Writing Wrongs: Trauma & Texts

I enjoyed this class very much because it focused on something different than what I am used to. The readings were stimulating, even when they were confusing, because I've never thought about life this way. I wished we would have been able to watch more of the movies in order to get a different perspective on trauma. I also wished that everyone, including myself, contributed a bit more to the discussions. That would have benefited everyone in the class. The final research project made me focus on different aspects on the course that I normally wouldn't have looked into. All in all, however, I really liked this class and got a lot out of it.

Psychoanalysis Before Freud

As I was doing my research I came across a quote from a man named David Livingston. He was a Scottish missionary who explored Africa in the early 1800's. While he was exploring Africa, he was attacked by a lion.

To this he said: "The shock produced a stupor...it caused a sort of dreaminess...there was no sense of pain nor feeling of terror, though I was quite concious of all that was happening. This particular state is probably produced in all animals killed by carnivora...and is a merciful provision by our benevolent creator for lessening the pain of death."

David Livingston said this when Freud was probably just a young child, as they shared some of the same time period. This quote is eerily close to what Freud would say in the future. Although Freud never talked about that the state of dreaminess could be a survival mode for when human beings are attacked by animals. Freud also never said that it was a gift from our creator that we can go into the dreamlike state to lessen the pain of our own death. All of these make so much sense, both scientifically and spiritually.

In my paper I talk about a surfer, Bethany Hamilton, who was attacked by a tiger shark. She said that she felt no pain during the attack. Scientists have proven that during an attack, the human body is on an overload of senses. This overload of the senses renders the body feeling nothing and putting the body into that dreamlike state both Livingston and Freud talked about.

Class induced trauma

As I've been writing my outline and starting my paper, I've realized that I have started to think about shark attacks more and more. It must just be a coincidental timing that the past few days have been great for surfing but because shark attacks are on my mind, I can't help but think about it while I'm in the water. Because I've never been attacked by a shark the trauma doesn't get to me too bad, all it takes is a firm talk to my brain to stop thinking about the sharks and focus on the waves. As odd as it sounds, the frequency of my shark dreams have increased just a bit while I've been writing the paper and outline.

I'm positive that the dreams aren't helping me deal with past trauma, but possibly the dreams have a purpose other than what Freud explains. Maybe my dreams are preparing me for what is to come, as creepy as that is. Sharks have been on my mind since I can remember because I've been fascinated with them and have made my life goal to study and learn all I can about sharks. The other reason they are constantly on my mind is that I am a surfer and the media loves to say that surfers are bound to get attacked once in their lifetime. So according to the media, I probably have a two to three times chance of getting attacked in my lifetime, which is a very comforting thought.

Sharks haven't just struck fear to those in the water, but also in the air. The fact that sharks scare the whole world is a perfect reason why, in WW2, that the many American airplanes were painted with a "shark face" on the nose. This is a great example of how widespread the trauma of sharks reaches.

The picture I chose is probably my favorite shark just because of the balance it has between beauty and power. This species of shark is definitely on my list of ones I do not want to be attacked by. The other is an picture of the shark airplanes flown in WW2.

Holocaust Museum

Although I've heard stories of the Holocaust and seen several videos on it, this is my first time in a Holocaust museum. This was a bit of a shock for me because I'd never seen artifacts from the Holocaust and definitely made for a surreal experience. This just adds to my understanding of what we are discussing in class about the power behind physical objects and how it relates to trauma. I knew that the Holocaust was a terrible event, but it was only just a concept until I saw the artifacts that the museum had in the exhibits.

What I found really interesting was the fact that throughout history, everyone really focuses on the gas chambers and the execution pits. Many people leave out the part about the Nazi doctors performing all kinds of crazy experiments, surgical removal of body parts and organs, and experiment with drugs to test the effects of certain treatments and to see how the human body worked, most of which were horribly unsuccessful. Although much good came from these tests, the cost of obtaining that information was and still is unforgivable. Many of today's treatments for diseases are the tests that succeded in the concentration camps, which is a very sobering thought. Even after many generations, we are still subject to Nazi science, which had brutal ways of testing that science.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sC0cxE-BX4c&feature=related

This video is 1 of 5 that explain what happened in the concentration camps. This video is very chilling because it ties into the whole goal of Hitler, to make a supreme race of people. It's very sickening to think that this really could have happened, but yet everyone who uses pharmacutical drugs to keep them healthy are basically saying thank you to the Nazi's for this practice. I feel that this is probably one of the most disturbing, but not so well known part of the Holocaust. To relate this back to class, it is all about perspective. As we've moved forward since the Holocaust, we've "forgotten" this part and changed it into a great modern marvel, rewriting our own history.

Remembering Accounts of a Terrorist Attack in my Backyard

So today in class we talked a little about 9/11 and how the media affected that event. I can still remember that day and everything about it, which I have no doubt is due to the trauma about the day, especially living 45 minutes outside of the city. That day, my school decided not to tell anyone until right at the end of school, where we had an emergency meeting. Everyone reacted in horror, as almost everyone knew of someone's family that worked in or near the World Trade Center. On the way home you could see everyone had the news on watching and rewatching the clips, and you couldn't help but doing the same the instant you got home too.

The paranoia set in thereafter because of our proximity to the city. Every plane that went over our heads made us look up, not in wonderment of where they were headed but just to see that they weren't going to crash into us. My great aunt lives in an apartment building just across the river from the World Trade Center and she witnessed first hand the second tower being hit and both of them falling. She knew no one in the towers, so her account was just facts and emotion. After almost every sentence she would say "I don't believe it". The next thing that seemed to happen for everyone in my area, was that there is one road that gives a panoramic view of the city skyline and the smoke. Everyone seemed to be on this road just to get this view of the smoke, as if just to ensure what they had heard on tv was correct.

Soon after they put up the powerful beams of light in rememberance of the towers and all the people lost. If we turned off all the lights in our house and look in the general direction of the city, we could see a faint glow in the sky, like all the people lost that day were trying to re-enter the world through the pillars of light to finish their lives. By this time, we all got used to the planes passing overhead, for the most part. We still looked up, but we swore that it was just because we were seeing where they were going, but inside we knew we were still a bit paranoid.

A few years later, near Christmas, my family went into the city to see the tree and see how the city was recovering from the devestation. I remember on a building right next to the tree a massive American flag, so there was no way you could look at the tree without seeing it. This made me happier because the city was still remembering its loss, but still trying desperately to keep up traditions. On the way out of the city we stopped by the memorial site. It was an odd feeling to be there because the rational part of your brain said it was just a piece of land, but the emotional part took over and reminded you of how many people died here and the paranoia you felt during and right after the event.

I'm really excited I found this picture because I remember it from a news article I read soon after the event. I was struck by the positioning of the Statue of Liberty, like she was looking at the smoke and wishing she could move to help those people that died that day. The second thing that struck me was how bright the Statue of Liberty is considering the amount of smoke around her. This was used to boost the morale of the people of America by saying that liberty and freedom still shines through, even in the face of a major traumatic event.

All is fair in love and war

The war museum was definitely very interesting. Their exhibits had many rare memorabilia from war time that made the exhibits much more impressing. Some things did stick out to me as odd, such as the disclaimer around the Nazi exhibit. I wonder if they had to put that up because someone really did get offended by the exhibit. This museum is probably one of the first I've been to that really showed war unbiasedly through everyone's perspectives.

Expanding on our discussions of media changing the perspectives of the people, I couldn't help but notice all the American posters and the news clippings, some of which wouldn't be accepted today. I couldn't help to also put myself in the shoes of the people in that time period and react how they might have to these signs. They made it seem that the enemy was everywhere and that we could talk to no one or else our soldiers may be ambushed in a trap. That must have made the american people paranoid about everything.

The readings for today also jogged my memory back to a creative writing class I took in high school, where my teacher responded to one of the poems that I wrote, which I'll put up at the end, and said that I would have been a dangerous weapon during warfare due to my ability to very powerfully and descriptively convey what I saw. He then went on to explain that many of the writers during war time were killed, which didn't do much to comfort me. I had all but forgotten that conversation, as I had been cramming my brain with more information than it knew what to do with, until I read the passage by Craig and Egan. This also got me thinking about how traumatic it was for the writers of past wartime eras to be writing about what was going on being paranoid that at any moment they may be captured and murdered to be silenced. I couldn't figure out if it was all bravery or just an extreme devotion to their calling that made them keep on writing even with the threat of death.


All the Same

What is wrong with this world today
We’re being put into groups day by day
Punk, Jock, Gangsta, we all the same
But why do you judge us on our outside frame
It has corrupted the world
Because all the guys want the perfect girl
But can’t get them because they stay true to their group
It’s just crazy how low of a level we’ll stoop
Just to do our group good
Starting fights just because you’re in a bad mood
And a person from another group looked at you wrong
The ending sounds like that of a bad song
3 people dead, 2 severely injured, and 1 with a black eye
All of this from the mood of one guy
Families mourn the untimely deaths of their sons
While the survivors now carry guns
Wherever they go…for fear of another fight
Unfortunately all this can’t be changed overnight
It’s too much a part of our society today
We can’t help it…we stereotype people everyday
We can’t see that we are tampering with the balance of chaos and harmony
We need to see that we are all the same in reality

So who knew a class about trauma could be so interesting? From our discussion and readings I can start to see how trauma makes complete sense only in how uterly confusing it is. Once I grasped the fact that every human loves telling stories and those stories are all subject to twisted truths, I was able to start to understand how to go about reading the texts. Having gone through several traumatic events myself, I can start to see how I reacted to it as both a human being and as an individual.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6wGU06BYzA

The song I put up is all about how people in different situations and how they dealt with a traumatic event. It is a little morbid but I really like how the artists used words to convey the thoughts of their made up characters.