Summaries of books on post-traumatic stress and suicide intervention.
Aftershock: Confronting Trauma in a Violent World: A Guide for Activists and Their Allies
by Pattrice Jones
At a recent Street Medic training, a trainer called post traumatic stress the hidden scourge of the street medic movement. I’d expand that to include social justice movements in general. The symptoms of post-traumatic stress are typical amongst those who worked in New Orleans after Katrina; those who have worked on environmental & animal liberation direct action campaigns; those who have supported survivors of sexual assault; those who have done solidarity work in Palestine or researched malnutrition in Mali; those who have participated in summit protests and the street medics who were there to keep them safe, just to name a few. Unacknowledged and untreated post-traumatic stress leads to burnout which weakens the movement, and has a serious impact on activists’ emotional, mental, and physical health. And yet despite how common it is and how devastating it can be, there is a general refusal amongst activists to engage their own trauma, take it seriously, and treat it. Trauma is a cruel joke that comes with the work, and the best way to deal is to shut up about it and drink.
That is the (perhaps tiny) niche this book is aimed towards: activists, support people (legal, medical, & victim advocates), and researchers/witnesses. The main premise of the book is that the work that activists do is often traumatic. Some level of trauma should be expected when we engage in activist work and therefore we need to learn ways to prepare for, cope with, and eventually heal our stress responses. Jones coined the term “aftershock” as an inclusive word for the variable ways that post-traumatic incident stress manifests itself in activists. “Aftershock” is her response to PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder), with its rigidly defined medical definition that requires months of expressing a minimum number of traumatic reactions for diagnosis and treatment. The term “aftershock” normalizes the stress: Why should emotional reactions to slaughterhouses or police brutality be considered a disorder?
The first part of the book lays out background on psychology and how animals (including people) react to stress. Next, Jones explains why activism can be both empowering and traumatic. Trauma isn’t caused by specific events necessarily, but by the experience of a loss of power and agency. That’s why those who witness and choose to fight injustice can also be traumatized, even if the actual injustice (the hurricane, the pepper spray, the rape) wasn’t directed at them: they can still experience the impotency of being unable to do anything to (really) help. Couple that powerlessness in the moment with a solid critique of the larger structures of oppression at play and perhaps identification with the oppressed person (and maybe throw in some direct stressors like police surveillance or overwhelming responsibilities like legal advocacy, too), and one can really end up feeling at a total loss. Note though that Jones holds onto activism as a way to heal trauma, too: taking concrete steps to correct injustice reclaims power and proves that one isn’t helpless.
The heart of Aftershock is divided into practical steps to address activist trauma, geared towards activists, supporters, therapists, and movements– that is, how movements can create a culture that heals trauma. Trauma is disconnection. The mind will take traumatic memories and basically box them off, hide them; aftershock reactions are those memories surfacing unexpectedly. For example, seeing blue flashing lights in a safe environment can bring on sweats and intense fear as suppressed memories of police repression break out and surface. Healing trauma, then, is about reconnecting.
First, reconnect the memories of trauma into your life story. The steps to do this may begin with simply remembering what happened. Then, by telling someone who will listen without judgment (say a friend, comrade, support group, or therapist) integrate those memories into a narrative that connects them to your past and future. Take it further and place your experiences into the larger narrative of structural oppressions and social justice struggles. Make sense of them through your politics and realize yourself as an active agent participating in a struggle that is bigger then you but incorporates you. Share this story, perhaps by writing a zine or article or speaking out.
Next, deal directly with your emotions and the physical ways they manifest themselves. This may be the hardest, most often ignored, and most important step. Jones writes:
Conscious effort may be required to achieve … integrity. That means listening to, rather then brushing aside, those uncomfortable feelings that come when our actions are not exactly in line with our beliefs. That may also mean summoning the courage to ask: “What was that about?” when an unbidden thought, surprising feelings, or kneejerk reaction arises [triggers:]. At its most profound level, authentic integrity means being who you purport to be and taking responsibility for your behavior, even when it is rooted in trauma. If you have found yourself doing things that “aren’t me” when you are sleepy, drunk, dissociated, or in the grip of strong emotion– and especially if those things are in any way hurtful to others– you will need to make material lifestyle changes to make sure you don’t do those things again and then figure out what you will need to do to heal whatever internal ruptures led to the uncharacteristic behavior.
The last three steps to healing that Jones writes about are to foster connections between people, animals, and your ecosystem. Trauma isolates, so reaching out to others– literally, asking for help and acknowledging that you cannot heal yourself alone– is a necessary step to integrating yourself back into your human community. Coming to understand your emotions as a natural and mundane part of being an animal can also help you deal with them. This means cultivating relationships (not just intellectual ones!) with animals, learning to identify on an emotional level with non-human animals. Finally, “making connections is not done if we feel apart from, rather then a part of, the quivering living biosphere to which we belong. … Traumatized people often feel notably lonely. Many times, people seem too dangerous to trust. At such times, communion with nature and other animals can offer genuine relief.”
Aftershock offers many more details and specific steps to take to heal trauma. Jones includes extensive notes and references for further study. I really feel this book is worth it and plan to push it on my friends and comrades. We’re activists, after all, and should be able to actively address the trauma in our own lives even as we focus outwardly on the world around us.
Final note: Many readers may have a hard time swallowing the first few chapters and the last chapter of this book, and Jones’ consistent elevation of speciesism and ecocide as equivalent oppressions to patriarchy and white supremacy. Jones comes from an animal rights background that necessarily shows itself in her work. Unfortunately, she doesn’t have enough room in “Aftershock,” which she mostly dedicates to practical advice on treating trauma, to explain an entire expanded theory of intersectionality. And honestly, I found the theoretical parts of this book kind of intellectually lazy, filled with gaps and manipulated facts. But before you dismiss her entirely, I urge you to check out Derrick Jensen for a better articulated understanding of life and oppression as a wholly connected ecosystem.
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EDITED TO ADD:
I don’t think I was critical enough of the political standpoint that frames this book.
Please check out this comment from a friend that calls out this book’s transphobia and ‘animal lib shame train’: “fuck a book about healing trauma that re-traumatizes people.”
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Suicide Intervention Handbook
by LivingWorks
I read this to gain skills for mental health support work, to apply better self-care, and to understand what happens when you talk about suicide with a trained responder; what are the next steps, what words/actions triggers what reaction, and how does that process go. This organization offers workshops called ASIST, which are basically suicide prevention first aid courses. I would love to take one.
This book takes the viewpoint that any verbal acknowledgment of suicidal thoughts is an invitation for help. Talking about suicide is a sign of internal ambivalence. While a person may have clear reasons they want to die, they often hesitate to go through with it because they also have reasons to live. The job of the suicide prevention first responder is to look out for verbal and emotional cues that someone is suicidal, and then help explore with them that person’s reasons to live, whatever it is that is keeping them from having already done it. The next step is to create an immediate safety plan that delays suicidal action until that person can access further resources.
The steps in a suicide intervention, as outlined in the book, and summarized in my own words, are:
1. Explore. Notice and verbally ask about verbal and emotional clues that someone is really struggling in their life. Trust your intuition but also actively look for signs that people are responding suicidally to their stresses. Focus on how someone is feeling rather than your own assessment of how bad an event/stress is.
2. Ask. Straight up ask if someone is thinking about suicide or planning to kill themself. You won’t put the idea in their head if they’re not already thinking about it, and dancing around the question keeps it taboo and prevents someone from opening up to you.
3. Listen. Specifically, ask about and listen attentively to both the reasons for dying and the reasons for living. People often gotta dump out the former before they can begin to explore and give any merit to the latter. Be sure to hear both.
4. Review risk factors. Anyone who is talking about suicide needs first aid. The shape of that first aid may be determined by several risk factors that sound alarms that someone may be closer to taking their own life:
–Prepared: They have a current suicide plan, possibly including how, when, and where. (Disable the plan)
–Desperate: They talk about unbearable physical or emotional pain, which makes escaping it urgent. (Ease the pain)
–Alone: The person feels alone. (Connect to resources)
–Familiar: They have tried suicide before or are otherwise familiar with it. (Protect against the danger and/or support past survival skills)
–Vulnerable: They have a mental health issue, especially depression or schizophrenia. The book didn’t highlight this, but PTSD often contributes to suicide as well, for example in soldiers and rape survivors. (Link to health worker)
5. Contract a safe plan. Create a safe plan that includes the suicidal person agreeing to postpone suicide for a certain period of time, during which they will connect with further resources. Be specific about how this will happen.
6. Follow-up on everything you agree to do.Safe plans may include calling a suicide hotline, going to the emergency room, seeing a therapist, or simply agreeing to get in touch if they consider suicide again, depending on how urgent the care needed appears. It may include removing guns, pills, or other things necessary to physically disable a plan, and potentially staying with that person until you can pass them on to further help. The idea is to get that person to agree to what they need to do to prevent them from immediately harming themself. If the suicidal thoughts are not serious or urgent, that may just mean opening lines of communication for them to talk again if the feelings become more overwhelming. Having a talk that specifically mentions suicide is one way to allow it to happen again.
See also:
- Healing Sex: A mind-body approach to healing sexual trauma aka The Survivor’s Guide to Sex by Staci Haines
- Navigating the Space Between Brilliance and Madness by the Icarus Project
- Support Zine