CHAPTER 1
PEARL NUMBER ONE
A FEW THOUGHTS ABOUT RESILIENCE
You may have heard it said, "When your time is up, it's up."
Conversely, if we are meant to be here on earth, we will be protected in ways that make it so. Throughout the years, while healing personal and others' trauma, I have learned to lean into faith while appreciating how fragile and resilient we are as a species. No matter what pain is suffered at the hands of another or through circumstances beyond our control, we have the marvelous ability to heal. In most situations we can survive the most unimaginable losses, and many of us will even learn to thrive as life is embraced once again.
On May 26, 1999, I was conducting a Training Academy with new trainees for our Trauma Intervention Program of Merrimack Valley, Inc. (TIP). The topic was resilience. During a break, while scanning our local community newspaper, Lawrence Eagle-Tribune, I came across an effective although somewhat dramatic article to help make a point to my prospective volunteers. The eye-catching headline was "Baby Survives Birth in Train Toilet, Fall on Tracks."
A newborn boy survived a fall through the toilet of a Chinese express train, escaping with only cuts and bruises after tumbling onto the rails, state media reported.
The boy's mother, Yang Zhu, was nine months pregnant and going home by train on May 4 when she began to suffer stomach pains, the Xinhua News Agency said in a report late Sunday.
Her husband took her to the washroom where, "to her great surprise," she gave birth to her first child into the toilet "as soon as she squatted down," Xinhua said.
"The panic-stricken and screaming Yang ripped off the umbilical cord with her hands, and the baby immediately slipped down through the toilet and fell onto the rails," the agency said.
Three security guards patrolling outside the southeastern city of Guangzhou spotted the baby, covered in blood and lying in the middle of the tracks, Xinhua said. But before they could reach him, another train sped by right over the baby.
The guards took the 5-pound, 15-ounce baby to a hospital, where he only had slight bruises and a small cut to the head that required three stitches.
After reading the story, the trainees' incredulous expression matched my own when I initially read it. Two decades later, the story continues to make the point about resiliency in our academy.
Personally and professionally, in the midst of great grief and pain, one of the most useful strategies I can offer is the ability to envision the resiliency and adaptability of those I am helping. When working with clients, neighbors, friends, or loved ones who are dealing with an acute crisis, the helper bears witness to the individual's ground zero. The struggle may involve the death of a loved one due to heart attack, stroke, overdose, suicide, motor vehicle accident, cancer, or chronic illness, or total loss due to a devastating house fire or domestic crisis. In my private practice setting, clients will also present with symptoms of anxiety or depression due to long-standing mental health or medical conditions. Situational crises such as a divorce, relationship changes, financial stressors, terminal diagnoses, addictions, job termination, and concerns regarding children are all powerful motivators for seeking help. While bearing witness and empathizing with clients, helpers may experience a dose of the pain as well (vicarious traumatization). This happens when we either drop down into the painful grief pit with them or offer a lifeline to help them climb out.
Conceptualizing resilience, even in the worst circumstances, aids in emotionally protecting both the helper and the person in need. Imagining my clients in a future state of being healed and capable of coping in healthy ways gives me the strength to hold their intense emotional affect in the crisis moment. Being fully present and grounded in my senses while gazing into the eyes of a parent who just lost a child, or a child who just buried a parent, I envision resilience and visualize he or she coming out the other side of the tunnel toward greater well-being. With appropriate support and guidance, most clients will find peace and, for many, joy in their lives as they grow forward through the dark days of pain, grief, and loss. Many will mend far past surviving and begin to thrive in their future lives. And for those victim advocates who come to offer help, the most effective will possess a passion for healing others, which is often rooted in agonizing personal circumstances.
I have no illusions. When we lose a loved one, life is never the same. The grievers have the monumental task of learning how to live without their beloved for the remainder of their days. Most people are capable, some more than others. How is that possible? I believe in a number of likely variables that help determine the outcome when healing emotional trauma. The individual has the:
• innate desire for change
• inner strength that comes from past challenge management
• supportive resources (access to knowledge and helpful people)
• attitude of tenacity and persistence
• faith in a higher power
• hope that goodness will prevail
• willingness to evaluate and revise — shifting from Plan A to Plan B as needed (resiliency and f lexibility)
• sense of humor about self, others, and circumstances
• presence of positive role models (good therapists are in this category)
• absence of addictions to numb and/or avoid pain
• ability to accept and manage mental and/or physical limitations
• desire for a hopeful future
• ability to seek knowledge about wellness attainment
• ability to find purpose or meaning in the loss (this may take decades)
• option to choose love over anger or bitterness
• ability to empathize by seeing the situation from another person's perspective
• attitude of positivity
• ability to accept reality as it is, not as you would like it to be
• ability to forgive
Forgiveness
African Grief Story: "The Interpreter"
It is said that in Matobo, Africa, everyone who loses somebody wants revenge on someone else, even God if no one else is available. In this particular African tribe, members believe the only way to end grief is to save the life of another. The "drowning mantra" ritual occurs when someone is murdered. A year of mourning ends and is followed by an all-night party/ ritual beside a river. At dawn, the killer is put into a boat, taken out on the water, bound, and dropped in. The grieving family must make a choice: either let the killer drown, or they must swim out to save him.
They believe that if the grieving family lets the killer drown, they will have justice, but will spend the rest of their lives in mourning. If they choose to save him, while admitting life isn't always fair, that very act can take away their sorrow.
Years of private practice and intermittent personal strife have taught me that vengeance is a lazy form of grief. I heard it said that holding onto resentment, anger or a grudge is like setting yourself on fire and hoping the other person dies from the fumes. Those who harbor years of bitterness and resentment, hanging onto rage as a life preserver, have skipped over some important grief work steps. It is called work for a reason. Going through the tunnel is difficult, and many opt out thinking that by going around it instead, they will avoid pain. But that won't get you where you need to go, for pain in some form is inevitable if we have loved. One may temporarily sidestep grief tasks by using overwork, isolation, addictive behaviors or substances to numb out. Without the luxury of time and effort required to grieve or the use of skillful helpers to aid in the healing process, grief usually comes out sideways months or years later. Sideway symptoms often manifest as anxiety, depressive disorders, or other medical and mental health illnesses. If bitterness and revenge fantasies accompany the grief process, it is likely that some kind of action requiring "letting go," such as that illustrated in the African drowning ritual, may lead one out of being stuck while progressing on the path to full healing.
Much of the resilience I appreciate as an adult grew from childhood challenges where I learned to cope by taking responsibility for myself coupled with some kind of action. My parents' divorce when I was seven, exposure to our alcoholic step-father, a sexual assault at seventeen (within weeks of my father dying of a heart attack at the age of fifty) and at twenty, the death of my first boyfriend. In each of these situations, the lack of professional support during that time in my life made it more difficult to manage. I am certain that some of my pain and suffering would have been mitigated if I had greater access to some of the successful healing variables listed earlier. However, what I did possess was the ability to put my God faith into action along with an attitude of persistence and tenacity. I became stronger, like the fibrous tissue that grows over a fresh wound. The action steps I chose to take along the way led me to become a grateful survivor and fierce victim advocate.
As an adult, I had a miracle of my own, only God could have orchestrated. The miracle changed my life by offering me a personal opportunity to forgive. There was an unusual set of circumstances on a TIP call I was on, which lead to the healing of a personal trauma that had happened decades earlier. Let's start with the trauma.
At seventeen, I was sexually assaulted, by my supervisor from my after school job. The traumatic, unexpected, confusing encounter was serious enough to result in surgery and a three-day hospital stay. Sadly, no TIP volunteers or counselors of any kind were available to help me understand, process and heal in the immediate aftermath. Numbed out and bathed in shock, my second injury came from the shame I felt when the surgeon (who never asked what happened), looked down at me lying on the gurney in the Emergency Room and stated for all within earshot: "looks like you had one heck of a time for yourself last night young lady." Post-operative, groggy from anesthesia and pain medication, I blamed the incident on a gymnastic injury and was relieved when those closest to me believed my story. I didn't share the truth with anyone. I used denial, buried the pain and confusion deep inside, and went into nursing school in my effort to learn how to heal myself, and the world. Even though I never spoke of the incident again, I would later learn that my psyche and body didn't forget one detail of that memorable night. My body was keeping the score and on a cellular level, it was all being stored away and manifesting in ways I am still learning about to this day, surprisingly, many are positive. I will explain that part later.
At the time, I was in my late thirties, and on call for the Trauma Intervention Program. I volunteered to pick up a last-minute shift for another team member on a Sunday night. Five minutes before my shift was to end, at the request of the local police, I responded to a home in my town. The call was typical. Assistance was required to comfort and support an elderly woman in crisis (we'll call her Bessy). Her sister died at the dinner table. The Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) at the scene introduced me to Bessy, who was quite emotional and bedridden.
Her needs became my priority as she asked me to notify her sister's son of the death and request that he come to her right away. Having no phone of her own, I offered mine and dialed her nephew. As I dialed, Bessy told me her nephew's name, where he lived and worked. Immediately realizing the nephew was my perpetrator from over twenty years ago, my mouth went dry. Coincidence?
Staying professional in the helper role, I handed Bessy my phone and remained at her bedside as she informed him that his mother died while eating dinner. Hearing his pained voice and sobs projecting from my phone speaker, I connected with the pain I had experienced when I heard of my father's sudden death at seventeen. Filled with compassion, I felt connected — almost united — with this man who had harmed me decades earlier.
The call ended, and Bessy's nephew was on his way. In an hour, he would be standing in my spot. Bessy proceeded to share that my perpetrator grew up in an abusive, alcoholic home. She was proud of him, for he married, had children, and was working hard to break the cycle of abuse. Cerebrally, I took in her words, and spiritually I felt God's presence with me this second time I had contact with my abuser. But on this occasion, I would be safe from his harm, while being offered a miracle of my own I had yet to figure out.
I stayed exactly forty-five minutes before I left Bessy with support materials and office follow-up numbers. I broke my own rule of waiting for a replacement to arrive and departed. Bewildered, with heart pounding, I exited the house with palms open to the sky and spoke out loud to my God, "What is the meaning of this extraordinary circumstance? How could this TIP call have been a coincidence? I wasn't scheduled to be on duty today."
That evening, the blessings began to wash over me in the safety of my home as my brain thawed out of its frozen, protective shock state. Over twenty years of reading, writing, and trying to process and heal, and now I had been divinely led to a bedside seat the moment my perpetrator heard of his mother's death — hearing his sobs firsthand from my cell phone. What message was God compelling me to hear?
Like most survivors in the aftermath of something really big happening, I was driven to share my experience. When a trusted and loving "other" bears witness to our story, we are comforted and begin the work of finding meaning. I called my brother Joe (agnostic at the time) to describe the events of this unusual Sunday evening. He was loving and supportive while listening intently. He could not help but have his own spiritual curiosity peaked as I drew the line from my childhood assault experience to the evening events bridging the gap of over twenty years.
Soul deep, I knew only God could have blessed me with that personal Sunday night experience. I had been angry long enough about what was taken from me that evening many years ago. Flooded with intense emotions that now felt nothing like pain or anger, strangely, I connected with my perpetrator, who also grew up in a stressful household fueled by alcohol addiction. My tender heart cracked open. Empathy and compassion for him began to f low.
God offered the gift of hearing my perpetrator's cries and allowed me to peek into the window of his abusive childhood home. And in the soil under the windowsill's ledge, my empathy for him planted the seeds of compassion and forgiveness that would lead to my next place of personal healing.
Through my professional experiences, I have adopted the philosophy that we are all born innocent — then life events happen, changing who we are and the choices we make. I discovered that boys who suffer child abuse without proper treatment often act aggressively toward others as adults, and girls who suffer abuse are often victims themselves. Hurt people often hurt other people. Who do I hurt if I carry around a life-sucking grudge, draining precious energy, and all the while feeling sorry for myself? Me.
It took a few more years, but eventually with the help of great friends, family, spiritual and secular counselors, I dropped my hidden desire for revenge and healed from my pain and trauma. I was able to let it go — for me. With the help of God, I swam into the water and rescued the bound man, while He moved me to total forgiveness without my perpetrator knowing any of it. Whenever someone offers forgiveness a prisoner is set free, and that prisoner is the one doing the forgiving. I was free.
God used all the pain to create the passion fueling my desire to spend most of my adult life as a victim advocate and healer. Those facing trauma in our community do not have to do it alone. In the months and years that followed that very special TIP call, He continues to give me numerous opportunities to work with people hurt by similar circumstances offering counsel from a personal perspective.
