How I found trauma in my own country South Africa
‘Sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never harm me.’
This adage first appeared in The Christian Recorder of March 1862 – a publication of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. And rather ironically a statement that comes from a church group born out of protest against racial discrimination and slavery.
Now we teach it to our children to deal with bullies in the playgrounds at school.
Sometimes our traumas aren’t brought on through the use of sticks and stones on us, as evil and horrific as that is. Or even sharks. The damage done through childhood or adulthood sexual abuse leaves such deep trauma that only work on oursevles and transformation heal. What about the years of verbal abuse endured by a spouse or children? Do you know these feelings?
The same goes for physical, emotional, and spiritual abuse.
"Sticks and stones may break my bones but words can never harm me."
This statement was born, literally, out of being beaten with sticks as the slaves would run and cower for their lives. It was their spirit that refused to be beaten down by their vicious slave masters. We are taught to sing this little rhyme as children. I’m sure the intention is to try and toughen us up to the playground cruelty that can spew from other little 4-year-old’s mouths. Instead, we grow up to believe we are impervious to the insults and tonal-arrows shot from the mouths of others. Words can’t harm me. And then the bullets hit us.
While on a flight from Johannesburg to East London, I came across an interesting article in the ‘Lifestyle’ section of the Sunday Times by Shanthini Naidoo called: ’Traumatised Nation – with our past, and our not-so-bright present, it’s no wonder we’re predisposed to depression and anxiety.’ With my seat-belt fastened, I read the article twice trying to get a handle on the author’s big idea. Being a South African, I read anything I can to try and better understand the psychology of my country and to make sure I can learn from the past and teach my children to be part of a better future. Don't we all want a future autonomous from our past hurts and destructive behavior?
Our time on the runway was delayed by about 30 minutes because the pilot was told by air traffic control to move our aircraft over to another runway. Simple enough, right? Well, no. The captain explained to us that the move to another straight stretch of concrete meant that he needed to redo all of his takeoff calculations. At that moment I was sure glad he stuck with his high school trigonometry and had a trusted co-pilot with whom he could confer. Otherwise, we might just have ended up destroying a dozen or so Benoni homes because we overshot the length of the runway.
The pilot’s calculations proved accurate and I’m here now telling you the story. Up at cruising altitude I began to link my runway experience with the author’s findings in the piece that I had just read. Naidoo writes that “it is no surprise that South Africans might be predisposed to depression and anxiety because of our troubled past.” I suppose this could apply to your own country too, right?
How do we heal from our past? Can we alter our DNA to stop our experiences and traumas being passed down to our children’s children’s children?
Every nation has wounds from which to heal. Think about your country of birth or the nation of your ancestors. I’m a white South African with ancestors from Germanic Europe. Talk about some historical oppressive guilt right there. Every one of us has experiences that have impacted us negatively. Even on a national scale. Some to the point where daily life is a struggle to function with any sense of normalcy. For South Africans, crime and racism continue to be major impactors on our country’s collective mental health. Crime for obvious reasons.
Racism is a trauma that affects us all and your country isn’t excluded. From the collective guilt to national shame we all bear the wounds. Maybe not through our genes specifically, but through our words. We tell the stories of our own experiences. We honor our ancestors or apologize for them and at every national prayer gathering I’ve ever attended we are repenting over and over as the skin color of the oppressors. We hurt and cry. We pound our fists at injustice. This is how movements begin. We find those who are hurting around us right?
On the runway, I was still in the same seat on the same plane headed for the same destination but because our runway path was changed, new scientific calculations were necessary for the successful takeoff and survival of all onboard. It reminded me of this truth – we don’t have to be victims of our personal traumas and hurts. And we don’t have to succumb to the negative narrative that the doom-sayers spin about my nation or yours. We just need new calculations to navigate the rest of our lives from this moment on.
Pause. Think about this for a moment. Is it real and true for you?
Like the pilot on our new runway, we need to do recalculations frequently if we are going to get our plane off of the ground. And over the course of my life so far, I’ve had my plane moved several times to another strip of concrete. I had to do fresh calculations after my son nearly died. How was I going to move forward from that? When my late wife and I found ourselves held at gunpoint in our home and our daughters locked in another room – I needed new calculations after that. I needed to make adjustments to fly safely. How can we learn to make those calculations in real-time' and not years after events that cause so much damage?
I know that we are just searching at the time of a mountain peak buried is millennia of traumatic layers. Will you join me in uncovering it all?
It’s just over 4 years now and I can still remember the first time back on the boardwalk looking out over the bay – a bunch of friends were all waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs to walk down. We hobbled along the cobbled stones and paddled out together. There was no teasing or inappropriate shark jokes. They sat around me while we waited for the sets. What to help me feel safe? They understood. We shared waves together for a couple of hours. It was one of the most freeing days of my life as I decided to let go and live.