This week’s column in The Kerryman newspaper
Michael Commane
It must be 40 years since I first heard of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, commonly known as PTSD. It became something of a ruse as people were using it as a way of claiming recompense from their insurance company as a result of an accident, it was usually an injury that caused whiplash. If all else failed, try the PTSD trick and you just might get compensation from your insurance company.
No doubt there were and are tricksters who try it, but don’t fraudsters and tricksters try every method possible to steal and cheat.
That’s not to say that PTSD is not real. My eyes were opened having attended a day-long seminar on trauma. Okay, I can hear you say; after a day’s course he’s now pontificating on the subject. That’s fine, but the day set me thinking of how events in our lives influence what we do and say.
I’m forever asking, who am I, what do I believe, why do I behave in such a manner, do I know who I am? Do any of us know who we are or why we act and speak as we do?
After 75 years on this planet I’m coming around to the idea of so much of what I do began to take shape in my mother’s womb. If our parents are kind and loving people, surely that rubs off on us and in turn we behave in a like manner.
I have learned over the years how fragile we are.
If I had been born a Muslim in 1949 it’s almost certain I would not now be a Dominican priest.
I remember a violent incident that happened me in school. I am sure it had a profound effect on my life.
Any events that harm us impact on our lives; they play a significant role in deciding who we are and how we behave.
No two people are the same; every situation is different.
Just think of the damage that all forms of violence cause on people.
Shakespeare in one of his sonnets hints at the terror and loneliness that can befall us: ‘When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,/When I've fallen out of favour with fortune and men,/I all alone beweep my outcast state.’ (Sonnet 29)
I’m a strong believer in the work counsellors and psychotherapists do; they have the skills and empathy to help us on our own individual road to discovery.
Life is a journey with many twists and turns, all of us are in process. Somehow or someway most of us have been wounded along the journey. It’s how we handle or maybe interpret the trauma we have experienced that matters.
And then in our dealing with other people every individual has to be recognised for who they are. If we see a physically vulnerable person on the street we might help them cross the road. What about the person suffering trauma?
If I had a magic wand it would be my wish that everyone had the opportunity to avail of benefiting from a counsellor or therapist. We regularly go to the doctor and dentist; why not give the same care to our mental health?
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