PTSD Nation

With Liberty And Trauma For All

It was the first week of June back in 2020…

The world was several months into the global pandemic, and George Floyd civil unrest began to unfold. To keep my mental health intact, I got into the habit of morning walks along Lake Michigan, just north of Chicago—and it was a glorious spring day despite the backdrop of global and national chaos. June is the month you yearn for when living in the upper midwest, for a city like Chicago—it is the first authentic taste of spring and early summer after a very long, gray, cold, and damp winter.

My daily moment of coping was interrupted by a vibration in my pocket from a colleague and friend who kindly wanted to give me advance notice that after nearly eleven years with the company—I was going to be laid off, along with hundreds of others, as a result of pandemic-induced financial pullbacks. While I read the headlines and knew others were meeting similar fates—all I could think about, if I am being honest, was how I was going to pay my bills—which included having a child in college for the first year, a costly divorce payment and of course all the usual expenses that come with living. This was unfolding at a time when lots of layoffs were happening, people were banging pots and pans in NYC streets in support of frontline health workers, while cities were erupting in protest, and let's not forget those who got sick, were put on ventilators—and never came back.

This is a mere snapshot of several traumatic experiences many of us endured during the pandemic. And given my conversations with others and observations of our society today, I know we’re not the only ones. I think, as a nation—we’re still grappling with the long-term effects of pandemic-related trauma, but as often is the case,  we’re not confronting our individual or collective trauma. And so, we participate in the following cycle:

Ignore > Distract > Trigger > Suffer > Ignore…

Warrior Brain

I realize now that I have “warrior brain.” What I mean by that is when shit hits the fan, as it inevitably does in all of our lives—I don’t panic or freeze—my executive functioning agency and capabilities go into a heightened state, and I begin to take action. This doesn’t mean I don’t have periods of sadness or fear or anxiety—but primarily, I start the process of taking on critical tasks as best I can as opposed to being paralyzed by inaction. While I have never fought in a war or served as an EMT or law officer, it is similar to the mindset of professionals like these—they do their jobs, even when all hell is breaking loose. They perform (most of the time) under duress and work toward the goal, whether eliminating an enemy position, neutralizing a threat to civilians, or performing triage on a gaping wound. The mission comes first, and everything else can wait.

The problem with warrior brain, however, is that while it can be good at “compartmentalizing”  battlefield-like trauma in real time, it sets the stage for what we colloquially refer to as “PTSD” where our brains and emotions struggle to process what happened well after the fact. So often, we have no idea how to deal with these delayed emotions in the long run. 

Triggers
I have done much in the past few years to help myself now that I’ve become more aware of the pros and cons of my warrior brain—it is both a superpower and a super vulnerability. I have made tremendous progress and have lots of healthy habits in place, and still, with all of that—I realized, even recently, how easily it is for the warrior brain that has confronted PTSD to be still triggered.

The scenes unfolding across our nation’s college campuses are a current trigger for me. Like a time machine—I am instantly transported back to those first few months of dealing with being newly unemployed, as daily scenes of protests, street brawls, vandalism, and mayhem—were flashed before our collective screens. And again—all of this happening while a global pandemic was just getting started… 

My response now, in many ways, is similar to my response then—it’s hard for me to look away and hard for me to feel like things aren’t falling apart. It’s an unwelcome reminder of a dark time.

The Collective Trauma Contagion

I have this theory, and of course, it is more intuition than science—but sometimes intuition is just a fancy word for common sense. The theory is simple: everywhere I look, I see people acting out, misbehaving, acting selfishly, or acting in antisocial ways. I can’t think of another time in my lifetime where I have seen as much road raging, unacceptable behavior on airplanes, people being inconsiderate or rude or uncivil and unkind to each other. I see and feel it everywhere, and this is the crucial part: it feels worse or more common than it used to be. Some peers of mine pointed out a reality that must be factored in—that social media and algorithms have a way of amplifying some of the terrible behavior we’re now witnessing. They’re not wrong—but I like to point out that as an early adopter of social media—I’ve had access to all these things for nearly twenty years, but it only seems like the last 4-5 years that unsavory behaviors have been becoming more commonplace, whether that takes the form of street takeovers, teen-fight swarming, mass shootings, or smash and grab flash mobs (these are but a few).

Some of these behaviors are related to individuals being traumatized, and some of it has nothing to do with trauma, but I am a firm believer in the timeless adage:

Hurt people, hurt people.

And so, I can’t help but conclude that a heap of hurting people are inflicting hurt upon others. The unfortunate side effect of all of this is that trauma now becomes contagious. We witness someone else being traumatized; it triggers our past trauma, and PTSD spreads like something of a social contagion. This is one of the reasons I have been publicly supportive of my Jewish friends and vocal about how slogans like “global Intifada” re-open generational trauma wounds—those who wield terms like this, no matter how well-intentioned, must understand that they are triggering a trauma response to others. To ignore this is to be ignorant.

Anxious Advertising
This brings me to something that went down in advertising this past week. Apple’s latest iPad ad was skewered mainly by advertising and marketing watchers, prompting the iconic brand to apologize. I believe the ad went wrong because it unwittingly tapped into an increasing anxiety that many of us are feeling, even if we struggle to articulate it. Technology has reached a point where qualities that make us human (like creativity) risk becoming synthetic, sterile, and all too dependent on digital and in conflict with the analog/natural world that all of us are born into.

We can thank both AI, which is moving faster than anyone anticipated, and the Metaverse, which, while moving much more slowly, presents us with a visceral and somewhat dystopian preview of entire worlds that are not real and take us away from being present in the physical world. 

Crushing our beloved, real-world creative objects triggers an emotional response—but not the kind Apple hoped to elicit. It taps into our fears that artificial machine efficiency/automation may crush/replace things like human-centered creativity and craft. There are AI apps that write and create music, movies, art, and more. It’s an understandable human reaction that fear will be mixed with wonder. Apple unintentionally tapped into that fear, I believe, as opposed to the sense of wonder—the latter being what the brand has historically been built on.

We love magic, but black magic frightens us.

The ad industry would be well served to understand how anxious people feel these days. All of the above, while seemingly unrelated—are more interconnected than we know. We humans can only handle so much disruption at once, and right now, when we turn on a screen, we see:

-Massive technological change (AI etc.)
-Societal fragility (Emerging antisocial behaviors, civil unrest)

-Political polarization (Amplified by a high-stakes election year)
-Economic uncertainty (Inflation, etc.)
-Work transformation (Post-pandemic workforce, commercial real estate implosion, etc.)
-General world order uncertainty (Post globalist world, regional wars)

These are but a few…

Trauma Cycles And The Canary Generation

I’ve begun to think of Gen Zers as the “Canary Generation”—canary as in canary in a coal mine. As the father of two Gen Zers and friends of other parents of Gen Zers, many of us are navigating unfamiliar waters with a generation that had to put their lives on pandemic-related hold during some of their most formative years. GenZrs are the first true generation to grow up not knowing life before social media/mobile devices and are now faced with daunting uncertainty and complexity. There is a trend amongst older GenZrs who have recently graduated and lament the struggle to make a living with entry-level job salaries and historically high student loan balances.

The kids aren’t alright, and we know it.

In many conversations with other parents raising GenZ kids, we all share similar stories of trying to foster healthy and resilient minds. Yet, we often watch our GenZers struggle in a TikTokified world. GenZ, as the kids say, are “built different” and look at all aspects of life uniquely from previous generations—from work to play and everything in between.

This generation's success, or lack thereof, is the canary for every other one that exists now and is to come. It is critical to understand and challenge them as they seek to find purpose in their young lives. Again, I find myself captivated by what’s been happening across our nation’s college campuses, and what I see is a desperation for this generation to believe in something bigger than itself, whether that is fighting against injustice or fighting for patriotism. Lastly, and certainly not least—this generation will define what becomes of ugly antisemitism, and we’re not off to a great start. From what I am seeing, so many GenZers don’t view certain words, phrases, or acts to be antisemitic. This is something to be highly concerned about, and no doubt will create new trauma cycles for Jewish people who have experienced antisemitism or are now feeling it for the first time.

Trauma cycles are present in every generation and on the individual level—this is nothing new. But we’re a nation dealing with the trauma remnants of a once-in-a-generation pandemic, compounded with all the uncertainties mentioned earlier. Those of you who, like me, have “warrior brain” may be the least aware of whatever PTSD lurks beneath the surface because you're probably successfully navigating so many of life’s challenges.

But the triggers are out there, and if you find yourself reacting to one—residual trauma just might be the reason why.