Halloween, 2004 was an actual nightmare for our family. After an evening of trick-or-treating along Newtown, Connecticut’s festive Main Street, we got into the car for a short ride home. Though exhausted, we heeded the request of our three children to make one last stop at our neighbor’s spookily decorated house. A fog machine, lit by a candle at its base, greeted trick-or-treaters with a misty haze wafting up toward a colossal flood-lit spider cradling the roof.
My husband and I stayed in the car as our kids eagerly ran up the incline of the driveway. My son Cary, seven years old at the time, was dressed as a “Dark Rider” from The Lord of the Rings—a hooded, full-length black robe with long, flowing sleeves. While awaiting his treats, Cary ran his hand through the fog machine’s haze to feel the cool mist. The sleeve of his costume brushed the candle below, and in seconds, both the sleeve and the hood of his costume were ablaze. Our neighbor rushed to the flames with his bare hands. By the time we realized the shrill screams were from genuine, not pretend, horror, the flames were extinguished, our children were inside the house, and 911 was being called.
Cary sustained third-degree burns to his face, neck, and left hand. He spent two days on life support, followed by a month-long hospital stay during which he underwent numerous surgeries and excruciating treatments. The accident was shocking enough to garner both local and national attention. Reporters were at our door. Cary returned to first grade two months later, an unwilling celebrity, wearing compression garments on his lower face and left hand.
Cary visited a child psychologist, whom we referred to as a “feelings doctor.” She saw no red flags, and after a few visits, Cary no longer wished to go. Given that he was doing well physically, socially, and emotionally, thanks to the support of doctors, family, and our community, we did not want to encourage him to talk about the accident any more than he desired. Eager to get “back to normal” as quickly as possible, that’s exactly what we did. For eight years. Until adolescence hit.
The words “trauma” and “traumatic” are currently on a list of words that the Trump administration has advised agencies to “limit” or “flag” on public-facing websites. These words, so omnipresent today, were not part of the lexicon when Cary had his accident. Although the medical care Cary received was excellent, no one at the time mentioned the word “trauma” or even counseled us on how this ordeal might one day manifest emotionally. PTSD was something most people believed impacted only soldiers—not children.
Cary was hit with a tsunami of debilitating physical and emotional turmoil when he turned fifteen. We didn’t understand, but we knew this was far beyond “normal” teenage angst. It wasn’t until we reached out to the doctor who had treated Cary’s burns that we heard the words, “Oh yes, this is classic PTSD. I see it a lot. It often doesn’t manifest until adolescence.”
In recent years, thanks to efforts from prominent pediatricians like Dr. Nadine Burke Harris, the former Surgeon General of California, and other notable professionals, enormous strides have been made in understanding childhood trauma. According to the National Child Traumatic Stress Network, approximately 25% of American children will experience at least one traumatic event by the age of 16. Common causes include poverty, racism, bullying, neglect, physical and sexual abuse, domestic violence, gun violence, natural disasters, and, like Cary, accidents and medical trauma. We now also better understand the insidious nature of trauma and how symptoms often don’t appear until months or years after the event.
Naturally, progress has its drawbacks. The word “trauma” is vastly overused. Author Maria Popova recently referred to it as a word “so fashionable that we have hollowed it of meaning by overuse and misuse, by making it a catchall for anything that challenges and disquiets us.” When a friend described her daughter’s experience with a “difficult” (“difficult” not “abusive”) boss as a “trauma,” I wanted to shout, “No! That’s not trauma—that’s life!” The same has happened with other words that have been de-closeted, such as “depression,” “anxiety,” and “OCD.” But depression over a bad grade is very different from clinical depression, anxiety over public speaking is worlds away from Generalized Anxiety Disorder, and calling someone with a penchant for neatness “so OCD” shows a lack of understanding of the agony experienced by people with true OCD. Nonetheless, the ubiquity of these words indicates that the stigma and shame once attached to them have diminished. Let’s not forget that cancer was once so stigmatized that many would only refer to it as “the big C.”
Young people who endure trauma, if fortunate, have access today to specialized treatments such as trauma-informed music, art, sand, somatic, and play therapies— invaluable resources that recognize a child may not wish—or be able—to talk about what happened but may be able to process their feelings through different modalities. There are even trauma-informed schools. I wish we had had these opportunities when Cary was hurt.
In 2012, I created a Facebook page called Trauma Informed Parent—a resource for parents and caregivers of children who have experienced trauma. To date, it has well over a quarter of a million followers.
Flagging “trauma” and other supposedly “woke” words (“black” and “female” are also on the list) may be nothing more than a tactic meant to distract from the far more odious actions this administration is taking—actions which, ironically, are serving to spread more trauma. But words matter.
Take, for example, a parent having the option to choose a “trauma-informed” dentist for their child. After Cary had his wisdom teeth removed at 16, the oral surgeon robotically wrote him a prescription for 20 Vicodin tablets. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, children and adolescents who experience trauma are particularly susceptible to developing a substance use disorder. If trauma education were part of a physician’s training and a child’s trauma history were routinely part of their record, doctors would be able to exercise more caution.
Education on the impact of trauma is essential. Without it, we might—as some still do—attribute symptoms of PTSD, especially in youth, to things such as poor parenting, ADHD, bad behavior, or, if we want to go even further backwards, demonic possession or punishment from God.
Speaking of God, I recently met a woman whose 14-year-old son died by suicide. Recognizing her physical and emotional symptoms as potentially those of post-traumatic stress, she sought advice from her pastor. This is very common. According to Dr. Matthew Stanford, professor of psychology at Baylor College in Houston, the majority of Americans will seek help for mental health issues from a faith leader before they will from a licensed clinician. The woman’s pastor told her she could not be experiencing post-traumatic stress because that only afflicts members of the military. Imagine how differently that conversation would have gone if faith leaders were required to be “trauma-informed.” Dr. Stanford and others like him are working hard to make this happen.
The irony is that Donald Trump—as a number of his relatives and many mental health professionals have pointed out—is a product of the very word he’s hoping to eradicate. Unspoken—and thus untreated—childhood trauma wreaks havoc on its victims and subsequently on those in their orbit.
