The Legacy of Trauma

 In my work as a psychotherapist, I was familiar with ways trauma impacts those who have suffered abuse or discrimination. It can affect both psychological and physical health with chronic conditions. The person's sense of trust is often impaired, along with the ability to discriminate between what is real and what is a psychological projection of trauma. Survivors often experience being let down, compounding mistrust and making it harder to accept help. The unconscious tends to draw us towards the familiar, despite conscious efforts to change. We unwittingly keep being attracted to those who appear benevolent, but who end up repeating the abuse. Even with awareness, I too found myself repeatedly falling into relationship traps and compounding the trauma.

Amongst complex and often overwhelming feelings, it is hardly surprising that some survivors carry reservoirs of unexpressed rage. At the time of abuse it may have been impossible or dangerous to protest, so it is bottled up. Frustrated rage and sense of powerlessness is mostly acted out in self-destructive behaviour: self-harm, addiction and self-loathing.  Sometimes the rage gets acted out as violence towards others; thus the victim can turn persecutor in an attempt to push away unbearable feelings of powerlessness and regain a semblance of control.

This is known as the victim/persecutor dynamic. In both therapeutic work and personal life, I came to understand that victim and persecutor are flipsides of the same coin, depending on how we perceive ourselves. We may identify as victim, but the internalised persecutor remains in the shadows of our unconscious.  In my own healing process, it was far harder to face and own my inner persecutor, with its vicious self-criticism. It is said that whatever remains unconscious controls us and that only by bringing those buried aspects into the light can we fully heal. What we submerge and disown gets projected onto others. We may be convinced that others hate and judge us, while in denial of those traits in ourselves. After all, if we were abused, how can we call ourselves abusive? Some turn persecutor in order to shed themselves of a victim identity – better to have power over others than suffer the shame and helplessness of a victim.

Such histories commonly affect several generations of a family. When I consider nations and peoples who have been long persecuted, I see these patterns acted out at a collective level. Mental illness, self destruction and violence express the pain of that group's history. Whether it be slavery, genocide, oppression or discrimination, cultural pain is carried through generations and is known as trans-generational trauma. Some individuals manage to rise above it by being determined to preserve their humanity and compassion. The stark choice between sinking into hatred and preserving the dignity of a loving spirit is the hinge on which lives turn. I recall the Obama's mantra, 'When they go low, we go higher.' There are shining examples of those who survive torture, massacre, imprisonment and discrimination to become advocates of non-violence, tolerance and forgiveness. Groups may use dark humour to leaven pain into laughter and as a way to preserve a sense of goodness and humanity.

I have a Jewish heritage, thankfully not one in which family, apart from a great aunt, were slaughtered in the Holocaust. My grandparents migrated from tsarist Russia to relative safety, but ancestors suffered from pogroms, imprisonment and liquidation. I was born in 1949 with the residue of deep anxiety from the war. I experienced prejudice but not violence, at least, not for being Jewish. What I experienced was mostly micro-aggression which impacted on my sense of self and compounded by the collective trauma embedded in my psyche.

When I consider the war in Israel and Palestine, I think of the victim/persecutor dynamic played out at a national level. There are complex aspects to both histories, however it seems to me that the Israeli government is so fixed on identifying itself as victim, that it expresses outrage when accused of genocide and oppression. The terror of annihilation is reactivated while the continued mistreatment of Palestinians is apparent to outsiders. Israelis who protest are silenced. Victim rage is used as justification for actions that do not bear scrutiny. The same can be said of Palestinians who justify horrific slaughter and terrorism such as those Hamas committed in October. Whilst we cling to identifying ourselves only as victim, the shadow persecutor is unleashed and goes rogue.

Current society is algorithmic and demands binary views however, not all Palestinians are Hamas and not all Israelis are complicit.  Not all Muslims are terrorists and not all Jews are Israeli, There are Israelis and Holocaust survivors who express horror at the enactment of genocide and demeaning of Palestinians' humanity. Like many diaspora Jews, I am heartbroken by events and horrified at the massive rise in antisemitism. By raising my views I risk offending and being called disloyal by Jews with connections to Israel. If I am silent, my conscience is troubled. Part of me thinks, it's nothing to do with me, I am not Israeli, I am not a practising Jew or involved with the Jewish community; nonetheless, our collective trauma connects me. I cannot separate my existential terror of genocide from horror at the hatred taking place. These actions are changing the narrative of  Jews as victims of persecution and it feels unbearable. I cannot condemn Israel from existence, knowing it was born from desperation, when Holocaust survivors were turned away from country after country. Neither can I ignore the fact that Palestinians were forced from their homes and are hounded from one end of Gaza to the other. They have a right to dignity and recognition as a nation.

I realise this doesn't change anything, but it helps me understand both inner and outer conflict. Trans-generational trauma cannot change overnight, at an individual level it takes real maturity to own both aspects, plus time and persistence to heal. I think of Nelson Mandela and of Bishop Tutu's extraordinary contribution to healing through his Truth and Reconciliation Hearings. This was repeated in Northern Ireland to begin the process of healing divisions that seemed impossible. We are nowhere near that point in the Middle East, nor indeed in the proliferation of conflicts worldwide. Ultimately this process must play a part.

                            Torn

                            On one side – my heritage
                            On the other – their heritage
                            On both sides – carnage
                            Everywhere – endless grief.

                            To lift the weight sitting in my chest
                            I need to be away from people.
                            In an edgeland of drab fields and ditches
                            I seek solace, not beauty.

                            I struggle to follow a path
                            pitted with deep puddles.
                            My only possible route – a thin ribbon
                            of grass at its centre.

                            On either side, craters of dark water.
                            Step by step, I cling to the precarious
                            middle. If water strays across 
                            at least I can still see grass.

                            In October sun, sheep lie peacefully
                            ruminating. Elsewhere people lie
                            under rubble, others tell lies.
                            Poplar trees susurrate 

                            as a casual breeze seizes its offspring,
                            scatters them on the road.
                            Some gleam bright and golden
                            others have already turned to rust.
                          

                            Published in Ink Sweat & Tears, Jan 2024