By Stephanie McCain, March 26, 2020, San Antonio Express News
If you asked me before this coronavirus crisis whether I was a “trauma survivor,” I would have replied with confidence that I was not.
My family experienced hardship during our months of displacement following Hurricane Ike in 2008, but we were surrounded with abundant love from supportive family, friends and generous strangers. We came through the experience with no lasting scars. Within a year of the storm, we owned a home and had good jobs, our kids were in a great school, and we had plenty of healthy food, health care access and no major debt. That doesn’t sound like trauma to me.
But these feelings in my body — they come in waves. I get dizzy when the news is too much.
Through my work supporting a communitywide, trauma-informed care initiative, I am learning that people who have experienced trauma can be triggered to re-experience that trauma in their bodies even if their minds feel fine. It’s almost as if the first trauma is happening again. There are research articles, books and countless blogs about this.
For example, “The Body Keeps the Score” by Bessel van der Kolk and “Childhood Disrupted” by Donna Jackson Nakazawa are available via the Libby app if you have a public library card. I learned that talk therapy can be helpful but isn’t enough on its own because the body holds its own set of memories.
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