Читать книгу The Cosmic Ocean - Paul K. Chappell - Страница 13

The article’s fourth misconception is not taking into account how helpless the traumatic event makes a person feel. What is more traumatizing, successfully defending yourself against two knife-wielding attackers but getting slashed across your face as you frighten them away, or two knife-wielding attackers holding you down and cutting your face as you remain completely helpless to stop them? Even though the physical outcome—a permanent scar on your face—is the same in both scenarios, the feeling of being empowered to protect yourself is far more desirable than the feeling of being completely helpless.

There are also varying degrees of helplessness. If a man’s wife is raped and murdered while he is not at home, that can certainly be traumatic for him. But if the man is tied up and forced to watch someone rape and murder his wife while he remains completely helpless to protect her, he would probably experience more severe trauma. In war zones there have been instances where parents were forced to watch soldiers rape their children, and children were forced to watch soldiers rape their parents.

Jocelyn Kelly, director of the Women in War program at the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, describes the trauma caused by the ongoing war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo:

Perhaps nowhere in the world is rape as public as it is in DRC [Democratic Republic of the Congo]. In many cases, family members are forced to watch, and sometimes forced to participate in, the rape of a wife, sister or mother. Other times, rapes are carried out in public areas where neighbors and community leaders can see. This creates family- and community-wide trauma, just as it is intended to do. Husbands feel helpless as they are unable to stop the attack and children see that their parents are powerless to protect them …

Couples that do stay together [after the rape] still face deep-seated trauma and cycles of blame and shame within the home. Some men may use drugs and alcohol or perpetrate physical violence against family members as [a] result of their own trauma … In eastern DRC, children are often the first to suffer the effects of war. Not only are children the direct victims of sexual violence, but they are also often forced to witness horrific acts of violence against family members. Cycles of violence emerge as children who have been deeply traumatized by violence join armed groups, street gangs or live on the street because their family networks cannot support them.8

Human beings do not like feeling completely helpless, preferring to have some control over their lives. When children are physically or sexually abused by an adult, the feeling of being a helpless child who is too weak to resist the adult can have negative psychological consequences that last for a long time. Helplessness by itself is often an uncomfortable experience, and when a high degree of helplessness is combined with a traumatic human attack, it can cause psychological wounds that do not heal easily.