Wounds of Violence

After recently speaking with my friend Dr. K. Korb, the Head of the Department of General and Applied Psychology at the University of Jos, about a recent study on Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) that she has done, I asked her if she would be willing to write something about it for this column. This will […]

After recently speaking with my friend Dr. K. Korb, the Head of the Department of General and Applied Psychology at the University of Jos, about a recent study on Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) that she has done, I asked her if she would be willing to write something about it for this column. This will be the first of two guest columns by Dr. Korb on PTSD.I hand over the rest of my column this week to her. -Carmen

Dr. K. Korb
Instead of joyfully celebrating his birthday on 16 December 2009, Joseph Obaje Sunny grieved over the tragic passing of his mother. Less than one month later, Sunny’s community was engulfed in ethno-religious crisis. After struggling to protect vulnerable community members from the violence, Sunny tried to return to his house to collect his credentials. However, he had to abandon his quest after being shot at twice. Then fire broke out in a local church, so he rushed to quench the flames. When he finished, he found that his house was ablaze.
Sunny lost everything in the crisis: his credentials, money, clothing, food, and computers for his work as a graphic designer. These physical losses are generally the focus when we talk about the costs of crises. Over two years later, Sunny has a new home and clothes, and has replaced his computers. However, there is another cost of violent crises that we rarely discuss. It runs much deeper and is much harder to restore: the emotional cost of crises.
After the crisis, Sunny would sometimes collapse when he thought about the loss of his mother and his home. There were days when he would not leave his room from morning until evening. Sunny had difficulty eating because of the emotional pain that he was suffering, causing him to dramatically reduce in size. He would avoid passing by his burnt house because it reminded him of the pain. In the night, Sunny would dream about his old house. But when he awoke, the emotional pain from the dream would be so great that he wanted to cry. The emotional wound ate at him for well over a year before he began the journey of healing.
The emotional pain that Sunny experienced is not unusual. In fact, Sunny likely had Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). This is a mental health condition that a person can develop after experiencing a horrifying event such as violent crisis, armed robbery, bombing, rape, or a severe automobile accident. A person can also develop PTSD after witnessing something frightening, such as seeing another person being tortured, raped, or killed. After suffering a traumatic event, it is perfectly normal to experience anxiety and confused thinking. After a few weeks, typically the emotional pain gradually disappears. However, for some people, these feelings can get worse or last for many months.
When a person suffers from malaria, there are different types of symptoms such as headache, chills, and fever. Similarly, when a person suffers from PTSD, there are three different types of symptoms. The first type of symptoms is called re-experiencing symptoms, such as having flashbacks where you replay the traumatic experience in your mind like a movie or having bad dreams about the trauma. These flashback symptoms are oftentimes triggered by something that reminds you of the traumatic experience. For example, a few months after I was the victim of armed robbery, I went a fireworks display. The smell of the fireworks triggered the memory of the smell of gunpowder from when one of the robbers fired a shot in the house. When the smell triggered the memory of the armed robbery, I started crying uncontrollably in the middle of the celebration.
The second type of PTSD symptoms is called hyper-arousal symptoms. These symptoms include being easily frightened, continuously feeling tense, having difficulty sleeping, or having angry outbursts. A friend told me that after a period of ongoing crisis in Jos, he would become anxious whenever mangoes fell from the trees onto a tin roof because it sounded like gunfire. He would then start shaking because he thought that another crisis had sparked.
The final type of PTSD symptoms is avoidance symptoms. This means that a person will try to avoid situations or emotions that might cause a person to fear. These symptoms include avoiding places, events, or objects that are reminders of the frightening experience; feeling emotionally numb; feeling guilt, depression, or worry; losing interest in activities that were previously enjoyable; or having difficulty remembering the traumatic event. For example, during one crisis, a friend almost got trapped in fighting along the road. For months afterwards, she avoided traveling that road because of the painful memories from the crisis.
A person can be diagnosed as having PTSD if they continue to experience all three types of PTSD symptoms – re-experiencing, hyper-arousal, and avoidance – after one month has passed from the date of the traumatic event. Having PTSD can disrupt a person’s life because they might have a hard time doing tasks necessary for daily living, such as sleeping or eating. This can cause their physical health to suffer. Furthermore, a person experiencing PTSD generally has difficulty concentrating, which can hurt their work as well as their relationships with friends and family.
PTSD is similar to a physical wound. I recently was playing sports and collided with another player. In the trauma of the collision, one of my ribs was cracked, which resulted in constant pain for many days. It took time for the physical wound to heal. If a person develops PTSD after experiencing or witnessing a trauma, it does not mean that they are weak. Having PTSD is just like having a cracked rib. Experiencing a trauma results in a wound within a person’s soul, which will cause emotional pain. Just like a physical wound, an emotional wound will take time to heal.
PTSD is a mental health condition that was identified and described by Western psychologists. Culture can influence the symptoms of PTSD, as well as the treatment that is effective. This means that the Western research on the symptoms and treatment of PTSD may not be fully accurate for Nigerians who have experienced trauma. However, the underlying message of PTSD still applies: when any person experiences or witnesses something horrifying, they will be emotionally wounded, and it will take time for these wounds to heal.
Adults are not the only ones emotionally affected by trauma. Many people mistakenly believe that children are too young to understand a traumatic event or that they will soon forget the traumatic event, so it will not hurt them. However, adolescents, primary and nursery school children, and even infants can be emotionally affected by trauma. Decades of research have shown that trauma can have serious long-term effects on the brains, minds, and behavior of young children and even infants. For example, children who experience trauma are more likely to have behavioral problems when they grow up. Children also have difficulty paying attention and concentrating after experiencing trauma, which means they have an increased risk of failure in school. Research has found that children under the age of 8 who were exposed to violence in the United States scored lower on intelligence tests, particularly those children who experienced violence before they were 2 years old. It is important to note that witnessing violence inside the home can be very traumatizing for young children, even if they are not the victims of the abuse themselves.
Our society has a very high rate of violence, including armed robbery, crises, domestic violence, and ghastly automobile accidents on hazardous roads. This violence creates emotional wounds that are hurting individuals, families, communities, and even hindering national development. We must take steps now to help those who are carrying the emotional wounds of trauma, as well as work to prevent trauma from occurring in the first place. Next week, we will discuss what can be done to heal the emotional wounds of trauma.
(to be continued)