The Genealogy of Trauma

For those of you who did not receive my: “Hola desde Argentina! Este es mi nuevo número de teléfono!” text, I landed in Buenos Aries, Argentina yesterday.

I have already gotten one Argentinian baptism – Spring is unforgiving here.

Within the week I will meet with and begin to work alongside some incredible women from Argentina’s National Mental Health Ministries. And, it is with these wonderful women that I will attend the International Congress on Mental Health on November 1, 2019. The theme this year is: “Inclusive Mental Health Care.”

As exciting as that all is, this post isn’t about Argentina. No, as much as it saddens me to say, it is my very last post about Europe. More specifically, Eastern Europe – Lithuania, to be exact.

Lithuania was never on my list of countries to visit during my Watson Year and yet I felt that I needed to go. (I am sure that many other Watson Fellows can attest to this feeling – as it is at the core of the Fellowship to “know when to move on” and to “feel the edges of your project.”)

I began to grow frustrated with the majority of the interviews, conversations, and arguments I was having in the Netherlands. They were very dry and very medicalized. Albeit, this is not necessarily a bad thing. I grew weary and anxious, I felt like I was missing a fundamental component of my project – but what?

In my first emails with Lithuanian psychiatrists and psychologists, I named this missing component “tragedy.” However, I now realize this component is not tragedy.

Nope.

It’s “trauma.”

And, it is this very trauma that the experts agree, have pushed Lithuania’s national suicide rate to the highest in the European Union and to the Top 5 globally.

Trauma. Let’s talk about trauma, shall we?

Obviously trauma and traumatic experiences are massive contributors to suicidality. Trauma can take many forms, of course – abuse, neglect, violence, you name it.

But, this blog post will primarily focus on cultural trauma (or trauma done to a culture). This process is described as a “culturally interpreted wound to cultural tissue itself.” Its effects are observed when a community agrees that they have been subjected to a horrible event which permanently changed their group consciousness as well as their memory and identity.

My meetings in Lithuania shed a critical light on the cultural trauma inflicted unto their nation during the Soviet Occupation. Indeed, the Soviet Occupation is still an open wound that, as UN Special Rapporteur, Danius Pūras, pointed out, has made it difficult for Lithuanian’s to define their national identity. And, it is this wound that permeates into current generations; Danuté Gailené, the most prominent suicidologist in Lithuania, coins this phenomenon as the transgenerational transmission of trauma. And, Paulius Skruibis, notes that this wound has not been able to properly heal because of the misguided and often overbearing medicalization of mental illness.

The trauma echoes all throughout the country.

It brought me to tears knowing that cultural trauma happens every day all around the world. We are putting kids in cages and shooting people of color, bombing hospitals, imprisoning communities, and killing queer folx.

Let me be clear, this kind of trauma doesn’t just end with the single tragic event – it will continue in the future with kids hanging themselves in their closets and dad’s drinking themselves unconscious, freezing to death on park benches overnight.

 Perhaps once we start treating people ethically, with dignity and respect, we will be able to actually do the suicide prevention work necessary to save lives. But, until then, all we are really doing is scrambling to ensure that the souls we have hardened stay alive so we all feel a little less guilty at the end of the day.

I have so much to say about the transgenerational transmission of trauma. But, if I were to write about it here, this blog post would be more rant than reflection. Therefore, I’ll leave you with this single sentiment.

 

Let’s stop fucking traumatizing people, eh?

When I returned to the Netherlands from Lithuania I grew immediately reminiscent of my time in Europe.

I have a hunch that every transition will be like this.

I care very deeply about people and place, which makes the Fellowship the best and absolute worst thing for me.

I considered the last two-and-a-half months I spent in Tacoma unlike the previous years.

I finally cultivated a community.

And, then, it felt like the Netherlands ripped me away from them. Now, I feel the same way.

My flight to Argentina ripped me out at the roots.

It hurts.

The Netherlands gave me more life, love, insight than I ever imagined. (Live, Laugh, Love ha ha ha YIKES!)

(A Brief Aside: My meeting with Professor Gloria Wekker was everything I wanted it to be and more. We met for coffee at her apartment and we talked about everything from why she stays alive to why she finds it unfathomable that the Dutch can recognize that racism is very alive in the United States and the UK but somehow magically skipped over the Netherlands.

Her decolonizing work has important implications concerning the “cultural archive” and “cultural trauma.” Two sides of the same coin, we draw from our history and use it as a lens that paints our perception of the world. And, it is this very history that perpetuates injustice and heartbreak.)

 There is so much on my mind. But, right now, my heart and soul look backward with gratitude and grief.

I miss everyone so much. (Check out the small unadvertised blog post A Very Brief Inquiry on Nostalgia, I wrote in Lithunania with a strong case of “anticipatory nostaligia” to learn more about those I miss the most).

And, if you feel like it, listen to the song found above, it’s the only thing that resonates with my soul since I left Europe.

For those of you who are curious, I have made no progress with ‘Infinite Jest’ — too busy staying in beautiful hotels with Flo (xx) and eating kapsalon with Ier (-:

Read the following benediction aloud. It has become my small mantra to get me through the days that fall hallow on my heart.

Let my naivete once more get the best of me and may my radical soul sitting recommence with confidence, knowing that I have people who love me scattered across the globe.

Dank je wel.