#4 When personal trauma intertwines with collective trauma

A client came to see me one week saying that she was upset that as she was waiting in the reception area for her appointment nobody had been observing the minute of silence for the victims of the Paris attacks on the 13^th November 2015.

She did not know that I had myself been sitting in silence before greeting her.

She said that it felt important to talk about what happened and how it had left her with a sense of fear and powerlessness. She said that people talked factually about what happened but that the opportunities to share how it affects us emotionally were scarce.

She said that as she listened to the news over the weekend she had felt an urge to reach out and to hug her children and grandchildren. I did not tell her that I had felt the same urge towards my son.

 

She was in the process of working through some of her past trauma that resulted from assaults, abuse and attacks on her own person. I thought to myself that the bodies of innocent people had also been assaulted and attacked by the terrorists and their murderous acts.

She was in a process of reconnecting with parts of herself that for a long time she had disconnected from because of the intolerable pain and hurt. She came with a picture of herself as a young child that she was particularly fond of. The child was smiling and this might have been the last time she smiled before being caught up in dread and incomprehensible situations. 

 

She decided to take care of that child who had been living in fear and had been powerless to do anything about the situation she had been put in. She had been talking for some time about making use of a box where things could be laid to rest. She had a box at home and I suggested she could bring it with her.

She placed the box on the table. It was finely decorated with delicate drawings. She wondered how best to use it. She felt that she wanted to place in it the picture of the innocent and vulnerable child. She wrapped a small piece of fabric around the picture as if she was tucking in the child. She gave her a kiss and said ‘I love you’.

As we both looked at the box, we noticed a small word repeatedly printed on the different sides. That word was ‘Paris’. We smiled. Her personal story became intertwined with a collective tragedy.

We stayed in silence for a minute. This time we shared the moment.