Al­most every­one will ex­pe­ri­ence an event, mul­ti­ple hap­pen­ings or con­tin­u­ing dis­tress that could be con­sid­ered trau­mat­ic. Trau­ma hap­pens at every as­pect of the life course and could im­pact us in the mo­ment or have a de­layed im­pact. Whichev­er, trau­mat­ic ex­pe­ri­ences are in­ju­ri­ous to health and well-be­ing.

We are, as well, nev­er af­fect­ed in the same way. Proof of this came as I was writ­ing this. I re­layed to some­one that I was trau­ma­tised by a re­cent in­frac­tion. Her re­sponse was, “Why would you be trau­ma­tised by that? We grow up in a so­ci­ety with that hap­pen­ing since we were small. I won’t let some­thing like that af­fect me.”

It was a most bril­liant op­por­tu­ni­ty to teach that we may ex­pe­ri­ence the same event but the im­pact it has on me has very lit­tle to do with the im­pact on some­one else.

I am dif­fer­ent. My ex­pe­ri­ences, which form the plat­form that “re­ceives” the in­frac­tion, the make­up of my be­ing, my emo­tion­al ex­pe­ri­ences/re­spons­es, my so­cio-eco­nom­ic back­ground, liv­ing cir­cum­stances/com­mu­ni­ty, depth of aware­ness about de­viance and more, act to make both the im­pact and my re­sponse dif­fer­ent from any oth­er per­son.

This is an ex­am­ple of why we first choose com­pas­sion when peo­ple speak about their trau­ma.

The In­ter­na­tion­al Clas­si­fi­ca­tion of Dis­eases of the World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion (ICD-11) de­fines trau­ma as “ex­po­sure to an ex­treme­ly threat­en­ing or hor­rif­ic event or se­ries of events” that could pro­mote per­va­sive dis­tress in al­most any­one, “such as nat­ur­al dis­as­ters, com­bat, or se­vere, pro­longed in­ter­per­son­al vi­o­lence.”

Ac­cord­ing to the Di­ag­nos­tic and Sta­tis­ti­cal Man­u­al of Men­tal Dis­or­ders (DSM-5), this ex­po­sure comes through di­rect ex­pe­ri­ence, wit­ness­ing in per­son, learn­ing that a close fam­i­ly mem­ber or friend ex­pe­ri­enced such an event, or in­di­rect, re­peat­ed ex­po­sure to aver­sive de­tails such as what per­tains with first re­spon­ders.

The lit­er­a­ture says trau­ma may be from sin­gle in­ci­dents like ac­ci­dents, or chron­ic, on­go­ing sit­u­a­tions from which es­cape is dif­fi­cult, such as do­mes­tic vi­o­lence or child abuse. And since the world has now be­come so fa­mil­iar with Post-Trau­mat­ic Stress Dis­or­der (PTSD), it makes the point that trau­ma it­self is con­sid­ered a “gate” for such a di­ag­no­sis.

All trau­ma has de­bil­i­tat­ing ef­fects and is pos­si­bly the cause of many men­tal dis­or­ders. Con­di­tions such as anx­i­ety dis­or­ders, de­pres­sive dis­or­ders, PTSD and sub­stance mis­use may all be as­so­ci­at­ed with un­healed/un­processed trau­ma. Trau­ma may ap­pear as mul­ti­ple lay­ers of un­healed in­frac­tions in many peo­ple.

Re­cent hap­pen­ings prompt­ed me to in­ter­ro­gate trau­ma. My work here has al­ways been part re­search and part per­son­al ex­pe­ri­ence, and I was trig­gered by a few things, right along with con­fronting the youth who was suf­fi­cient­ly con­fi­dent to be a day­light thief.

In a wrap-up on a TV se­ries, the nar­ra­tor sum­marised by say­ing vi­o­lence against women is a pub­lic health malaise that has not gar­nered suf­fi­cient at­ten­tion, sup­port and so­lu­tions glob­al­ly.

My mind said there are two sets of us: women and men. Vi­o­lence against women is main­ly man’s vi­o­lence on woman. How can we (hu­man­i­ty) ex­pe­ri­ence peace­ful liv­ing with such a cir­cum­stance? Some­thing shook deep in­side.

The glob­al preva­lence of vi­o­lence against women is 1 in 3 or ap­prox­i­mate­ly 30 per cent.

In that same pe­ri­od, I chose to read the ex­pe­ri­ences of sev­er­al women of var­i­ous ages ob­ject­ing to the cel­e­bra­tion of a school ad­min­is­tra­tor.

I read those who were clear­ly on the side of the in­di­vid­ual along­side peo­ple who used the op­por­tu­ni­ty to ex­hale. In one in­stance, I of­fered a re­sponse to some­one who felt guilty about not speak­ing up be­fore. I had deep em­pa­thy for the abus­es ex­pressed.

When the news broke about the dis­ap­pear­ance of a two-year-old in To­ba­go, I caught a glimpse of the in­ter­ac­tions in the com­mu­ni­ty, and see­ing the anger from the grief and the open con­fronta­tions caused me to skip a breath.

“What pub­lic health in­ter­ven­tions would be avail­able for the so­cial and emo­tion­al re­cov­ery among rel­a­tives and the com­mu­ni­ty?” I pon­dered with anx­i­ety.

And, on an on­go­ing ba­sis, the con­tin­u­ous rev­e­la­tions of sex­u­al in­frac­tions in every age group as a fac­tor un­der­ly­ing health, home, and com­mu­ni­ty break­downs keep my dis­tress lev­el an­i­mat­ed.

Trau­ma is a pub­lic men­tal health is­sue but must not be seen as just a psy­chi­atric is­sue. It is one with de­vel­op­men­tal, so­cial, re­li­gious/spir­i­tu­al and re­la­tion­al di­men­sions, ex­ist­ing over the life course, and im­pact­ing in­di­vid­ual and group dy­nam­ics at fam­i­ly, com­mu­ni­ty, na­tion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al lev­els.

Sig­mund Freud de­scribed trau­ma as an ex­pe­ri­ence of help­less­ness, “a breach in the pro­tec­tive bar­ri­er against stim­u­la­tion, lead­ing to feel­ings of over­whelm­ing help­less­ness.”

Is­sues such as per­son­al pain, fear, child­hood ad­ver­si­ty, fam­i­ly strug­gles, vi­o­lence, so­cial change, crim­i­nal­i­ty, na­tion­al hope­less­ness, fa­tigue and more, can leave us with the sense of vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty.

Kle­ber (2019) notes that with trau­ma, “The sense of in­vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty, the idea of the benev­o­lence of the world, and the idea that oth­er peo­ple can be trust­ed are dev­as­tat­ed. The ob­vi­ous cer­tain­ties of life have dis­ap­peared... ba­sic as­sump­tions have been shat­tered” (Trau­ma and Pub­lic Men­tal Health: A Fo­cused Re­view).

Trau­ma can shape or mis­shape en­tire com­mu­ni­ties, not just in­di­vid­u­als. “On the oth­er hand, the so­cial en­vi­ron­ment can stim­u­late re­cov­ery af­ter trau­ma,” says Kle­ber.