Boston

I've watched this week, with many of my fellow Americans, as the events surrounding the bombing at the Boston Marathon have unfolded.  I was shocked when I first heard about it. How could something like this happen?  And at a marathon, where so many inspiring stories are taking place?  I've also watched the news reports as the investigation has progressed, more trauma unfolded before our eyes as the suspects were pursued.
I've also watched and seen reported many acts of heroism and bravery. Truly inspirational acts. Bostonians opening their hearts & offering their homes to those affected by the tragedy. The Bruins fans joining in the singing of our National Anthem at the first hockey game following the tragedy.  And as always, the first responders who are at their best when things are at their worst. Mister Rogers was spot on when he said "when I was a young boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, 'Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.'". I've pointed this same thing out to my own children.
It's also been interesting for me as a therapist to watch this and especially to watch our reaction to this. To watch how we, as adults, respond to traumatic events. I've heard phrases like "we are stronger than this" or "America is bigger than anything anybody can do to us". It concerns me as a therapist that we move so quickly to the moving forward and rising above speech and we don't spend enough time talking about the trauma that has brought us to our knees. Oh, I know we spend a lot of time covering it from a news standpoint. But I wonder what would happen if in our homes, in our communities and as a people we talked about how it really felt. The whole continuum of emotions. I felt shocked. I felt sad. I felt scared. I felt powerless. I felt small. I felt vulnerable, as I always do, when I see cruelty collide with humanity. I believe it's important to talk about these things...and then talk about it some more...and then some more.
I've talked with people who I know would disagree with what I am saying. People who don't "do" vulnerability. People who don't believe it's important to identify and express our emotions. What I know is that the fear of vulnerability can unleash cruelty, criticism and cynicism in all of us. This fear unexpressed leads to blaming, gossiping, favoritism, name-calling and harassment. Stuffing our emotions can only happen for so long before we will disengage in order to protect ourselves. Disengagement can look like or lead to all sorts of behaviors including: lying, stealing, cheating, bullying, objectifying or just being mean and indifferent.
Today at work I was talking with a colleague about the weeks events and he was telling me how he was listening to a news report on the way to work and the reporter,in summing up the events, stopped just short of calling it traumatic saying "I won't call it traumatic, it's dramatic". If we can't even call it what it truly is....TRAUMA, then how effective can we really be in moving forward?  Drama happens on school playgrounds (and can be traumatic as well). But this? This is traumatic. We aren't invincible. We cant just steel ourselves against difficulty. We feel and are impacted by trauma every time we see or experience it. Simply saying something about our strength doesn't work to lessen the vulnerability that we feel at that moment. We have witnessed and experienced a multitude of traumatic events in our country.  I fear the cruelty that will continue if we harden ourselves and simply move forward.  Because what I know is that the world doesn't need more people who are hardened.