Trauma is life-changing, for better or worse.

Lets call her Elaine, once a good friend of mine. After her personal tragedy, she served time behind bars. Before being locked away, she mailed me a packet of information explaining why she killed her son.  He was misbehaving, smarting off, talking back, and spinning out of control, and after all of her efforts, he had failed her. It was not the first time someone had failed her.

She gave her thirteen year-old son everything she could, but he had seen so much negativity that he suffered a nervous breakdown when only nine years old. He had witnessed his mother’s sexual assault, had watched her boyfriend mistreat her, and had learned that his father abandoned his mother on the day he was born. He had been in therapy and for a while was not allowed back into the home that he and his mother shared.

What he knew is, his mother loved him.What he didn’t know is his mother was deeply in debt and suffered depression. She had already lost one home to foreclosure and was facing bankruptcy. The new car she had bought was being used by a boyfriend who often failed to pick her up after work, leaving her and her son walking long distances to get home.

One evening, with a blood alcohol level of .25 and feeling hopeless, she had an argument with her son. When she’d had enough of the disrespect and back-talk, she left the room, made a trip to the secret place where she kept a loaded gun, reentered the room where her son was sitting, and made a bad decision. Calmly, she placed the barrel of the gun against his skull and pulled the trigger.  Then she turned the gun on herself.

When the authorities entered the home, they found a thirteen year old boy bleeding from the head and a distraught mother who had botched the job of killing herself.  The bullet had ricocheted off her forehead and lodged in the ceiling. The son was dead but his mother had survived. Because she had suffered trauma, depression, and childhood sexual abuse, she was not convicted of first-degree murder. Instead, she served time for a lesser crime.

Trauma happens and its effects are often cumulative but when it is suspected, it is important to take action because trauma can lead to emotional disorders which are invisible, like PTSD and depression. Feeling overwhelmed, unable to solve problems, and feeling sad, anxious, or depressed might be the only recognizable signs of an invisible assailant lurking within the emotional system.

After extremely negative or tragic events,  not everyone will become traumatized, but for those who do, trauma is life-changing, for better or worse.The effects of trauma usually surface as PTSD which can lead to depression or which often co-exists with depression. Left untreated, these emotional illnesses can become internalized, only to resurface as acts of violence against self or others. Emotional disorders require some type of treatment or intervention, by a licensed mental health professional or through recognized self-help practices. It's important to know the symptoms but even more important to get help.

 --Emme H. Johnson (excerpt from book in progress)