Grief And Trauma

Grief and loss are some of the most defining characteristics of the human experience. Therefore, dealing with grief and loss is one of the most important things humans must learn. While there are many approaches, Jennifer Kent uses her film The Babadook to suggest that suppression is not a healthy way to deal with grief. By thoughtfully planning the mise-en-scene, soundtrack, and narrative storytelling, Kent teaches viewers that suppression causes the inner monster to come out in all of us, just as it did to Amelia in The Babadook.

You are cordially invited to a Trauma and Grief Support Group. This education and support group will provide materials and discussions on a variety of topics to assist individuals in their grieving process.

For the purpose of this assignment I interviewed someone from a military family, as I wanted to understand what loss and grief entails or looks like from a military perspective. When I asked my friend if I could interview her for an ethnograph in relation to loss and grief, she said that the loss of her father and brother were two of the most devastating losses she has experienced; mostly due to the suppression of emotion that widely characterizes military culture. There is a spirit of stoicism that is indoctrinated and woven into every fiber of military life, including loss and grief. Throughout this paper I will refer to my friend by the pseudonym Allie.

Grief will eventually affect everyone. It is a part of life that people like to avoid, but are never able to. Grief occurs when a person looses a loved one, an animal, if they are diagnosed with a terminal illness, going through a break up, or anything that makes a person feel a deep sorrow. In Chapter 13 of Medical Law and Ethics (pg. 337), The Five Stages of Dying or Grief is discussed. In this Chapter, it breaks down the Five Stages of Grief a patient, caregiver, friend, or family member may go through.

Charlie went through repressing intense feelings caused by a series of unfortunate events in his life. When a childhood trauma is unresolved it can lead to future intimacy problems. For example, as Sam and Charlie became intimate, he becomes uncomfortable, “ It was like everything made sense. Until she moved her hands under my pants, and she touched me. That’s when I stopped her.” Despite the fact that he wanted this to happen since the day he met her, he couldn’t go through with it. When an individual experiences trauma as a child, being physically and emotionally intimate becomes a task as one grows older. The ‘unresolved emotional trauma’ he suffered deprived him of the simplest of things, loving back.

What constitutes someone’s identity as a person? Some may argue that role models or one’s environment can influence a person’s values. Others may differ and remark how one’s experiences in life can determine how one may perceive the world. However, the memories from these experiences may not always positively affect an individual. Instead, a memory or event may be of a severe traumatic event that can unknowingly haunt an individual for the rest of his or her life. These memories will then possess a strong control over one’s life that can alter the way that a person may live their life. For a trauma victim, their life may be plagued by moments of time that may appear to trigger his or her trauma, resulting in an individual losing touch with reality. This experience portrays an altered reality that can make the trauma victim tremble with fear concerning that moment in time where they were at their most vulnerable. The mental state of trauma victims is explored by Martha Stout in her essay, “When I Woke Up Tuesday Morning, It Was Friday.” Stout, a psychologist, depicts how a number of her clients, trauma victims, from varying degrees of dissociation. Dissociation can affect a trauma victim in many forms, and is often used a method to protect the mental state of a victim from further pain. By allowing the subconscious to take over, the victim does not have to be mentally present for situations that may trigger one’s memory of trauma. This will protect the victim but this level

Languidly sitting in the bathtub with both hands on my belly, tears mixing with bathwater, imagining the life within that would never reach fruition; this is the moment that I realized I should document this brief story, that my pain could serve as the catalyst for something profound and beautiful. Out of the darkness of emotional trauma has come my most powerful work. Drawing upon personal experiences, I utilize the sensual and powerful human form, as well as, metaphorical imagery to express magnified emotion. The images attempt to personally communicate universal and yet intimate human experiences. When I achieve a sense and reverence for the unavoidable human suffering, I am able to focus my intellectual drive with emotional purpose.

Taking human development as one of my first courses in the program has really impacted me and how I will mold myself to be the best educational counselor for my students. All the information I receive, I take it like a sponge and apply it to my current job setting. This course has definitely been an eye-opener and I have started to transition from being sympathetic to having empathy.

Psychological trauma is an “injury” resulting from directly experiencing, witnessing or hearing a distressing, disturbing, threatening or frightening event (Australian Psychology Society). Trauma can be a single event or multiple that can have adverse effects in a person’s cognitive, emotional, behavioral, physiological and occupational functioning (Perry, 1994). Multiple trauma can be complex trauma, developmental trauma or complex PTSD. Complex trauma is usually at an early onset, and the experience is multiple, chronic and prolonged exposure to traumatic events, mostly interpersonal in nature (Van der Kolk, 2005).

Despite medical advancements over the past decade, trauma remains the leading cause of fatality among persons 1 to 44 years of age, and is the 4th leading cause of death among all ages in the United States1,2. Although many trauma victims succumb to overwhelming injuries early on, patients who survive initial injury undergo a period of immunoinflammatory dysregulation which under overwhelming circumstances, can lead to organ dysfunction, respiratory distress syndrome (ARDs), nosocomial infection, multiple organ failure (MOF), and ultimately death3,4. Although the specific cellular mechanisms behind these damage-induced inflammatory responses

Accidents can happen anytime. We start to lose focus on reality, or what’s really happening around us. Our eyes begin to wander off in space, and our minds are somewhere else. Nothing but thoughts arouse, and all we can think about It’s like a never ending dream, a dream that will never go away, it just keeps you wondering, and wondering. When the teacher asks you a question, and you don’t respond, nor think about anything, that’s when you become oblivious. Or when someone asks you to grab something, but you can’t because your mind is somewhere else, or you’re too busy doing something else.

After taking this course I have a better understand how so many thing shapes our minds, our thoughts and our lives. Our brain is just like the engine of a car that is the main source that makes our body function. We learn by what we see, hear and sometimes what we inherit like our behavior when dealing with the Schizophrenia disease. We must be careful of what we feed into our minds rather it is good or bad. Positive and Negative reinforcements can affect your mind, your behavior and your actions towards other individuals. I found that the people that support me daily and has helped me throughout this journey that we call life were Positive Reinforcements. It has made me feel like I can handle and accomplish anything. I was also able to suggest

There is nothing like tragedy to teach you about life. When you’re shown how fragile life is, you tend to appreciate it more. As so many have said, you don’t know how good something is, until it’s gone. But my mother is still here. How can I grieve for somebody who is still alive, who I see daily? Well, I am grieving for the mother I lost. About four years ago, my mother got into a car crash one Sunday morning, after dropping my eldest sibling off at work. After that, my family was never the same. My mother’s car crash and the resulting trauma led me to realize how mortality is lurking behind the scenes of our everyday lives, just waiting for us to slip up or age out of living.

Trauma has been an incorporated part of life since the beginning of human history. It is caused by an uncontrollable and unexpected threatening event that breaks assumptions of living in a relatively controlled and safe environment (Cai, Ding, Tang, Wu, & Yang, 2014). Evidence of the continuous presence of trauma is provided through ancient texts concerning soldiers and their battles with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). A Greek philosopher Gorgias (2003) commented in his prominent speech, Encomium of Helen, about the negative effects combat had on the warriors. Gorgias provided great detail regarding how many soldiers were afraid at the beginning of battle once individuals witnessed the enemy marching dressed in armor. Also, Gorgias noted that after soldiers returned home from war, many men had fallen victim to symptoms that included useless labor, dread disease, and madness that was hard to cure (Gorgias, 2003).

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines trauma as a very difficult or unpleasant experience that causes someone to have mental or emotional problems usually for a long time (Merriam-Webster, Incorporated, 2015). From a medical perspective, trauma is described as severe damage to a person 's body. Trauma can be caused by multiple factors in a person life. Trauma could stem from a distressing experience of a physical or psychological nature. In recent years’ major natural disasters and acts of terrorism have become more prominent and devastating, creating long-lasting traumatic effects in individuals ' lives. Traumatic experiences can occur to anyone regardless of their culture, gender, age, social background or socio-economical status.