From Post-Traumatic Stress to Post-Traumatic Growth: Transforming Adversity into Creative Rebirth

A child-like family of origin poetic allegory captures meaningful complex family dynamics through the story of "The Spider and the Butterfly."  The poem is followed by an in-depth essay on the process of traumatic to dramatic-creative transformation.  Enjoy.  MG

From Post-Traumatic Stress to Post-Traumatic Growth:  Transforming Adversity into Creative Rebirth

This is another head- and heartfelt essay & poem combo about the motivational forces that for me spurred new genre writing:  poetic allegory.  According to Merriam-Webster, "allegory" is the expression by means of symbolic fictional figures and actions of truths or generalizations about human existence.  The work below is a deep examination of early family of origin dynamics captured in a children’s story-like format.  More specifically, the poem illustrates one variation on the universal triangle themes of codependence, separation, loss, fear, and the struggle for individuation, for developing your own authentic voice.  Mr. and Mrs. Spider and a little butterfly are the principal players.  With its interplay of adult themes and children-of-all-ages format, I believe the piece (Parts I & II of a continuing saga) is both fairly compelling and insightful.  I have placed it before the introductory essay.  The essay explores – both conceptually and personally – the psychically disruptive backdrop to the creation of the allegory.  As always, would love your feedback.  Enjoy the journey.  MG

The Spider and the Butterfly:  Part I

Not Necessarily Just a Children’s Story

The spider spins a silky web

Of soft and shiny aura.

How will a little butterfly

Know the coming drama?

Lady S so wants a child

But she herself is dry

And a wounded Mr. Spider

Turns his back and cries.

Sunlight sparkles on the weave

Catching the ‘lil butter’s eye.

He soon alights upon the web

Her tapestry does hypnotize.

The ‘lil one fills a big hole

In her broken heart.

The spin-stress knows not why she craves…

But he must play a part.

Is he embraced or entrapped

In the lady’s many arms?

Instinct tells ’lil b to flee

Despite her luring charms.

But Lady Spider starts to sing

Her haunting Siren ** song.

How is one so young to know

Just what is right from wrong?

The moon has journeyed many times

Giving in becomes veiled lie.

‘lil b now wonders who he is…

“Oh no.  I’ve forgotten how to fly!”

**  In Greek mythology, the Sirens were dangerous creatures, who lured nearby sailors with their enchanting music and voices to shipwreck on the rocky coast of their island.  (Wikipedia)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Spider and the Butterfly:  Part II

Not Necessarily Just a Children’s Story

So where is Mr. Spider’s thread

In our enmeshed story?

For in this tale of web and woe

Lady S spins all the glory.

Mr. S, alas, cannot weave…

His scarlet mark of shame

Adding insult to injury:

The Queen’s needles are a pain.

To numb a spider’s injured pride

He gorges on the blood

Of his wife’s hard-earned bounty

Drinking far more than he should.

Mr. S silently seethes

Black smoke clouds his red-hot brain:

How can he seize ‘lil b

From the Queen’s web domain?

While ‘lil b so quietly

Morphs…now the “too good” child:

Wings aflutter cool spider fears, but

White noise “call of the wild!”

Then one day, Mr, Spider

Announces to his mate

That he and the butter boy

Have planned a hunting date.

‘lil b unexpectedly

Eyes Mr. S. with newfound hope

But quickly turns to reality…

Will she let us cut the rope?

© Mark Gorkin  2017

Shrink Rap ™ Productions

lil b may not know where he is going

but I believe he will know how to get there.

Just between you and me...

I'd stay tuned for Part III. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From Post-Traumatic Stress to Post-Traumatic Growth:  Transforming Adversity into Creative Rebirth

We all have heard of “post-traumatic stress,” the aftermath of shock and hypervigilance, loss and adversity with its many lingering, disruptive signs and symptoms of mind-body turmoil.  Hey, what about post-traumatic growth?  To understand the latter, we must recognize the former.  Potential major traumatic events include:  a) the death or painful loss of a loved one, b) the end of a long-time, meaningful relationship, c) the sudden and unexpected loss of a vital job, position, community, or role, d) a life-threatening illness or accident, e) a social environment that has you always on guard or living with a smoldering, just beneath the surface sense of angst or near panic, whether because of a substance-abusing parent, cyber-bullying peers, a climate of harassment, or nightly gunshots in your neighborhood, f) a war-zone experience with its potential for multiple trauma triggers, or g) a shocking natural catastrophe, along with the uncertain waiting for aftershocks, as in the 2015 earthquakes in Nepal, etc.  These complex events not only endanger a basic sense of security and community, but may threaten or unravel a personal identity.  Such trauma can challenge our foundational belief systems.  Assumptions and expectations about ourselves, our supportive circle, the surrounding world, about life or nature – human and otherwise – are being tested.  Adding to the psychic injury, subterranean memories or, at least, the lurking emotions, further disorient as they surge to the forefront of consciousness.  And nothing can be taken for granted; we must reexamine fundamental premises.  We must entertain unprecedented survival, psychological, and existential-behavioral questions and patterns.  And, of course, this reassessment or mind-body-moral inventory is the conceptual, psycho-spiritual, and creative bridge to new paths and possibilities.

Post-Traumatic Growth

Ironically, it is just because our worldview, beliefs, and role-identities have been so profoundly shaken if not shattered by physical, but especially psychic-seismic upheaval, that we have the opportunity to experience the inverse of post-traumatic stress…post-traumatic growth!  “Growth after trauma can take a number of different forms, including a greater appreciation for life, the identification of new possibilities for one’s life, more satisfying interpersonal relationships, (including increased empathy and altruism), a richer spiritual life and a connection to something greater than oneself, and a sense of personal strength.”  (Scott Barry Kaufman and Carolyn Gegoire, Wired to Create:  Understanding the Mysteries of the Creative Mind, Perigee:  Penguin Random House; New York, 2015.)

How to achieve such lofty goals as post-traumatic growth? Chaotic reality flies in the face of past beliefs, emotional-interpersonal schemas, and action plans. Letting go of the once predictable or familiar, while scary – the approach/avoidance or risk/reward uncertainty conundrum – helps open us to new or “nothing left to lose” perceptions, to consider unthinkable problem-solving ideas and strategies, to generate novel ways of framing, defining and defying, and, ultimately, giving meaning to crisis and loss, to pain and suffering. Akin to a city whose neighborhoods, roadways, power lines, and monuments have been rattled, battered, and razed by an earthquake, we must first distinguish the functional from the dysfunctional. Then, one must learn from the past to rebuild schematic structures that guide understanding and decision-making; that harness – individually and collectively – purpose, passion, and persistence. Of course, initially there is a grief process – shock, sadness, loss, anger, doubt and ambivalence, and angst, etc. – that often precedes and gradually nurtures (though not always on a predictable schedule), sustained rebuilding and rejuvenation.

Grief as Growth

In fact, the path of grief is a major growth stimulant, a challenging and fluid formula for finding-designing renewed meaning for living.  With sufficient support and time, by embracing the dark side of melancholy and mourning a new season of light and rebirth imperceptibly yet magically often appears on the horizon.  As I once penned:  Whether the loss is a key person, a desired position, or a powerful illusion, each deserves the respect of a mourning.  The pit in the stomach, the clenched fists and quivering jaw, the anguished sobs prove catalytic in time.  In mystical fashion, like spring upon winter, the seeds of dissolution bear fruitful renewal.

In summary, to stabilize a self shaken at its roots, we often must let go of comfortable and reassuring or stress-relieving habits, that is, coping adaptations that have become limiting or, at the least, do not fit a new post-trauma reality.  We must learn to both explore wildly and fail fearlessly – “strive high and embrace failure” anyone?  Or, at least move – whether steadily or in fits and starts – out of that proverbial comfort zone.  Why?  Because, as an adult, habitual cognitive-emotive-behavioral patterns not courageously and thoroughly questioned have decided dysfunctional, self-constricting, “b.s.” – be safe – potential.  However, through individual and group grief, rumination, sharing, and reflection, and active trial and error exploration-experimentation we are in a position to gain up-to-date information about ourselves and our environments.  My regeneration mantra:  Learn to Fail or Fail to Learn!  We are now rebuilding from the ground up; we are pursuing unprecedented – and perhaps creative – pathways and opportunities.  The poignancy and pregnancy of this “no exit challenge,” will present itself, especially if we understand the wisdom articulated by French-Algerian, Nobel-prize winning author, Albert Camus:  Once we have accepted the fact of loss, we understand that the loved one obstructed whole corners of the possible…pure now as a sky washed by rain.

That is, we have invested so much time, energy, emotion, ego in that one special person, one right position or living space, one acceptable self-definition, only one possible outcome, that we are not even aware fully of what else lives inside us and what is conceivable outside us…and the evolving magical “transitional space” when boldly and imaginatively playing with the two.

Corners of the Possible

Which brings me to five new or reinvigorated “post-traumatic” corners of the possible recently discovered and designed in the aftermath of: a) the end of a ten-year relationship, b) the loss of a three-year old “grandchild,” c) the dissolution of my Cleveland social network, d) having to find new living arrangements, d) decidedly more ebb than flow in my speaking gigs, that is, e) basically having to start over in Columbia, MD feeling mostly isolated, wounded, and defeated.

Five of the recent corners of hibernation and healing:  1) participating regularly in a variety of twelve step groups, 2) making new friends both inside and outside the “step” experience, 3) carefully listening to my dreams, 4) engaging in creative-therapeutic writing, especially capturing my traumatic stress to growth process through various forms of poetic expression, and 5) finding creative partners to help turn poetic concepts into creative products.  I believe the common and creative threads connecting the five corners is simple yet substantial:  All corners, especially the first four, provide a space for me to discover what psychological emotions and ideas are swimming and swirling in my conscious and subconscious minds.  For example, the first four corners definitely hold up a mirror to my psyche, heart, and soul.  This can occur by talking out loud in a group to hear and, thereby, clarify the jumble of mind-body-spirit thoughts and feelings.  It also evolves through give-and-take sharing and feedback with self-reflective kindred pals.  I hear disguised or denied parts of myself in their stories.  Dreams are another subterranean, self-revealing mirror (sometimes of a fun- and not-so-fun-house variety) that often puzzle and propel me into deeper confusion and exploration.

Writing is Conceiving Is Believing Is Reframing Is…

Then, of course, there is creative writing. A number of colleagues have asked why I keep exploring what appear to be familiar themes: why don’t you move on? For me, relationship loss – whether of early or more recent origin – is a mine of infinitely rich and vibrant, yet often painful, minerals. And the deeper I dig and sift, recall and sort, the ore brought back to the surface is not just richer but more of my human essence. And under red hot, laser-like inner gaze, the ore becomes fluid and fleeting, inducing a state of mental meandering and kaleidoscopic possibility. In dream-like fashion, the interplay of past-present-future takes me down the rabbit hole…to unexpected places if not unimaginable spaces. Once the ore begins to cool and my mind begins to converge (that is, evolves from the seemingly psycho-logical to the more logical) … the protean-like ore can be molded into a myriad of forms and functions, such as a new format like poetic allegory. Finally, not surprisingly, soul material always retains an element of unfinished mystery.

Let the writing adventure begin.  As I sit before the computer, turned on by my performance angst, mind wandering is followed by more focused, mindful/meditative states (or as easily, the reverse cognitive sequence.  I call this mercurial ebb and flow finding that elusive balance between mindfulness and out-of-mindfulness; the latter being my specialty ;-).  Shifting between unconscious percolation to building surprising subconscious and conscious connections, then once more back down into the writer’s well for additional sediments and sustenance.  All this meandering, molding, and new meaning construction hopefully, gradually, leads to clear, concise, and compelling sentences or captivating visually rhythmic and evocative lines. This discovery-to-design process helps soothe past pain, clarifies present understanding, and purposefully yet playfully spins and shapes new corner possibilities. (In fact, I think an essay about the importance and power of these “five corners” is waiting in the wings.)

Phew. Time to reread “The Spider and the Butterfly.” Hopefully, it brings to life more tangibly the evolution – from pain to poetry – of post-traumatic stress, growth and creativity. To be continued! Amen and women, to that!

Mark Gorkin, MSW, LICSW, "The Stress Doc" ™, a nationally acclaimed speaker -- on stress & burnout, performance-leadership & captivating communication -- as well as recognized authour, and "Psychohumorist" ™.  Mark is a founding partner and Stress Resilience and Trauma Debriefing Consultant for the Nepali Diaspora Behavioral Health & Wellness Initiative and is a current Leadership Coach/Training Consultant for the international Embry-Riddle Aeronautics University at the Daytona, FL headquarters. A former Stress and Violence Prevention Consultant for the US Postal Service, he has led numerous Pre-Deployment Stress Resilience-Humor-Team Building Retreats for the US Army. Presently Mark does Critical Incident Debriefing for organizational/corporate clients of Business Health Services. The Doc is the author of Practice Safe Stress, The Four Faces of Anger, and Preserving Human Touch in a High-Tech World. Mark’s award-winning, USA Today Online "HotSite" – www.stressdoc.com – was called a "workplace resource" by National Public Radio (NPR). For more info, email: stressdoc@aol.com.

The Missing Parent Syndrome (MPS): How Psychosocial Loss Impacts Adult Children & Strategies for Building Bridges and Reworking the Grief – Pt I

Two recent events reminded me of what I am dubbing “MPS” – the Missing Parent Syndrome.  The parent is not literally missing; more MPS reflects a sudden, overwhelming event or illness, and/or chronic condition (e.g., a serious stroke, perhaps with lingering post-depressive symptoms, or ongoing dysfunctional substance abuse, maybe even severe workaholic patterns, etc.) that affect mind-body-psyche health, feeling of fragility vs. hardiness, sense of self, and capacity for mature engagement with others.

In addition, the Missing Parent may be away for lengthy periods of time because of the type of work; think of a mother or father in or employed by the military stationed overseas.  Of course, a person temporarily living outside the family doesn’t automatically breed an MPS scenario.  However, upon the MP’s return, if this individual and/or the family have prolonged difficulty with reintegrating healthy partner-parental roles, the extended household may be sowing MPS seeds.

The MP just cannot be as emotionally available as they were before the bio-psycho-social turning point.  There’s a new or exaggerated self-centeredness, callousness, or pronounced cautiousness; their defensive and self-protective walls have gone up limiting give and take openness and authenticity.  The MP will push you away – passively or aggressively – if you get too close to their pain or shame.  And if the pattern persists, what may have been a psychological-interpersonal problem for the child can take on biochemical dimensions, including states of intense agitation, aggression, and/or depression.  And this phenomenon is particularly pronounced and hurtful when the parent is still physically present in the child’s life.  Also, MPS may involve adult children of almost any age as much as youngsters and teens.

Let me provide some “Missing Parent” examples, along with key family dynamics, followed by some MSP intervention strategies:

1.  Lonely, Wounded Mother and “Clinging” Son.  A Supervisor, who I’ll call Eric, in a recent workshop with five other management-level colleagues, shared how his once vital mother (now in her 50s) has become depressed, has gained considerable weight, and mostly stays at home.  Actually, it’s been ten years since she really has been that vibrant fun loving woman Eric once knew and still longs for.  Ten years ago this late 20s gentlemen left for the military.  Also, his younger brother graduated high school and was spending less time at home.  More recently, Eric has become engaged and his fiancée is expecting.  He did not mention any involvement between his mother and his fiancée.

In addition to the family separation issues, I suspect “grief ghosts” were rearing and roaring.  The oldest son’s father had left the household when he was one.  The father eventually remarried and there has been really no involvement with the family.  For this man, the mother, not the father, is the “missing parent.”

However, the mother has always been bitter about the loss; and I’m sure her ex’s remarrying only added that proverbial salt to the wound.  In fact, over the years Eric shared how his mother would scold him for behaving “like his father.”  He acknowledged looking like his father.  Still, when Eric drives fifty miles to be with his mother, this young man can’t understand why she won’t make an effort to get dressed or doesn’t want to go out and have a good time.  In addition to not understanding her depression, he refuses to recognize that his mom, at least for the foreseeable future, will not be recapturing her former, seemingly joyful manner of living.  Not surprisingly, Eric himself is becoming increasingly depressed by the visits.  And, alas, he knows his mother will not seek medical assistance for her depression.

Interventions:  Logical and Psychological

a) Logical.  Not surprisingly, the group wanted Eric to “honor thy mother,” to accept where she is and just “be” with her.  A popular suggestion was staying home and sharing Chinese delivery.  And, of course, a vital component of mature love is placing another’s needs before one’s own.  (At the same time, one must be aware of possible unhealthy self-denial patterns, e.g., giving one’s self away and thereby enabling another’s dysfunctional behavior and decision-making.)

b) Psychological.  It’s vital to recognize that before a person can implement logical problem-solving, he may have to engage in psychological processing.  And in this instance, Eric needed to own his anger fueled by unrealistic expectations of his mother.  In addition to not understanding his mom’s depression, he is presently trapped by irrational anger.  But at a deeper emotional level, his anger distracts from a painful sadness regarding the reality of his mother’s compromised state and living condition.  And sometimes children can be frightened by role reversal – when a parent becomes less functional and increasingly needy.

In addition, it’s hard to say precisely what impact Eric beginning a new family is having on his mother; it is possible some old echoes (abandoned by Eric’s father) and fears of further disconnection are being stirred.  Of course, mom may be worried that she will be eclipsed by her son’s new constellation.

After much back and forth with the group, the true complexity of the family entanglement began dawning on Eric.  He seemed receptive about calling the EAP for guidance.  In hindsight, I wish I had more specifically explored or mentioned two resources:  1) does his mom belong to a church, and might a church member make a home visit? and 2) if contacted, a counselor from a United Way Family Counseling Agency would likely make a home visit, with the hope of developing a supportive relationship with his mother.  The longer term goal, naturally, would be getting Eric’s mom the medical and therapeutic help she needs.

And finally, counseling for Eric would allow him to grieve the lost “idealized mother,” enabling him to feel less deprived and burdened.  And with this step, he has a real fighting chance to become a more realistically caring son.  In addition, Eric spoke of a conflict with an older woman in the workplace that certainly had “mother-child” overtones.  When MPS issues are not acknowledged, disguised or misguided battles invariably break out.

And in Part II, I will do some exploration that hits close to home:  how the death of my girlfriend Diana’s 19 y.o. daughter, and Diana’s subsequent emotional devastation and withdrawal, impacted the relationship with her still living 17 y.o. daughter.  And why and how, nineteen years later, opportunity arose to:  1) revisit this painful “missing parent” issue and 2) clear up and clean up much of the wound.  Until then…Practice Safe Stress!

 

Mark Gorkin, MSW, LICSW, "The Stress Doc" ™, a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, is an acclaimed keynote, kickoff and webinar speaker as well as "Motivational Humorist & Team Communication Catalyst" known for his interactive, inspiring, and FUN programs for both government agencies and major corporations.  In addition, the "Doc" is a Team Building and Organizational Development Consultant as well as a Critical Incident/Grief Intervention Expert for Business Health Services, a National EAP/Wellness/OD Company.  He is providing "Stress and Communication,” as well as “Managing Change, Leadership and Team Building" programs for a variety of units at Ft. Hood, Texas and for Army Community Services and Family Advocacy Programs at Ft. Meade, MD and Ft. Belvoir, VA as well as Andrews Air Force Base/Behavioral Medicine Services.

A former Stress and Violence Prevention Consultant for the US Postal Service, the Doc is the author of Practice Safe Stress and of The Four Faces of Anger.  The Stress Doc blog appears in such platforms as HR.com, WorkforceWeek.com, and MentalHelpNet.  His award-winning, USA Today Online "HotSite" – www.stressdoc.com – was called a "workplace resource" by National Public Radio (NPR).  For more info on the Doc's "Practice Safe Stress" programs or to receive his free e-newsletter, email stressdoc@aol.com or call 301-875-2567.