OPINION Overcome

OVERCOME

Although trauma impacts every area of an individual’s life, there are steps that one can take to help with recovery.

BY ELLA DE YOUNG & KATHERINE SHOPPA

“SEEING THEM AT SCHOOL WALKING THROUGH THE HALLWAY BRINGS A NAUSEATING BLUR OF PANIC. YOUR HEART RACES, YOUR EARS RING, AND YOUR HANDS SHAKE.”

Seeing them at school walking through the hallway brings a nauseating blur of panic. Your heart races, your ears ring and your hands shake. You anxiously sweat and want to crawl out of your skin. Nothing seems real around you, and you feel disconnected from your body as your mind tries to pull together coherent thoughts.

Trauma is a black cloud hovering above you, waiting to strike down at any time. It is a ticking time bomb of built-up anxiety that will be released by a trigger. It is an empty room with the walls closing in on you.

You may wonder, ‘Why? Why do I have to deal with this? What did I do to deserve this?’ However, the fact of the matter is you did nothing wrong, and although having to deal with it feels unfair at times, you must know it is not your fault. A traumatic experience can happen to anyone at any time. According to the American Psychological Association, trauma is defined as an emotional reaction to a horrible event such as a rape or a car accident. About 70% of the population will experience a traumatic event in their lifetime with a small portion — 6% of the population — developing post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD.

There are four main categories of PTSD symptoms — intrusive memories, avoidance, negative changes in thinking and mood, and shifts in physical and emotional reactions. Some indications of PTSD include nightmares, flashbacks, staying away from triggering places, outbursts, trouble sleeping, being startled easily and thinking about the event itself. Many people who have gone through a traumatic event will initially experience a few of the symptoms, but they won’t be the same for everyone.

Trauma doesn’t have a defined appearance; it impacts people of all races, genders, ages and backgrounds differently. We have both faced trauma in our seventeen years and still suffer from intense fear and stress due to it. Our traumas are different, but they both occurred unexpectedly at the hands of people whom we trusted.

Flashbacks and intrusive thoughts ooze into our everyday lives. It is frustrating to cope with trauma caused by someone else’s actions. It feels utterly out of your control. Phrases, people and places can cause memories to hit you like a ton of bricks, making it hard to function. It is challenging to focus on schoolwork in and out of the classroom as we feel constantly on edge and get sidetracked with thoughts of the past events which have traumatized us. We struggle to keep up with the pressures of school, extracurriculars and relationships.

The people who were the specific causes of our traumas have tainted the school environment for us with their presence. With a possible trigger around the corner, school days feel long and hopeless. Many teachers do not understand, and we do not feel comfortable enough to fill them in on such events. Teachers should respect what students need and feel comfortable sharing, but they shouldn’t disregard that their students might not be okay. They should make a point to truly ask how each of their students is doing and make themselves open to whatever response comes their way. When students aren’t turning in their work on time or don’t seem to be giv-

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ing the effort they usually do, the first thing a teacher should do is check in with them and make sure they are doing alright. When a teacher follows through with these actions, we feel more valued and heard.

Our relationships with other people are negatively impacted by the lack of trust we have developed due to our traumas. It is hard to be open with other people and feel secure in doing so. Taking the mental energy to heal and cope can make it appear as though we are being apathetic and do not care when in reality we are trying our best to survive. Trauma makes you question things you never thought you would, including participating in self-harming acts — it is truly terrifying. Being afraid of your thoughts and yourself is not something that you are alone in though; we’ve been there too.

Through our experience, we’ve found there are many things others can do to help make the coping process easier. One of the most crucial parts of supporting those who are coping with trauma is the language a person uses when referring to trauma and survivors of trauma. First of all, a person should not diminish the trauma another person has experienced by jokingly referring to a minor inconvenience in their own life as “so traumatic” or saying things like, “I’m getting PTSD from this.” Misusing terms can make a person who has experienced trauma feel as though you think their trauma is exaggerated or “not that bad.”

Along with misusing terms, joking about trauma is not your place unless you have experienced the trauma yourself. People who have experienced trauma will sometimes use humor as a coping mechanism, but it’s their trauma to joke about, not yours. Some people will be okay with others using humor. However, that does not apply to everyone and does not make you telling trauma-related jokes appropriate, just insensitive.

In trying to have conversations about a specific trauma, you should never blame the survivor or question their truth. It did not occur because of the way they were dressed. It did not happen because they were sending “mixed signals.” It only took place because of the perpetrator’s poor judgment, their inability to tell right from wrong and their lack of boundaries. Questioning a survivor’s choices or asking why they did or didn’t do something differently can be a serious detriment to the person and their mental well-being. Many survivors already deal with feelings of guilt — they don’t need someone else to put even an ounce more of blame on them. It will just make the struggle to get through each and every day that much harder.

If you know someone who is healing from trauma, be patient with them. They should not be made to feel guilty about what they need to process and cope with. In a relation-

“IT IS FRUSTRATING TO COPE WITH TRAUMA CAUSED BY SOMEONE ELSE’S ACTIONS. IT FEELS OUT OF YOUR CONTROL.”

ship, whether that be platonic or romantic, years. Take some time away from your phone they do not owe you physical affection nor to process and just be with yourself. Feel the the details of their experience. Do not pres- feelings. Even when it feels overwhelming to sure them into sharing anything they don’t have so many emotions that create a tornado want to, but be open to listening to the per- of thoughts in your head, it is important to son. Take the time to learn the things that express them, through talking and reaching trigger the person as well as the things that out to others, crying or screaming. help them. Practically everyone who expe- It is challenging to speak up and tell others riences trauma needs a friend — a friend what you are going through, and it is even who will go with them multiple times to the harder to seek help. If you cannot confide in guidance office until someone is there to help someone at home and do not already see a them or a friend who asks ‘how are you?’, mental health professional, there are people waits for the answer and then no matter what in the guidance office at school, like the Stuthe answer is, offers a hug. dent Family Advocates who are available to

If you are reading this and have experi- talk as well as help connect you to someone enced trauma in your own life, there are else. things you can do to minimize the effects. It Even if you haven’t spoken up, we see you is important to take care of yourself and meet and are proud of you for getting this far. In the physical and mental needs of your own recovering, it is important to keep in mind body. Taking a break when necessary and you are more than your trauma, you deserve giving yourself extra grace during recovery to be loved and it is not your fault. is important. Recovery is a different length PHOTOS BY SACHIKO GOTO AND COURTESY OF for everyone, so seriously, take as much time UNSPLASH as you need whether that be a few weeks or DESIGN BY SOFIA WELLS-LU OPINION MAY 24, 2022 19

WHERE IS THE RAINBOW

West High School should provide more opportunities to learn about LGBTQ history and read LGBTQcentric literature.

This is an editorial. An editorial, like news reporting, is based on objective facts. However, its purpose is to share conclusions and opinions that have been derived by our editorial board and are not associated with the news staff.

Nationally, 1 in 5 LGBTQ students are taught positive representations of LGBTQ people, history or current events at their school, according to GLSEN’s 2019 National School Climate Survey. This number will likely decrease as more states pass legislation aimed at erasing LGBTQ people from school curriculums, such as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill in Florida that was signed into law March 28. These sentiments exist locally too, demonstrated by the backlash to Tate High School’s teaching of the Stonewall riots at the school board meeting April 12. Fortunately, the ICCSD’s curriculum ensures that every student will receive some education about LGBTQ history and people during their years of schooling, but there is still progress to be made in the social studies and language arts curriculums.

Representation of LGBTQ identities in schools serves two main purposes. For LGBTQ students, it can improve their ability to learn the curriculum through the connections they make to their own lives, which validates their own experiences and struggles. Additionally, the inclusion of LGBTQ identities in the curriculum is important because education is one of the most effective ways to fight homophobia and transphobia.

In the social studies curriculum, representation is limited to the LGBTQ rights movements post-Stonewall and the struggles that queer people have faced since then. This unintentionally reinforces the mindset that the existence of LGBTQ identities is a new concept, which can be used to invalidate people’s identities. In reality, LGBTQ people have always existed, and teachers should strive to include earlier examples of LGBTQ history in their lessons.

In American history classes, pre-Stonewall activism movements and the success they achieved are often overlooked. Three years before Stonewall, the Mattachine Society hosted a “sip-in” to demonstrate the discrimination gay patrons faced due to a New York State Liquor Authority policy which viewed homosexuals as disorderly. The event involved declaring they were gay to bartenders before asking to be served, which usually resulted in rejection. The State Liquor Authority denied claims of discrimination at first, but changed their policy after the Commission on Human Rights got involved. Another important event was the first Supreme Court case dealing with homosexuality in 1958, One, Inc. v. Olesen. The verdict was the gay magazine One did not violate obscenity laws by covering homosexuality. There are many other events leading up to Stonewall, such as those included in the infographic below, that teachers could incorporate in their lessons to represent a more complete version of LGBTQ history in America.

There is also a wide variety of non-American LGBTQ history that can be taught in classrooms. Homosexual relationships were considered normal in Ancient Greece, Rome, pre-Meiji Japan, some Chinese dynasties and the Zande people of the Congo. While there are few places where binary transgender people were normalized, third genders have existed around the world such as the Hijra of India, and archeologists have been able to identify some skeletons as transgender due to gendered burial practices of some cultures.

LGBTQ representation is also essential in the language arts curriculum. One way the district can increase representation is the inclusion of books with LGBTQ representation into the required reading list. Although “The 57th Bus,” is a good start, the school district needs to continue making the required reading list more varied in authors’ identities and the experiences portrayed. The school should also provide students with the opportunity to read and discuss works that aren’t in the required reading list. This could be done through the creation of a year-long or trimester-long class similar to African American Literature, which could focus on works by LGBTQ authors.

While the school district has come a long way in terms of LGBTQ representation, the WSS Editorial Board believes there is still progress that needs to be made. There should be more LGBTQ history included in the social studies curriculum, and there should be more opportunities provided for students to read LGBTQthemed literature.

ART & DESIGN BY SILA DURAN

Source: History, The Nation

1880s-1890s FIRST DRAG BALLS

Former slave William Dorsey Swann hosted the first drag balls despite frequent raids by the police.

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1924

THE SOCIETY OF HUMAN RIGHTS

First gay rights organization founded by Henry Gerber.

1955

FOUNDING OF THE DAUGHTERS OF BILITIS

First lesbian rights group founded by Rosalie Bamberger.

1969

STONEWALL RIOTS

A series of riots in response to a police raid that took place at Stonewall Inn, a bar frequented by New York’s LGBTQ community.