I told myself I was going to try to post every day this week. I really want to follow through.
But it’s been a week.
A week of trauma.
Especially for the family of George Floyd.
Living in a world with deep injustice can be profoundly painful. Especially when you are blessed or cursed with deep empathy.
Empathy—trying as hard as you possibly can to feel the feelings of another person—can leave you feeling hurt when you see others hurting.
Region V
When I was in the sixth grade, I was a member of the Region V chorus. An elite citywide chorale that recruited from across all the DC public elementary schools.
You had to audition to get in. Those who did took a school bus across the city every Wednesday to rehearse with chorus kids from all the other schools.
I tried out in the 5th grade and didn’t make it.
My father, concerned I might be tone deaf, consulted with a pianist friend of the family.
I’m not sure what propelled me more. Reeling from my father’s shame? Not liking to fail? Wanting to hang out with my friends? I have to think figuring out I was a second soprano, not a first soprano, helped too.
I sang my heart out for Mrs. Stewart in the basement music room at Shepherd again the next fall.
This time I snagged a spot!
We rehearsed all day every Wednesday. Preparing to perform all over the place.
I seem to remember Sea World in Cleveland. Surely that was an add-on excursion. I think we were in Ohio to perform at a choral competition. We also road-tripped to Philadelphia once. The one time I’d ever visited a city that later became my home for 10 years.
MLK Day Performance
One of our performances took place at the crown jewel of the DC public library system. The Martin Luther King Jr. Library downtown.
Apropos for a celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday.
It was January. We were warming up in a downstairs rehearsal space. All wearing white shirts. Navy skirts for the girls, navy pants for the boys.
We may have been singing “Lift Every Voice and Sing.”
In the middle of a song I can’t now remember, a girl in the row in front of me fell face forward to the ground. Convulsing.
Fortunately, Mrs. Stewart or someone else must have known what to do in the event of an epileptic seizure.
I certainly didn’t.
First, I was transfixed. Staring at the girl’s navy skirt, my heart hurting for whatever was happening to her.
My body flooded with fear as I watched something I didn’t understand and had never seen before.
Then, I was baffled. Staring at my own navy skirt and my own body on the ground, I had no idea what had happened to me.
Turns out I passed out. I empathized so much with that girl in front of me that it knocked me out.
Fainter
My friends on the bus back to school teased me. Began calling me “Fainter.” And not just that day.
It felt like they meant well at the time. I don’t think I let it hurt my feelings.
I was busy feeling mortified.
To have called attention to myself. Lost control of my body. Caused concern when someone else was actually in distress.
Every time anyone called me “Fainter” after that it brought a little bit of shame up in my throat. Like vomit.
Sore Thumb
I was already trying desperately to fit in.
You see, I was the only white girl in my class.
I’d moved from another state between the 4th and 5th grades to join kids who’d lived in the same neighborhood their whole life. Gone to school together for at least four years.
Not only that, I had a country accent, not much rhythm, and was a year younger than everyone else because I’d just skipped a grade.
I dropped the West Virginia accent as fast as I possibly could. Tried desperately to learn how to dance. Let everyone forget I was younger. Hid that I was freakily smart.
On the playground, I couldn’t get into the fast-turning Double dutch ropes to save my life. I couldn’t even turn the damn ropes right. I was what was called “double-handed.” NOT a compliment.
Red Diaper Baby
No way in hell was I telling anyone in this new place that my parents were Communists. Who didn’t vote. Because they thought the whole system was rigged and needed to be overthrown. That to support the existing system by voting would just be letting f*cked-up policies continue in more or less watered-down ways.
Being a Red Diaper baby—kid of Communists—certainly didn’t get me in with the cool kids the last place I’d lived.
It got my dad beaten up. My mother fired and followed by a menacing man. Both my parents arrested. Which left five-year-old me and my diaper-wearing brother at a babysitter’s a few days longer than planned.
I don’t think the babysitter was pleased. I know her husband was pissed. At one point he threatened to whip me with his belt.
Back to Region V Chorus
So, given the chance to start over in a brand-new place, I was not about to reveal my parents’ politics.
The last thing I wanted was another way to stand out.
And then I went and fainted.
Damn empathy. So embarrassing.
Sometimes, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.
Put another way, some of the things that brought you most shame as a kid can emerge later in life as superpowers. If they don’t kill you first.
Tangents and Trauma
This is not at all what I set out to write when I sat down at the computer.
I just wanted to collapse into sleep after a day of intense feelings.
After a week of intense feelings.
Brought on by the trauma of watching George Floyd be killed by murderous white men.
At least one with his hands in his pockets. Staring defiantly at the terrorized people gathering around.
NOT because they wanted to witness a murder.
Those terrorized, traumatized people. Pleading with that policeman to stop.
Unable to do anything more than shoot video. Or be shot.
Subdued even in their language. By survival instincts.
I think the worst I heard that murderous man called was a “bum.” NOT because it’s the worst word anyone could think of.
Because the police carry guns. And use them. At will. Especially if you have black or brown skin.
Back in Elementary School
Back in my elementary school class, there were three white boys. A girl whose mother and grandmother were Indian, but I think she was born in the U.S. A girl from Trinidad and Tobago.
Unless I’m forgetting someone—and I’m so sorry if I am!—every other classmate was African American.
These classmates were my friends. My neighbors. The kids I played with and learned with. The kids I had my first crushes on.
Any of these classmates could have been George Floyd.
Every one of them may be experiencing trauma right now.
Many of these classmates, like George Floyd, have been profiled and harassed by the police because of their skin color. Had to submit to mistreatment politely. Answer racist police deferentially. Bite their tongues rather than call bullsh!t on a f*cked up system that terrorizes them day in and day out.
Most try never to commit even the tiniest infraction in the first place to avoid tangoing with a force they know might well kill them.
I bet every single one of them has or plans to train their kids to do the same.
To KEEP THEM ALIVE.
Because they don’t want their son to be George Floyd.
And George Floyd knew better than to resist arrest, too. Because he didn’t want to die.
My Thoughts Are With the Families
I haven’t heard the sorrow of George’s parents. I don’t know if they were alive to witness the thing no parent should ever have to see. I’ve had to tune out for stretches at a time to keep myself from sinking below the surface this week.
I did hear his devastated cousins. One who watched her own family member be killed. Not realizing it was her baby cousin. Getting the phone call minutes later.
I feel sick as I write that. My heart breaks for those cousins. For his brother. For any other members of George’s family. And for the people who bravely used their cell phones to do the very most important thing they could possibly do while staying alive themselves.
If it were their son or grandson, they might have bum-rushed the bum. Or done something else to try to save his life.
Like the 90-year-old grandmother in Midland, Texas.
When it’s family, you’ll take a bullet. Because the instinct to save your flesh and blood can be strong enough to override logic. Unless the trauma you’re experiencing makes you freeze.
I Set Out to Write About a Conference on Trauma
Okay. 1,500 words and I still haven’t gotten to what I set out to write about.
A three-day conference on trauma I’m only two days into.
The Trauma Recovery Foundation and Dr. Bessel van der Kolk have been putting this conference on for the past 30 years.
It’s the first year the focus was on a global pandemic. Also the first year it had to take place virtually.
The world-renowned conference draws together experts in the fields of neuroscience, mindfulness, embodiment, psychology, psychiatry, PTSD, addiction, self-regulation, and treatment of countless forms.
And now that I can attend any conference I want in my pajamas, I’m attending as many as I can.
I have so much to say about all I’ve learned at this one.
But I’m too traumatized by the events of the week to write more than this:
It’s a damn good thing more and more people are learning how to help others recover from trauma.
Because traumas are playing out faster than we can keep up with them.
Far too often to the same people.
Again and again.
We Need an Army of Trauma Recovery Experts
Trauma is terrorizing. It deeply damages those who experience it.
I am so grateful for advances in neuroscience that help us better understand how to treat trauma.
I hope they help bring healing to anyone who has experienced it.
Especially those who experience it every damn day.
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