Clinical Intersections: America Is Traumatized

by Tiffany Hall, LMFT

     My son started kindergarten just a few weeks ago. I was terrified. For the first five years of his life, he had been insulated in the same daycare, with the same children and teachers. They were his second family, and he was safe. It made me feel safe that he was safe. Sending him to kindergarten in a school with hundreds of kids, after spending the first few years of his life with just 20, agitated my already inflamed anxiety.  

     And I remembered the horrific tragedy that occurred at Sandy Hook Elementary several years ago. Children, who were the very same age as my son is now, were senselessly slaughtered. There was the usual national conversation on mental health and gun control. But eventually, the conversation died down and people went about their lives. Until the next mass shooting happened. And the next. And the next.

     Because in the age where mass shootings seem to happen as regularly as car accidents, schools are no longer safe. Neither are churches. Or malls. Movie theaters, concerts. It seems like any place where large swaths of people gather is a potential death trap. When I toured my son’s school for the first time, there were so many references to security: parents weren’t allowed to walk their children to their classrooms on the first day, parents weren’t allowed past certain points in the school hallways during the school day, photo ID had to be shown, there was a pin number to remember. Bulletproof backpacks are apparently now available for purchase. Schools are not only conducting fire drills, but active shooter drills. Just in case the worst happens.

     Yet, in the current sociopolitical climate, the goalpost for “the worst” seems to be moving every day.  As a country, we are being regularly gaslighted by a dysfunctional administration and a political structure that fails to hold it accountable. We are consistently receiving inconsistent messages from the media telling us to both resist and somehow normalize it all. We are looking for refuge, while still simmering in fear. We are unsure whether we can trust that things will get any better or be any different tomorrow, or next week, or in 2020.

     So, we amass more guns, and rack up more debt, and numb ourselves in order to cope with the cognitive dissonance that comes from living in America. Yes, we are one of the most privileged countries in the world. I am fortunate to have been born here, because it’s afforded me freedoms I likely would not have had in some other places. However, as a black woman, to live in America is to live in fear. To feel threatened. I wrestle with feeling like I have a place here, while also feeling like I don’t belong. And each day, with each demoralizing news story, I keep wondering if this is just how it’s always going to be.

     I think it’s time to sit with the possibility that, as a country, we are collectively traumatized. It’s likely we have been for some time. The statement sounds like hyperbole, but I considered the symptoms of PTSD:

1. Re-experiencing the trauma:  I was taken aback by some of my own anxiety about my son starting school. I knew that transitions like these could be stressful, but my worry was coming from somewhere else. The more I reflected, I realized I was fearful about my son’s safety. There were mass shootings in Texas and Ohio just a few weeks before. This triggered the memory of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. Trauma can often result in flashbacks or frightening, intrusive thoughts. I now think twice about going to certain places. What will happen when I go grocery shopping? A concert? If I get pulled over?
2. Avoidance symptoms.  I know that I - and many others - have been reducing our consumption of news media, because it can make you feel scared, unsafe, and even powerless.  I turned off the CNN notifications on my phone. The headlines are often horrifying, and the more frequent they become, the more overwhelmed many of us can feel. How can I feel safe, as a black woman, in a country where the abuse of people of color and other marginalized groups continues to be normalized?
3. Arousal/reactivity symptoms.  Anxiety continues to be the most common mental illness, affecting nearly 20% of the adult population. We are also a country that is highly enthusiastic about guns but continues to have more mass shootings than any other country in the world. We’re terrified of each other. The more terrified we become, the more violent we seem to become.
4. Cognition/mood symptoms.  Though we are one of the wealthiest, influential countries in the world, we are also one of the most distressed and overmedicated. Capitalism is wreaking havoc on our mental health. Yet, in a system where many of us often feel powerless, the only way to find a sense of control is to numb. We numb ourselves with food, sex, drugs, substances, spending, social media, and almost anything else you can think of.

     Add that to all the individual traumas all of us have experienced in some form, and we are a country that is highly traumatized and in need of healing. As clinicians, it is our responsibility to create spaces in which people can feel safe from a traumatizing world. It is important for us to allow people room to not only have refuge, but to have a space where they can show up as their authentic selves. We can do this by acknowledging that to live with trauma is to be alive.

     Thankfully, we have the capacity to heal.

Tiffany Hall is a licensed marriage and family therapist specializing in healing trauma in marginalized communities. She is a therapist at Walnut Psychotherapy Center in Philadelphia,  PA.