The Echo Trauma: The Invisible Memory

The word trauma is familiar to all of us.

Traumas have existed forever, but they were not always understood, nor were they always given the attention they deserved. My generation, the Yom Kippur generation, the traumas and what they brought with them, were largely unknown and remained mostly unanswered. In recent decades, a deeper and deeper understanding of the term trauma has developed, and psychologists are addressing it from many angles. An expertise on the subject has also developed within the professional field. Unfortunately, in Israel, there is extensive experience with this subject because we go through many events—wars, terror attacks, and so on. But it is clear that trauma also happens from other disasters. Every country has its own disasters; it can stem from extreme storms, floods, earthquakes, and, of course, there are the personal traumas that occur everywhere and to almost every person during their lifetime. The passing of a loved one, an accident, a serious illness—the list is long. Especially among women: sexual assault.

What often turns a distressing event into a trauma is the suddenness of the event, how unexpected it is, and how difficult it is for the person to contain the event within the framework of what they know about their life and what they expect and believe is going to happen. In this sense, the loss of a person at a very advanced age, even a beloved parent who reaches the end of their life, will be a deep sorrow, but a trauma will usually not develop here, in contrast, for example, to the loss of the same parent at a young age. The sorrow is the same sorrow, but the understanding that life has an ending leads us to expect separation from the parent at some stage. This doesn't make it easy, but not every difficult event becomes traumatic.

We have a developing understanding regarding the processes people who have experienced trauma go through. Our understanding continues to grow, and it includes the difference between the responses and the intensity of the trauma. Sometimes the intensity is so severe that people cannot continue to function, and in extreme cases, they collapse. Some of the traumas from the last two years, from October 7th, are of such high intensity that it is difficult to even begin to contain and understand the situation. If I spoke about the gap between what happens and a person's expectation, then, for example, at an outdoor party like Anova when a person expects to dance and celebrate until morning light, and instead encounters the devil, it is difficult to grasp the magnitude of this thing. We don't have the ability to even begin to absorb it, and perhaps this is the human soul's way of protecting itself.

But "regular" traumas also throw people out of balance, sometimes like a train that has been thrown off the tracks, and now they must find a way to get back onto some track, even if it's not exactly the same one. From the outside, it can look like a person who is unfocused, uncentered, sometimes with outbursts of anger. Inside, it includes a feeling of being misunderstood, perhaps "transparent"—that they are not being seen—and it almost always creates a kind of parallel space, as if the person is living in two parallel dimensions: The first is in the outside world (studies, work, family)—everything visible from the outside, and this dimension is very important of course, because it is crucial to return to functioning and maintain some routine. The second dimension is internal, where they are alone with themselves.

Finding the way back can take a long time, years; it is a long process, but people do it.

But then there is life. And during life, a second trauma can happen. A new one. One that settles upon the first trauma. And that is already more difficult. Like a bone breaking in exactly the same place. Or more accurately, like a heart wounded in the same place. Does a heart get wounded? Of course it does, but perhaps it is not completely clear. After all, the heart does not show signs of injury, even when it is broken. A broken heart is the term for a difficult separation from a close partner. Is there such a corner in the heart where we can find a scar? It sounds unlikely, but on the other hand, it sounds very plausible.

Our lives are a reservoir of joys and sorrows, where each one leaves its mark on us. Where is this mark? Where is it visible? In the heart? Or in the brain? Or in the kidneys? The more painful things happen, the more the wound hurts, the scar thickens and aches, and every touch, sometimes even a light touch, is painful.

After October 7th, women who had experienced sexual assault in their lives felt terrified. Many women and also mothers of young children also felt terrified, but for those who had experienced sexual assault, the memory resurfaced and undermined the peace they had painstakingly built for themselves up until that moment.

October 7th affected all of us, but different people reacted in different ways. There are many reasons for this difference, but one of them, which I want to emphasize in this post, is that the past of each and every one of us walks with us like a shadow. But this is a shadow that is invisible to the eye; sometimes you are not even fully aware that it is there, and this shadow profoundly affects our response, our ability to see, hear, and contain, and still remain standing on our feet.

Therefore, let us look with tolerance at those around us. Not everything is seen, not everything is understood, not everything is known. A land familiar with battles and wars, a land familiar with trauma and loss, almost everyone knows someone close to something that happened, in one of these circles of sorrow.

Everyone reacts differently: Some yell and some retreat, some demonstrate and some disconnect, because all this discourse simply scrapes their wounded heart. A person has different ways of responding to the world and maintaining their personal resilience and that of their environment. And that is a good thing.