walls was that worn by the young soldier who rescued her from the pile of dead bodies half a century before. Some traumas never go away.
What she has done is not 'recover' from her trauma, but learn to live with it and to use it to benefit others. As a psychologist she treats other people who have suffered severe trauma, helping them to find meaning and purpose in their lives, to learn to live with the pain and turn it to good. Her suffering, evil in itself, has been redeemed.
***
Trauma is all around us. Some people are traumatised by war and civil conflict, losing homes, livelihoods and loved ones. Here in Australia our first nations continue to be traumatised by the ongoing process of colonisation. For others, the trauma is more personal and private - domestic violence, child abuse, bereavement, crime. Anyone who works at the hard edge of social support - homelessness, child protection, refugee support, domestic violence - needs to know how to respond to trauma.
It goes without saying that we should reduce the traumas in our world. However, this side of heaven we will never be free of them and we will always need to know how to deal with them. Part of this is a task for skilled professionals. Frankl and Eger studied for years to be able to help others. Barnes and Clapton both benefited from the help of highly trained professionals. One of the tragedies is that while wealthy rock stars can afford private clinics and intensive psychotherapy, our poorest people need to rely on overstretched, underfunded public health services. No wonder so many end up homeless.
I've been thinking recently (I'm still thinking now) about what this means for us Christians. It seems to me that trauma is not a peripheral issue for Christians, it sits at the heart of the Christian faith. Jesus began his life in exile, fleeing an insecure Jewish client king, and ended it tortured to death by a ruthless imperial government. His followers, having witnessed this trauma and lived through the fear and grief themselves, fashioned their faith around it. Jesus death, they said, was not merely an unfortunate hiatus in the path to victory, it was central, essential. Without the trauma there is no rebirth. Each of us likewise can only be reborn by coming to terms with our own trauma.
When Jesus emerged from the grave he didn't leave his trauma behind. He invited Thomas to touch his wounds in order to prove it was really him. He returned to heaven bearing his scars with him. The church likewise incorporated this brokenness into its worship - baptism reprising his death and resurrection for each initiate, communion celebrating his brokenness each time we come together. We are never to forget it. Yet we are also to rise again, to take on a new life after trauma. We are not to drown, but emerge cleansed from the water, and then to take sustenance again and again from this same brokenness. And then we are to use it as our motivation to serve others.
All these four people have done this in some way. Both Frankl and Eger turned their experiences into healing tools, devoting their lives to helping others recover from trauma. Clapton spends as much time these days supporting addiction recovery services as playing music, auctioning off most of his guitars to raise substantial funds for a centre he has helped build in Antigua and sponsoring recovering addicts at a centre near his home in the south of England. In the past few years, Barnes' telling of his story has shone a light on domestic violence in a graphic, real-life way that no amount of theory could do.
Trauma is real, and it's all around us, but it doesn't have to have the last word.
All these four people have done this in some way. Both Frankl and Eger turned their experiences into healing tools, devoting their lives to helping others recover from trauma. Clapton spends as much time these days supporting addiction recovery services as playing music, auctioning off most of his guitars to raise substantial funds for a centre he has helped build in Antigua and sponsoring recovering addicts at a centre near his home in the south of England. In the past few years, Barnes' telling of his story has shone a light on domestic violence in a graphic, real-life way that no amount of theory could do.
Trauma is real, and it's all around us, but it doesn't have to have the last word.
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