TRAUMA, A SIGNIFICANT EMOTIONAL EVENT

It is a beautiful starlit night. A peaceful place where danger doesn't exist; where an unnoticed quiet rolls through humid, listless air under a clouded tropical moon. Hardly a place to be described as emotionally significant or traumatic. The sounds of mosquitoes zizzing all about, a frog croaking it's love call, a bird flying to it's evening roost. This could be the front porch of a Carolina cabin in summer or a campsite on a lazy, murmuring Georgia creek.

Inside the hooch insects cast eerie shadows on the walls and ceiling as they frantically circle around the single light bulb. It is intriguing but not psychologically shocking. As fatigue makes the eyes grow heavy the brain begins to drift. Thoughts of the days events swirl with memories of the last stateside party; friends laughing, telling jokes, pouring beer over some wise guy's head, and the last intimate moment spent with a girlfriend.

Then, without warning, the wailing screams of enemy rockets shatter the night with pounding destruction. Banshees unleashed from hell to steal whatever souls they may. BOOM ! BOOM ! BOOM! The earth begins to explode as screams of "incoming" pierce the night. Buildings are ripped apart and mem cry out in pain and terror. Instantly you know this isn't a front porch; there is no lazy creek; and this could be your last party.

You are experiencing a significant emotional event. One of the most horrifying and traumatic a human could be expected to endure. An event that will stamp into your brain the realization that you might die. You are now a victim of trauma.

If you survive there are plans and stages for recovery to help arrest or prevent substantial and lasting psychological damage. Discussing these stages of recovery will help to better understand the emotional ordeals experienced by victims and survivors. This is with the hope of helping rather than cause further harm.

Trauma recovery is an ongoing process. What the eyes have seen, the ears heard, the nose smelled, the body felt and the taste experienced will never go away. With a program of stages a life may once again have quality and hope.

Recovery is a three stage process: shock and denial, anger and depression and understanding and acceptance. In any significant emotional event assessed as bad, the victim or survivor must progress through these stages if any degree of recovery is to be achieved or accomplished.

War is not the only cause of significant emotional events. Something as simple as moving to a new place, the loss of a loved one through death or divorce, a child going away to school or being fired from your job. Incidents which interrupt the natural flow of life and threaten the mental status quo can set in motion a series of catastrophic psychological reactions.

Whether a person loses a loved one, witnesses a friends death in war or gets fired, recovery depends on how quickly we act and how tactfully we deal with the victims and survivors. The "stiff upper lip" cliché is one of the worst attempts at encouragement we can do.

If traumatized or just caught short, the first stage, shock and denial, is the most critical. Shock can be caused by almost anything going beyond our normal daily happenings. Using a survivor of divorce as an example of shock; "I can't believe they left me !" In incidents relating to war or heinous violations of a person, the reactions of the victim are the same: shock, disbelief and denial.