Anniversary: Survivors Know It’s That Time

Biological clocks tick to celestial time. We needn’t be consciously aware of the calendar or of the setting sun to know in our bones that winter is a-comin’ in or that the day is done. Circadian rhythm refers to the daily changes in our bodily functions, including blood pressure and blood sugar, that fluctuate with some regularity over 24 hours. Jet lag is our discomfort when we change the setting of the clock, but not the setting of our body’s metronome.

The annual, as opposed to the diurnal, clock affects a more subtle set of internal perceptions. In some latitudes the seasons run hot or cold, in others, wet or dry, and our biological sensors shift our gears accordingly. Birds do it. Those fuzzy, crawly things do it, too, anticipating mild or severe seasons.

The body of a badly injured person remembers when the leaves fall or the buds sprout if that was the week that was — if that arc of the Earth’s orbit encompassed the day of trauma and tragedy.

Dan Anderson was shot and nearly killed some 20 years ago in my hometown and he called me many times in midsummer to report a vague dis-ease, a problem with mood and concentration and digestion. I would note that the anniversary of the shooting had arrived. He often forgot or suppressed or denied that fact, but his body remembered. There was a good reason for a transient relapse. We didn’t need extra Xanax.

Dan’s anniversary reaction, in psychiatric terms, was paragraph B, symptoms 4 and 5 of the PTSD diagnosis: physiological and psychological reactions to “triggers” that symbolize or represent aspects of the dread event. These criteria are listed to make it clear that one qualifies for PTSD even if one has no conscious memory of being harmed.

Lauren was crushed and nearly killed by a Coca-Cola truck that sideswiped her in a parking lot during a charity car wash. She awoke in a hospital weeks later in restraints, with half a lung removed and a painful tracheostomy, and no recollection of the accident or of the hours before and the days that followed. But her body remembers with a racing pulse when trucks come near, and a sick thud when the month that changed her life approaches.

The nature of traumatic injury is so vast and varied that we best not generalize across all cases. Depending on one’s personality and experience before a trauma, and depending on the trauma itself, one might have aftershocks of guilt or fear or rage or childlike regression. One might feel blessed and reconfirmed in faith. One might cherish loved ones more. One might mourn a loss in a sadder and a wiser way.

Most nations and cultures and religions use the calendar to commemorate days of birth and death and, in some instances, days of collective trauma: Dec. 7, a day that will “live in infamy.” Bastille Day. Nine Eleven. “… The eighteenth of April in seventy five, hardly a man is now alive who remembers that famous day and year.”

Our poets and our politicians try and occasionally succeed in unifying our diverse emotional responses to an event that shook us to our cores, that caused us to question our assumptions, and that left us more reliant on one another.

Trauma, whether personal or collective, does this. It threatens life and it takes life and requires healing with the help of humanity.

Large traumas become critical incidents and footnotes to history, if not chapters of history.

These events test the ties that bind us as nations and as allies. We search for villains. We blame the negligent. We scapegoat ancient enemies. We become tribal.

One soulful survivor of the 9-11 Pentagon crash who lost his wife said, “I hate the word, anniversary. Anniversaries should be happy days.”

Words matter.

For most of us married folk, anniversary is our wedding date.

For trauma specialists, anniversary is a day of deep disturbance.

The challenge for the journalist, who investigates, distills and describes the American April anniversaries, be they Columbine, Oklahoma City, or Virginia Tech (yes, for many April is the cruellest month) — the challenge is to give accurate voice to those whose pain is not assuaged by a sense of collective purpose.

Another challenge is to mitigate rather than intensify a wound waiting to happen. Some survivors are still healing or are at risk to relapse into significant depression or anxiety.

A reasonable and tolerable return to emotional pain can be good for us.  There is nothing psychiatrically wrong with grief or with solemn recollection of a day of sacrifice.

But who wants to be the cause of another’s hurtful and unwanted and unhelpful remembrance?

In the best of circumstances, the reporting on anniversaries of tragic events allows the survivor to tell a story of recovery and, where possible, to identify those who helped and how they helped, to clarify the values and the beliefs that were sustaining, and to describe obstacles that were overcome.

Some survivors of notorious events have bonded with co-victims, working together on common causes such as gun control or victims rights. But for most of us, our sources of succor and security come from family and friends. We do best in the congregations that preceded our worst days, rather than in groups defined by our traumas and tragedies.

We want our “cruel April days” remembered with accuracy and respect, not as the orchestrated emblem of someone else’s agenda.

So this April of 2010, the Dart Society reflects on events and on individuals who suffered and who lost loved ones. Our job is Against Forgetting. After all, collective recollection of that which we all wish never occurred is the goal of the trauma journalist. But we come to this occupation with respect for those who remember in their individual, distinctive ways, who remember in their bones, who remember as the Earth orbits the Sun, and Spring replaces Winter.