The question ‘why is there suddenly more trauma?’ is often heard. With everything I know about trauma, which by now is quite a lot, I have long had a strong sense that there isn’t actually more trauma. However, I was not quite able to articulate clearly why I felt that, beyond believing we are starting to recognise it more. As I read Rutger Bregman’s book ‘Utopia for Realists’, a lot is suddenly falling into place. He does not articulate the situation related to trauma, but what he describes gives me language for my long-held view.
Bregman describes how, for most of human history, most people, most of the time, were ‘poor, hungry, dirty, afraid, stupid, sick, and ugly’. Only from the 1880s did this start to change, and across the 20th century this change accelerated exponentially. He shows, for example, that in 2012, the average life expectancy in the ‘unhealthiest’ (the one with the lowest life expectancy) country – Sierra Leone – was higher than it was for the richest countries – the Netherlands and the USA – in 1880.
Seeing this described so succinctly connected for me with the fact that war, cruelty, torture, and violence within and outside the home have been facts of life for almost everyone throughout most of their lives until at least the end of the Second World War. Something I have long felt is an indication of possibly trauma responses or, at the very least, high stress-activation leading to reactive and defensive behaviour.
However, the summary of ‘poor, hungry, dirty, afraid, stupid, sick, and ugly’ made me shift my thinking. I used to think that trauma has always been pervasive and might just be more recognised now as something that can be addressed – like depression. Or that it might be more noticed now because it is actually less ubiquitous and therefore recognised as something that is not simply part of being human. Now, I’m starting to think that the difference is that since WWII we have finally started to reach a point where there is a ‘post’ to the trauma experience.
Through most of human history, even with all the advances since the Middle Ages, almost all people lived hand to mouth, child and maternal mortality were extremely high, any infection or illness was likely to kill you, and violence and cruelty were everywhere and were institutionalised. Everyone lived in extreme uncertainty all the time. Even those considered rich and relatively safe were always on death’s doorstep. This means that people essentially lived their lives in survival mode, in a state of a highly activated stress response – hence all the war and violence – to be ready to respond to all the major threats that were waiting around every corner. This is a reasonable and appropriate adaptation, because it is what life was like.
This was not the ‘being stuck in unresolved trauma’ scenario that many people are living now. Because unresolved trauma is when the appropriate adaptations to a situation of serious threat are no longer appropriate in a different, safe environment. The issue of carrying trauma is not the behaviour or the adaptations, it is the clash between the behaviour and the environment to which it is not (no longer) suited. People living in Gaza or Sudan at this moment are not experiencing Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). They are experiencing a highly activated stress response and intense, difficult emotions that are a healthy response to the situation they are currently in.
After the Second World War, peace and prosperity developed and were sustained at an unprecedented level. The end of poverty or war was never reached, but compared to the status quo of most of history, they became almost negligible. In areas of the world with a majority population of European descent, the boomer generation was the first to live under these circumstances. In colonised areas, it was the generation after – because the boomer generation lived through colonisation and its usually messy end. These generations grew up with an awareness of how lucky they were to live in peace and increasing prosperity and felt the pressure to live up to this and not complain – in other words, to suppress (or repress) their unresolved trauma. The trauma they carried combined that passed on by their parents and any they may have experienced themselves, separate from the intergenerational trauma.
This was where a ‘post’ traumatic situation started to become possible and the clash between adaptations and incompatible environments started to arise. In soldiering on, showing gratitude for their better circumstances by not allowing the unresolved trauma they carried to surface, they passed it on to the next generation.
I believe that the reason for the perception of there ‘being more trauma now’ is that the ‘post trauma’ period is more established on the one hand, while on the other hand the recent destabilisation of life in so many ways – pandemic, increasing authoritarianism, new and protracted wars with new technology leading to new atrocities, looming economic collapse, etc. – provides so many triggers that long-suppressed trauma can no longer stay hidden. Particularly, because increasing individualism, consumerism and pressure to achieve and succeed have simultaneously eroded many of the social safety nets of community and connection that enhance and support resilience and emotional regulation.
In short, no, I don’t believe there is more trauma now. I believe that only fairly recently have we entered a situation where a post-traumatic existence has become possible and the norm. This leads to a clash between behaviours and reactions that were appropriate adaptations to the threat (and that historically remained useful throughout life for most people) and circumstances in which they are maladaptive. This situation is compounded by mounting polycrisis, which triggers trauma responses in the absence of many of the traditional relational support systems that used to mitigate and regulate. Altogether, this makes unresolved trauma move visible and harder to ignore. Rather than everyone having been just fine until the last few decades and suddenly everyone being a snowflake falling apart at the slightest challenge.
It does mean that the situation needs to be taken seriously and support to recognise and address unresolved trauma must be made widely available. If that does not happen, the trauma wall will grow and get thicker and we risk going back to all living in constant survival mode, surrounded by violence – due to trauma reactions.
Please share this blog to help spread awareness.