Trauma seeks trauma: One journalist's experience of terror echoes back to WWII

Abstract

This paper explores the PTSD story of a journalist, Nick Way, who first responded to the Bali terror attack in 2002. The discussion is focused on Nick’s PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) story as it echoes through time, places, events and people. Nick’s trauma reverberates through the loss of a close colleague and mentee, back to Bali and through to a World War II veteran from whom Nick sought comfort and solace. I use the words ‘echo’ and ‘reverberate’ as they capture and reflect the way Nick described his PTSD. Nick’s first PTSD experience occurred during a physical embrace with Bill [name changed], a WWII veteran. While in Bill’s arms, Nick did not speak about what he was experiencing, rather Bill spoke of his own traumas. Nick’s experience of PTSD elucidates a moment when pain and trauma were shared – when trauma sought trauma. In this paper, I argue for a oncept of ‘trauma echoes’ that can reverberate between sufferers who have experienced separate traumatic events. Nick and Bill’s shared experience of trauma during a single moment demonstrates how the repercussions of an overwhelming event – or events – can intermingle, leading to a shared understanding of each other’s suffering. Bill may not have directly experienced the events that Nick did, and vice versa, but when they embraced, the experience of trauma was common to both, the echoes present and re-presented. Nick and Bill shared one another’s pain despite the distance (years and events) between their traumatic experiences.

RAS ID

39788

Document Type

Journal Article

Date of Publication

2020

Volume

17

Issue

2

School

School of Arts and Humanities

Copyright

free_to_read

Publisher

Abramis Academic

Comments

Jacques, C. (2020). Trauma seeks trauma: One journalist’s experience of terror echoes back to WWII. Ethical space, 17(2).

http://www.abramis.co.uk/ethical-space/feature.php#

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