The circumference of awfulness

Trauma.  We have an interesting relationship with this concept.  For most, it conjures to mind a disaster of epic proportions, like the events of 9/11, the tsunami in Japan this past spring that claimed nearly 16,000 lives, or the wildfires in Bastrop, Texas that destroyed over 1,600 homes and charred more than 34,000 acres.

Even as I type this, I feel a bit strange having those three incidents listed in the same sentence.

This speaks to the problem I want to write about today—how we often struggle to respond effectively and with compassion to the grief that follows trauma and loss, and the dilemma of having a catch-all term to describe multiple, deeply personal kinds of pain and tragedy.

The problem with comparisons and silver lining statements

The crisis in Bastrop resulted in the total displacement of hundreds of families, but to date there are thankfully few fatalities.  I worry that the scope of the crisis in Japan might stagger the current crisis in Bastrop if I write about both in the same entry.  Why would I feel this way?

To the families in Bastrop who have lost their homes and pets and worldly possessions, I would not dare to suggest that the scope of their loss is diminished by the other awful things that have happened this year.

Nonetheless, I worry that sometime, somewhere down the road, someone will make that mistake.  It will likely come from a well-intentioned place, a “Take heart, it could be worse” admonition or a “You must be grateful that your family survived” observation designed to help the grieving take perspective.

I worry about the impact of these statements.  They are often offered by strangers and family who hate to see their loved ones grieving.  These folks think that they are helping, but they frequently are not.

These comments often have the opposite of the intended effect—the person feels their experience has been minimized and then feels hurt or anger about the lack of compassion or despair that there is something wrong in their “choice” of response to the disaster.  These silver lining statements are conclusions that a person may come to over time, on their own terms.  When offered by another person as a means to move on, it is usually hurtful.

Whether or not people realize it, these sorts of comments essentially impose someone else’s deadline on the private process of grief.

Sometimes there are no words

I do understand the inclination of the well-meaning folks who say these things.  I have certainly said more than my fair share, as a friend and family member, and also as a therapist.

In the face of such awfulness, it is natural to want to make things better.  But, sometimes comfort means sitting with someone else’s pain.  This requires a fundamentally different approach.

Sometimes there are no words to encompass an experience.  This is what therapists mean when they talk about “bearing witness” in therapy.  It means listening to the whole of someone’s story—sitting with the unthinkable without flinching or inadvertently trying to quiet the storyteller in order to avoid bearing the brunt of the tale or hearing the unhappy ending.

This silver lining or comparison phenomenon is a reason that many people come to see therapists.  Friends and family members may feel impatience or anger when someone’s story puts them in touch with their own vulnerability. Or they may resonate painfully and deeply with a loved one’s struggle.  Many cannot bear impartial and benevolent witness to the pain of a family member.  They may try to offer comfort before a person is ready out of a desire to soothe their own deep pain.

A therapist is trained to not only bear witness to these feelings but to also lovingly create space in therapy to process these reactions.  It is not the fault of the friend or family member for not knowing how to do this—few of us have learned how to do this on our own time.  Moreover, the therapist has professional parameters in place help buffer them from someone’s full-blown grief so they are able to do this work day after day.  This is one reason why therapy is typically offered in hourly increments.  This is why some therapists have rules about contact with clients between sessions.  And, this is one reason why therapists do not counsel their own friends or family.  These protections are a luxury that family members simply do not have.

So, if these methods are ineffective, why do people still commonly respond with unintentional minimization or “silver-lining” responses?

Why people sometimes respond the way that they do

When we are staggered by the scope of something awful that happens, many of us will rush to take its measurements or develop an action plan.  Describing the facts of the case offer us some comfort, some glimpse of a possible future solution, a course of action to rescue us from the terrible sense of helplessness that we feel.  We draw an uneasy periphery around the awfulness to encapsulate both its impact and our own feelings that threaten to engulf us.

For these reasons, we try to make sense of things.  We inform others about the scope of an event by tallying casualties, totaling damage in dollars or yen, or numbering the homes destroyed.  We try to paint a picture with facts and words and images to inform and to elicit aid.

These pictures may help the general public understand the scope of the event, but these metrics utterly fail at conveying the terrible private aftermath of a person’s world gone fragmented in the wake of a trauma.

These definitions do not capture the essential experience of someone who has survived a trauma.  It is a grayscale depiction of something that that is felt in vivid Technicolor.

The silver lining responses are often meant to comfort the person who says them.  They may not realize it, but the person is often trying to allay their own sense of powerlessness or pain or awkwardness at not knowing what to say.  The gesture says, “Please stop, I cannot bear any more.”  Unfortunately, this relief comes at the expense of the person who has experienced the trauma.

I’d venture to guess that all parties involved do not realize this is happening—all the more troubling to the person who thinks they should perhaps feel consoled or grateful, but aren’t.  And of course, the person doing the consoling is often rebuffed or feels powerless in the face of the persistent suffering of the person they are trying to help.

It is an awful feeling for everyone involved.

It is not surprising that there is a tendency for people to try and map out the awfulness of things by using other events as a point of comparison.  This is quite understandable.  The question that should be asked is if the person who survived the trauma is well-served by having this comparison pointed out to them.

The circumference of awfulness

If a person who has experienced an awful thing tries to make sense of their story by comparing or finding a silver lining, I don’t get in their way.  Often, they are trying to get an idea of magnitude, to develop a sense of their hurt.  This is particularly true of emotional injuries sustained from ambiguous or common events, when people are confused about whether they have a right to their pain.  People like to have a point of reference, to know they are entitled to their own feelings and reactions.

I don’t blame people for trying to use comparison as a point of reference.  My concern lies more with the well-intentioned folks around them that try to impose these lessons before they are ready to be received.  I fear that such efforts will result in abandoning the survivors of a trauma to sort through their feelings alone, grappling in the dark to measure the circumference of the awfulness that happened to them.

I have more to say on the subject of trauma, so I will continue next week to explain a few more thoughts regarding the confusion about what constitutes a traumatic experience.  After that, I will offer some suggestions about ways to respond sensitively to someone else’s pain.