The trauma of trauma; In the wake of the bushfires, by Dr. Wei-May Su
The Australian mega bushfires have finally stopped, though public attention is currently drawn to the fear of a viral epidemic. The start of 2020 has been strangely not festive, and rather terrifying, a marker of the dystopian effect of human intervention on nature, and lack of clarity over effective intervention.
On the cusp of 2020, during a time traditionally associated with celebration, a nation was faced with the fear, then reality, of impending devastation. What was different about this “bushfire” was the unprecedented scale, and the vulnerability and horror of realising that there was no way to stop the flames, and that there was nowhere protected, as the places we would normally retreat to were the ones that were burning. It was persistent and prolonged, and even when the fires eased, it was in the context of unprecedented rains and flooding, the “once in a lifetime storm” that NSW chief operating officer Howard Collins, describes as “I’ve learned in Australia that’s generally once a year”. And that is the crux of it, that there is the fear that no matter how this is played out to be a “once in a lifetime event”, that this is a herald of the world to come. It is also impossible to forget that even while this was happening, the WHO has also been on preparedness alert for a potential Coronavirus pandemic, which further contributed to risk and disruption of life.
We often talk about trauma on an individual level, of the individual stories of “heroism”, and despair, and steps towards recovery. We less commonly discuss cultural trauma, or think that it will happen to us, even when it is occurring to us. How could the experience we are experiencing be anything equivalent to those whose lives were lost, whose homes were lost, whose communities were obliterated?
The term “cultural trauma”, coined by Jeffery Anderson at the beginning of the 21st Century, describes where ‘members of a collectivity feel they have been subjected to a horrendous event that leaves indelible marks on their group consciousness.’ He and co-authors further described this in the context of Holocaust survivors, the loss of cultural identity in African Americans and September 11. Even earlier than this, in Australia, the 1995 Ways forward report on the “Stolen Generation” and subsequent literature on the ongoing effect of multigenerational trauma for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders provides a stark example of what can happen when cultural trauma persists and is ignored inter-generationally.
Jeffrey Alexander provides a narrative of cultural trauma as “the nature of the pain”, the “nature of the victim”, “the relationship between the victim and the wider community” and “the attribution of responsibility”.
Using the example of the bushfires….
In 2020, during the bushfires, even for those not directly in the path of the flames, there was the constant pall of smoke, loved ones affected, life disrupted. Many had plans to travel or had travelled to the regions affected, for family, for pleasure, and there is the hidden guilt of being a “survivor” when other peoples’ lives are destroyed or lost.
There is also a cultural ideology in an economically developed country that societal, governmental, technological and organisational supports should come to the rescue in times of crisis. At the time of the fires, this failed us. Our leaders were absent, downplaying the crisis as “climate conspiracy” or not talking to each other. Fire trucks didn’t come, and when they did come, they couldn’t put the fire out. At a time for evacuation, the road out was obliterated, or fuel was unavailable, leaving no way out, and no way for supplies or support in. Even the air was too hazardous to breathe. When rescue did arrive, families with children under 5 years old were told the most vulnerable were too vulnerable to be taken to safety. Now there is less media attention on the issue, there is still a disquiet regarding what the effective ongoing governmental response will be to support those who were affected and prevent this happening again.
There is also a sense of cultural identity in Australia of beaches being our “happy place”. The image on Mallacoota of people huddled on a beach on New Year’s Eve is evocative, as this happened on the Coast, not in the “bush”, places associated with “bushfire”. It heightened the fear of “Armageddon”, of climate anxiety, of the helplessness and despair of “what’s the point”, of the fear that this is what the world will become.
Internationally, as Australia burned, the 2020 bushfires became a symbol of climate inaction, just as September 11 became a symbol of global terrorism.
This is not to diminish the experience of individuals, of those directly touched by the flames, of communities wiped out and lives lost, both human and animal. I think the discussion of individual trauma within an experience of collective trauma is one profound and unimaginable for not having experienced this. Not just your own loss, but the loss of everyone around you, of your community around you, with no sense of the house you grew up with, the town you grew up with, the environmental landscape you identify with….. and the supports and infrastructure which otherwise should be supporting you has also vanished.
With the advent of the new viral threat, this fear has been compounded….with a disparate response from community, health professional and public health response worldwide and locally regarding prevention of the spread of disease. There is generally praise when there is a coordinated local and global response, and fear when this is less well policed or structures to approach this effectively less accessible.
It can be demoralising to be part of a traumatic event, and how influential this may be can depend on how directly a person was affected, the available supports and the sense of meaning that occurs around the tragedy.
What has been learnt from our current understanding of cultural trauma, is that when the experience of trauma occurs at a community level, recovery should be addressed also at the community, particularly community measures which promote a sense of agency and a new sense of community purpose and meaning. Factors which perpetuate the trauma is the persistence of cultural disruption, and sense of loss of control or direction.
Infrastructure can be rebuilt if the sense of community purpose and agency driving it is moving in a reformative position of change towards a new sense of collective identity.
In Australia, the stories pouring out were of communities devastated but pouring together to provide support in the ways they are able to. There are individual stories of people banding together one by one to save livestock, medical relief, homes. There were millions of funds pledged by individuals and by private enterprise. There was the increasing awareness of the impact of environmental impact on this tragedy, and although probably not initiated directly by the Australian bushfires, there was opportunistic timing of overseas royalty pledging significant funds towards Environmental reform. It has been uplifting to see patches of greenery where there were black trees.
Amongst this global outpouring of support and monetary funds, volunteered time and equipment, what was missing was the political leadership, and direction for effective outcome. Much of the funds are directed towards the RFS, a volunteer organisation which bore the brunt of the leadership crisis and cost and rose to the occasion to evoke a sense of tragic heroism.
Our key message from this tragedy is that at our time of crisis, the obligation is on private donation and volunteered time (and lives), of a government shifting the labour and emotional labour onto the people.
The bushfire devastation has been horrifying as a nation, but more traumatising within a constructivist moral framework that leaves us feeling impotent. We have been re-traumatised by our lack of clear leadership in this matter, including lack of acknowledgement that the leadership gap has been an issue.
I increasingly see people present with distress in the context of the unaddressed environmental impact highlighted by the bushfires, and effect of physical sequelae of the smoke, months of home isolation, and inability to do the things attributed to good health: to be part of a community, to do exercise, to be outdoors. There are people who attribute their “happy place” as the beach, and these were the places that burned. For many who haven’t lost homes, they often apologise for or dismiss being psychologically affected. Their suffering has been further compounded by the viral threat.
In medicine, one of the things that can be most challenging is to sit with suffering. Suffering can be unfixable, can be unchangeable. What can be more challenging is that sometimes that suffering is caused by us. There will be bad outcomes, there will be the inevitable rumination over and over again of what could have happened differently, how could that have changed? Moving forward also means facing that person who is suffering, to continue to care for them and talk with them and show authenticity and honesty that their suffering is real and as much as I find it challenging watching their suffering, that they are having an even harder time of it. This is about a community suffering. During that time, is not the time to ignore it, to pretend it doesn’t exist, but to face that sitting with distress and admit “I’m sorry I wasn’t there, I’m sorry I wasn’t able to change that, I’m sorry for your loss”.
What can we do…
As a nation, the key message that arose is that there is personal responsibility and we as a nation have risen to the task. There have been countless volunteers of time and money, and environmentally, individuals look at what they can do to address their part. For communities devastated, please take the opportunity to visit those regions to support rebuilding of the local area. It is also permissible to feel distress, regardless of the level of involvement. It demonstrates collective empathy of a nation which was affected, and this can be considered as a driver for effective change rather than just of suffering.
For those concerned with coronavirus, continue to keep abreast of upcoming WHO and local Health updates, including regulations on travel and isolation. It is important to recognise that global action means just that, and that to address this, we should be working together, and not isolating or stigmatising specific groups.
This is also an opportunity for leaders to acknowledge the distress, and an opportunity to reframe our cultural narrative. This is an opportunity for Australian leaders to reframe this moment as a time of action, to consider what steps require action which cannot be enacted at an individual level.
If 2020 bushfires has become a symbol of environmental inaction, I say we should reframe this as a collective nation coming together for community support and for environmental action, not just as individuals, but with our leadership as well.
For those affected by the fires, who would like further information and support on managing emotional distress, I encourage you to use the following resources:
Community Trauma Toolkit
https://emergingminds.com.au/resources/toolkits/community-trauma-toolkit/ or http://bit.ly/Traumatoolkit
The Community Trauma Toolkit contains resources to help and support adults and children before, during, and after a disaster or traumatic event and provides information and resources about some of the impacts of disaster and how you can help lessen these impacts.
The information in this Toolkit is grouped into the timeframes surrounding a natural disaster or traumatic event: preparedness; immediate; short-term recovery; and long-term recovery. The resources are tailored to the various audience including:
Parents and caregivers
General Practitioners
Educators
Community leaders
First Responders
Health and Social workforces
The toolkit was developed by ANU’s Australian Child and Adolescent Trauma Grief and Loss Network (ACATGLN) for the Emerging Minds collaboration using funding from the Commonwealth government.