Blame It On Society, 5

Why do some people survive it?  Not just survive but go on to thrive, dancing from triumph to victory as if nothing bad ever happened to them?  As though they were made of Teflon?  I was not so lucky though now I am doing better than ever and maybe I'm now one of those who are thriving.  When I was ill with PTSD, still undiagnosed, instead of languishing in bed I was painting, exhibiting and marketing my art.  I was seeing my friends and taking long walks.  I simply did not have the emotional energy to work full time.

I did not go unscathed, requiring four years of psychotherapy to unravel the knots that an abusive childhood and dysfunctional adulthood had created.  I work fulltime now and still draw and paint though there is no time or energy left to market my art.  I do tire easy and have to spend my evenings usually at home alone

There are those who have not only survived trauma, and not just unscathed, but have gone on to live super-productive lives.  Did the trauma somehow prepare and equip them to bounce from victory to victory?  Perhaps it is more likely that no two persons have the same experience of the same traumatic experience?  Had I believed two weeks ago in Bogota that my life was in real danger when the thug in the suit tried to take me in for "questioning" perhaps the experience, though I escaped unharmed, might have been more severe.  I do not believe that I would not have been harmed.  Simply, I do not know what the outcome might have been and I am very happy to never find out for sure.

Perhaps surviving trauma requires a certain measure of denial?  Or maybe it's just a matter of refusing to be a drama queen.  Those who walk through life blissfully ignorant of the risks they are running are more likely to sail through than the rest of us who avoid stepping on cracks and run from the sight of our own shadows.  When I was four years old I could sit on the edge of a cliff with my legs dangling over, marvelling at the tiny trees down below and not having a clue why my parents were freaking out.  Maybe it has more to do with believing to the bitter end in the fundamental goodness of human nature, like Anne Frank when she wrote near or at the end of her famous diary of her belief that people are essentially good, even after spending the better part of two years hiding with her family from the Nazis and just before she herself would perish in a concentration camp.

There is something marvellously anesthetizing about joy.  If we are designed to be happy, or if we have an inclination towards optimism I think our ability to do well in times of stress and trouble are going to increase somewhat.  You know, like skipping among the gravestones, singing and picking flowers without giving a single thought to the wasted bones buried just six feet underneath our dancing feet.  And without ever imagining that one day we will be lying among them.

Death claims us all, but we still have a duty to live, and when the duty is transformed into a celebration we will know that we are really doing okay.