1 Boring Old Man

It’s hard to accept that life events can cause a radical, indelible change in the personality – what we call Traumatic Neurosis or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. We value our minds and think that we can get over anything with time. People who have P.T.S.D. know otherwise, but keep their knowledge secret to avoid the well meaning advice of the unafflicted – "you’ve got to put it behind you" they say. But how do you put the most important thing that has ever happened to you "behind you," or get "over it?" Traumatized people actually try to do that to their detriment – keep their trauma out of their consciousness, which allows it to fester and effect their lives in hidden ways.

Trauma is more than simply a bad thing happening. It’s an unexpected circumstance that, for a time, overwhelms the mind – renders it inoperative. We’ve seen it – a blank face, someone who is confused, can’t put their thoughts together. After a time, they come back, but they’re left with a private knowledge the rest of us don’t have. They know that the mind is not infallible and can just disappear. In a way, they know psychological death, and they’re never quite the same. What are the consequences? They spend their lives trying to "prevent the past" – trying to be vigilant so that it won’t happen again. They develop a set of symptoms including unusual fears, altered states, repetative experience, and a grim view of themselves and the world – often disconnected from awareness of the events that caused them. Treatment is slow, and involves in part connecting the symptoms to the trauma, getting them out of the closet, anticipating situations that set them off. They have to encounter their traumatic experience directly.

A lot of us have P.T.S.D. about 9/11. We saw it on Bush’s face in the video when he was told in the kindergarten. We felt it as we watched the towers fall on our television sets with blank stares. It’s in the pictures from New York where people were gazing into space. And it’s in a lot of the insanity in our government over the Bush years. We’re hearing it now about the Nigerian bomber – trying to "prevent the past" – as if we could absolutely assure that it would never happen again. We talk about 9/11 all the time, but we rarely look at the pictures, remember those moments. The video is almost forbidden on television. We’ve spent trillions, and sent thousands to the grave trying to unhappen 9/11, looking for a safety that is elusive. And we’ve allowed ourselves to go over to the "dark side."