I found this magazine article interesting:
Dr. Gabor Maté: Go ahead, blame your childhood:
https://www.macleans.ca/the-interview/gabor-mate-go-ahead-blame-your-childhood/“[Dr.] Gabor Maté has had an unusual life. Long before his rise to ubiquity as a medical maverick—and a darling of the podcast circuit—Maté left Hungary for Canada with his Holocaust-survivor parents in 1956, and later spent more than a decade working as an addictions specialist on Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside [DTES].”
(Google: “DTES is the site of a complex set of social issues including disproportionately high levels of drug use, homelessness, poverty, crime, mental illness and sex work.”)
I’ve known of Dr. Maté forever. I did not realize his family background, that his parents were Holocaust survivors. That would obviously definitely impact them greatly for the rest of their lives as well as seeping into the next generation/s.
Dr. Maté worked for years in an area that is known as one of Canada’s “poorest postal codes”, if not the poorest at some points. That environment and the overwhelming social needs would definitely have had a major impact on him in addition to that of his other work and his family background.
In the article, the doctor says: “We use the word “trauma” quite a lot, but often inappropriately—like, “I had a fight with my partner and I was traumatized,” or, “I saw a movie and it was traumatic.” No. It was just sad or painful. On the other hand, we don’t see how ubiquitous and deeply impactful trauma is in the greater scheme of things.”
He goes on: “The term [trauma] itself comes from a Greek word for “wound.” What’s the nature of a wound? First of all, when you touch one, it really hurts. Wounds can be physical, but in this context, we’re talking psychological. These kinds of injuries ultimately lead to a disconnect from yourself.”
Dr.: “I remember coming home from a speaking trip, and my wife wasn’t at the airport to pick me up. That triggered in me a deep embodied memory of my mother giving me to a stranger when I was 11 months old. All of a sudden, this hurt of abandonment got kicked up. People who are traumatized tend to be stuck in very childlike reactions. So I reacted to my wife like I was an 11-month-old baby.”
It’s difficult to imagine such an early childhood memory – 11 months? That is an amazing example of how deeply embedded traumatic events can be. This is what made me think of exmos when I was reading the above article. To live in a closed or semi-closed environment from birth through youth, at least, and to be taught “absolute truths” that deeply affect one's growing-up and future years and then to eventually discard them as questionable, at best, could fit the definition of indeed being traumatic. We can see that by how long it can take for an exmo to travel through their individual exmo journey, to put things into perspective, and to forge their way forward via their own free choices at last. Still, out of the blue a memory, a commitment, a family matter, a rite of passage, a loss can all trigger negative reactions that are difficult to process.
Dr. Maté: “Scientific literature is clear that trauma contributes to physical ailments. A Canadian study showed that men who are sexually abused as children have triple the rate of heart attacks—and not because they smoke or drink. In this country, about half of the women who are in jail are Indigenous, even though Indigenous people make up just five per cent of the population. There’s an epidemic of children being diagnosed with learning disorders and behavioural problems. Trauma also shows up in people’s hatred. So yes, from my perspective, it shows up everywhere.”
I took note of this article first because of the doctor’s family background, having parents who survived the Holocaust. I think of the sad fact that if they had not survived then, of course, Dr. Maté would not exist. And multiply that by the millions of victims who did die and all the subsequent unborn generations in those families as well as all the talent and gifts of which the world was tragically deprived. And what the doctor said about his own experience of trauma from very early childhood.
Too, his description of men who are sexually abused as children that grow up to have heart attacks in greater than average numbers made me think of discussions here about unreported or underreported sexual abuse in the Mormon church (and many others, as we sadly know) as well as posters here who have experienced such abuse. The crimes are multiplied ten-thousandfold by their lingering negative effects.
Dr. Maté: “The fact that we can’t see each other’s humanity is, to me, a manifestation of social trauma. It’s a cause of it as well.”
Seeing one another’s humanity – what a concept. If we could manage it, more widely and more often, what amazing positive change could result for the good of us all and for our planet as well. But to date, this goal seems beyond human reach. We definitely have an entrenched fight gene and we literally don’t all speak the same language. Unfortunate, as beneath the surface most of us have much in common.
I wish the article had been longer, and in more depth, but I will buy Dr. Maté’s book. The title itself also pertains to Mormonism, as well as many other environments:
‘The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness and Healing in a Toxic Culture’. The subject is described as “how unhealthy the West’s medical system, and even its pop-cultural pursuits, really are.”
I definitely agree that the demands and expectations on medical staff, especially in traumatic times such as the recent, and ongoing, pandemic, could easily lead many practitioners into stress overload, exhaustion and long term PTSD.
The myth of normal – hmmm – gives you a lot to ponder. I think, indeed, there are a lot of things they/we’ve got wrong. Maybe life is an eternal struggle towards attaining equality and peace. That goal can prove exhausting because likely we never quite get there. At least in my experience so far. Naively, I used to think we could do so. That is likely why as a young teen I was an easy mark for the JWs as they preached the paradise regained theme non-stop, a vision that can be very appealing. But the trick is to stay within the realms of reality and also to keep paradise as paradise, not messing it up with bland repetition and empty promises.
The main question that finally penetrated my little grey cells was do I want to do this (door-knocking, preaching the end of the world) for the rest of my life. The answer was easy. Big. Fat. No.
And here we all still are. :)