Category: Trauma

Personal Rants, Trauma

Leadership

Lori Martin

I listened to the radio today, NPR to be exact. I heard a press conference given by our President and others in the Administration and found myself feeling a lot, so as I’m apt to do, I decided to think on it and then hammer these thoughts out here, where likely nobody will ever read them, but at least I’ve gotten them out!

First of all, let’s talk about the word “leadership”. It’s a word we use often, but what does it REALLY mean? We label people as “leaders”….and people assume roles of “leadership” but what traits do we expect from a leader?

After consulting many sources, the definition of leadership that I’ll use for the purposes of this post is: the ability of an individual or group to influence, sway, and guide others toward a common goal, often by motivating, encouraging, inspiring, and setting a common vision for the group as a whole while maintaining ethical standards and being trustworthy.

Today I listened to President Trump discuss the aircraft tragedy near Washington DC. He was not a leader. A tragedy in which 67 people lost their lives…the deadliest US air disaster in over 25 years, and our new President was not a leader. He used this air time to insinuate that diversity and inclusion hiring policies at the FAA contributed to this tragedy. He promised to find out how it happened and “ensure nothing like this ever happens again”. He made assessments of aviation that he has absolutely no expertise to make (“for some reason, adjustments weren’t made”).

President Trump turned an American tragedy into a political issue. When discussing the FAA’s hiring policies, he spoke of “hiring people with severe intellectual and psychiatric disabilities”….as if listeners would willingly swallow this tale and believe the FAA is hiring Air Traffic Controllers who have disabilities that make them unfit for the job. Perhaps, Mr. President, the FAA is hiring people with disabilities for jobs that they can perform in spite of their disability.

For President Trump and Defense Secretary Hegseth to suggest that hires made based on DEI policies played any kind of role in this tragedy is irresponsible at best. Attributing this “theory” to his own “common sense” makes me want to puke.

I am of the opinion that it’s not so much “common sense” but complete confidence that whatever you’re spewing, the American People will buy. As long as the DC machine can keep us focused over here and fighting amongst ourselves, we will never notice what they’re actually doing “over there”. I don’t think that’s a partisan issue, either. For years that has been my feeling on government in general – regardless if there’s a Republican or Democrat administration.

It’s all one big sleight of hand – keep us fighting one another and focused over there and we have no time to pay attention to what they’re actually doing in DC.

All day today families were holding out hope for some positive news. Military families who have a husband, a father, a son who fly Blackhawks – they were all holding their breaths hoping to NOT hear a knock on their door. Three military families find themselves this evening with a CAO – Casualty Assistance Officer – who will help them navigate their way through this process of bringing their soldier home. Can you IMAGINE worrying that you might hear the President of the United States – the COMMANDER in Chief of our military – cast BLAME on your deceased soldier for causing the crash? He sure as hell cast blame on the Air Traffic Controllers today – so what is to prevent him from casting that shadow of blame on your solider tomorrow?

For more than 30 minutes, our current President took to the airwaves…not to LEAD. Not to encourage, not to inspire, not to motivate as a leader does. He took to the airwaves to blame, to make assumptions, and to insinuate facts that are blatantly false.

Shame on you, Mr. President. Shame on you.

Life After Loss, Trauma

Waves

Lori Martin

It’s no secret to anyone that knows me that I love the ocean. I love to hear the waves, watch the waves, and feel them against my skin. I’ve been reading a lot and thinking about life and that’s when it hit me….

Life is just a series of waves…

We all have good times, smooth sailing one might say, when things seem to click and work our way. Then we’ll hit a rough patch, stormy seas perhaps. When you’re in the rough time it seems like you just keep getting knocked down with one bad thing after another. Enough already, right? You’ve had your two or three hard things and it needs to stop. But sometimes it doesn’t…and the hard things keep coming at ya.

One hard thing after another after another.

Damn – I hate it when that happens. Truly. I hate it for myself, I hate it for my family, friends, and even complete strangers. I hate to see people I love suffer hardship.

When the seas of life get rough, just remember that this hard time (like ones in the past) will NOT last forever. Enjoy the good times while they’re there and then hang on, dig in, and ride out the hard times. Remind yourself that the hard times won’t last forever, and even in the hard times there is often good – whether it be the “showing up” of people who care about you, personal growth, or a hard time that forces you into a new space in life (job, home, etc) – you may find the difficulty pushed you into growth that you may have otherwise missed.

Enjoy the good times of your life. Relish them. Laugh as much as possible, create memories, enjoy every single minute. Don’t take those good times for granted. Those good times might make a hard wave of life seem extra difficult, but remember that these waves change – from the good to the bad – and from the bad to the good.

During a hard time I had to sit back and take stock at the reality of MY situation. The reality is, my worst days are likely easier than someone’s best day. I’m very lucky to have the life I have, and find it important and humbling to keep that in mind. Yes, my struggles are still valid and meaningful to me, but when I let myself get too deep into my own head I remind myself that my worst day is better than someone’s best day. I’m not searching for basic needs for myself and my family. I don’t live in a war-torn area and fear for personal safety. Even at my worst, I have it pretty damned good.

Enjoy the good days and learn from the hard ones. As I said in the recent Writing Prompt post, the situations in my life that provided my most significant personal growth have been the HARD situations. Living and learning go hand in hand, so when faced with challenges, look for the lesson or the opportunity that you might not have seen before. It may take time, but personal growth is usually found there…growing under the shit show that your day/week/month has been.

Life After Loss, Trauma

Schuyler

Lori Martin

A week ago I wrote a post for your birthday. Every tap of the keyboard was a reminder that as we mentally celebrated your birthday – a week later we would memorialize the day you died. I wish I could say that the memories from the day you were born were as strong as the day you died, but as I’ve experienced more and more life I’ve come to understand that trauma often plants a deeper root into our memories than joy. Such is life…

I took my own time last night to remember the events of today in 2009. Each of us has our own recollection and those feel sacred and private. Today I’m going to share my thoughts on time and wishes.

Fourteen years – every year as we add another number to the sum that you have been gone it is both amazing that so much time has gone by and also feels like an eternity since I felt your hug, heard your laugh, or shook my head and rolled my eyes at something you did or said. I suppose there’s a bit of beauty in that, though – because even though 14 years have passed, you’re still such a part of our lives. I think about you every day. Your name often graces a conversation or funny story. Your name and your memories cannot be erased from our history because you aren’t physically present in our days and nights. There’s actually a lot of beauty in that.

Fourteen years has not taken grief away – but it has softened the edges of it. I feel a pang of loss when I see your friends with their children, or look at a family photo and your face is absent, or see the shift in your Dad’s face when someone mentions your name. I feel that pang of loss because I grieve all the stuff that you didn’t get to do beyond the age of 25. I grieve that you didn’t get to attend weddings, graduations, vacations, holidays, or even just a random Saturday night back yard BBQ. The edges of that grief are softer though, so I don’t stay there long – I sit with it for a moment, and then my mind drifts into a space where we all were together and I can hear the laughter, feel the breeze from the river, and smell the grill. Twenty five years wasn’t enough, but it was so much better than nothing at all.

Wishes – I have so many, but for today, just a few. I wish Drake and Avery KNEW you. They “know” you and Drake might even slightly remember you, but neither of them got to really KNOW you. I’ll even lump Logan, Cole, and Brenton in there. It makes me sad that the only way they know you is because of what we tell them, photos we show them, and stories from your friends. I mean, to be honest, you’d have really taught them some raunchy shit, but even just the thought of that makes me smile. I wish you could’ve had that opportunity, and even more – that those kids would’ve had the opportunity to really know you. You’d have been the person they’d confide in – because they would know that you were a safe person, no judgement, and that you’d be honest with them. You’d be the “fun” uncle/cousin but you’d also have been that safe person for them because you would’ve let them know that you had made mistakes and been judged. You would’ve loved them as fiercely as you loved all of us, and nobody has ever been hurt by being loved too much.

I hope that you know how incredibly much you are missed by SO MANY – and how you live on in our memories and hearts. People say “Never Forgotten” but I can assure you that you truly will never be forgotten. Many remember you as the young man from Kewanee who gave his life for his country. Those of us lucky enough to call you family or friend remember you as the person you were, and the person who we will miss forever.

Trauma

Illness in a post-pandemic world

Lori Martin

Last week as I lay in bed one night I felt a feeling I had not felt in a LONG time. I felt a heaviness in my chest…I remembered having that feeling before – when I’d get bronchitis every year. Now, the interesting thing is, it has been since before January 2020 since I’ve had my yearly bronchitis. In fact, my cough would be so severe and last so long (often for months) that at the start of COVID my hubs and I were very concerned what would happen if I were to catch COVID – would my lungs be able to handle it?

At the beginning of the pandemic, it was quite scary. Hearing this virus was so easily transmitted and how it went straight for your lungs concerned me. I had been hospitalized as a child one summer with double pneumonia and I think my lungs probably have some lingering damage from that. Anyway, I was very worried about how my body would react to this mystery virus that was plowing through the world and inundating hospitals. As more and more information came out I found myself vacillating between terrified and relieved, depending on the story.

I got my vaccination as soon as possible, followed up by a booster. As more and more people around me contracted COVID and came through it well, I figured I would be fine if/when I found myself exposed. We had a few close calls, but it wasn’t until August of 2021 that anyone in our immediate household tested positive. I was the primary caregiver for my elderly father when he tested positive and trust me when I tell you that if I didn’t get it from HIM, I wasn’t going to get it at all!

Now let’s pop back to last week when I felt that old familiar heaviness in my chest. I thought it was odd, but it sure did feel like I was getting sick. By the next morning I was sure – I was sick. I had a barking cough and my voice was raspy. I stayed home from work, hoping it would pass through quickly. I’ve been dealing with it for over a week now, with Sunday being the worst of it. Each day I feel much better. And yes, I did take a COVID test because we had some here at home and I was NOT positive.

Here’s the thing, though – do you remember what it was like to be sick BEFORE COVID? I needed some OTC cold meds so on Saturday I went into Kroger. I was wearing a mask to protect people from my germs. I was not chatting anyone up or leisurely shopping. I went in with a mission to get what I needed and get out with minimal contact. One of the items I purchased required a DOB, so even through I had gone to self-checkout (again, to avoid people) the cashier had to come over and enter my DOB into the kiosk.

She was so repulsed by me that I seriously felt like Patient Zero for the next global pandemic. Did COVID freak us out to the point that we cannot handle normal illnesses in our fellow humans?

One of my friends said it best. She said “Remember when we all just went into the office everyday with boxes of Kleenex and bottles of Chloraseptic with our sneezing and coughing because it was ‘just’ a cold?”!!! YES!!! Yes, yes, YES!

Pre-pandemic we were more tolerant of sniffles and sneezes because, well, because they’re germs and we all have them and that’s how our body learns to fight germs off. I feel like the pandemic has made a lot of people fearful.

I get it. People are traumatized. Lots of bad decisions were made during the pandemic, but nobody knew what the hell was going on or how to handle it. And now when we hear a cough or a sneeze we’re Pavlov’ed into a sense of fear. This was my first time encountering that fear as a sick person. I would imagine I’ve expressed that fear to someone in public, perhaps without even being aware that I was doing so.

As for me, I’m finally feeling better and will be going back to the world of the living. I think all traumas make us long for a return to “before”….I wish we could just go back to how it was “before” that happened. My experience Saturday at Kroger reminded me how much the pandemic changed – both good and bad – and gave me a longing for a return to a time that we didn’t hear someone sneeze or cough and find ourselves filled with fear and anxiety for our own safety.