Parting Company with the Usual Suspects
One recent fall afternoon, with the breeze of the day blowing warm in a way we don’t usually see at this time of the year, I sat meditating in an oversized chair. Mentally exhausted by the presence of COVID and the strife of the election, I snuggled deeper into the cushion, the room’s silence wrapped around me. Solitude and stillness have long been my refuge when I’m feeling stressed, but what I had not anticipated on this day was how strong the pull to retreat from all conversation would be; how important it was to avoid hearing any echo of sound.
Puzzled, I began cataloguing my emotions about the pandemic and our country’s divisiveness, searching for clues as to exactly what had triggered my intense craving for quiet on this peaceful day. Without much effort, my thoughts circled around and then zeroed back in on what I’d been feeling: fear; helplessness; mistrust; and most discomfiting, a vague sense of impending doom. The usual suspects, a voice in my mind whispered.
And with that thought—a reminder, really—a realization took hold: the powerful tug to retreat so far inward had been fueled by more than even the super angst of our health crisis and political strife. The “usual suspects,” I saw now, were some emotional specters from my past—resurrected feelings from a long-ago trauma. Pandemic and election worry had conjured up the ghosts of a time when my world had imploded, a time when an escape into silence had served as protection from its collapse: silence was a balm; the only liniment that could soothe.
As I watched maple leaves twirl and tumble outside my window, my thoughts drifted back to that time, a decade ago, when our family went through “every parent’s nightmare”—the possibility of the death of your child. When ours became ill and nothing we tried seemed to make any difference, both my husband and I became overwhelmed and terrified. What I remember most are the sounds of that terrible time: the shrill ring of the phone and the clamor of frantic calls; the blare of the siren from the ambulance; the reverberations of terse conversations about treatment plans that lacked coordination; the arguments with insurance companies over the coverage we’d paid for, but which was repeatedly denied. This cacophony catalyzed my terror, and threatened to render me mute. It propelled me to hunker down whenever and wherever I could.
However, on this day of taking comfort in the shelter of my chair, I didn’t dwell on the details of that painful December so long ago—or even the difficult year that followed. Though I’ve had ample occasion to recall that harrowing chaos in the decade since, I am long done with the emotional turmoil it once created. Still, that trauma taught me about both my resilience and my vulnerability. It was a trauma that has shaped the ways in which I’ve reacted to mental strain subsequently.
For example, ten years out from that family crisis—which thankfully resolved with my loved one’s return to good health—I am more sensitive to stressors. I resort more quickly to curling up in the quiet—my limbs close to my body as I find myself eager to turn down the volume on my thoughts. Does this mean I wouldn’t—or couldn’t—jump into action if a crisis demanded it? No, because as a mother, a resourceful woman, and a professional accustomed to being on the front-lines of emergencies, I know that I would respond with alacrity. But one consequence of trauma, for me, has been a lingering aversion to noise. How much auditory stimulation can I tolerate? Sometimes, not much, at all.
The National Council for Behavioral Health estimates that seventy percent of adults in the U.S. (223.4 million people) have experienced some type of traumatic event at least once in their lives. Not all traumas have lasting effects, of course. Still, as renowned psychiatrist and researcher, Dr. Bessel Van Der Kolk—who has written extensively on the importance of the mind, brain and body for understanding and healing from severe trauma—informs us, some of them, without intervention, can significantly impede an individual’s ability to manage tension. This leads me to believe that we are wise to be mindful about the impact of today’s super stressors on how and where we find solace.
Arguably, our collective bandwidth for how much anxiety we can manage has narrowed. Being more realistic in our expectations of ourselves and for those we hold dear makes intuitive sense, as do many of the practical strategies we’re encouraged to try: like taking deep breaths and finding comfort in our Zoom connections, rather than focusing solely on the loss of face-to-face conversations and hug-to-hug greetings. Stress prods to us to take heed. A previous history of trauma may insist that we do.
Yet, as I write this blog, something’s afoot for me. The temperature outside has dropped in the last few hours and is more in keeping with autumn’s march toward winter. I muse about the Bose speakers that sit on my desk, trying to remember when I last powered them up. The answer? Ages ago. Next door, I hear the noisy growl of my neighbor’s leaf blower as he attempts, without success, to clear his yard. And then I understand, at last, the quest that haunts me today: What would it take, an internal voice asks, to part company with “the usual suspects” who, ten years later, still show up uninvited? I’m not sure. But for the first time in a long time, I toy with the idea of creating a playlist of my favorite music. And what it would take to let the sound of rock and roll back in.
Best,
