A story of trauma from another place. From another time.

Noah. Biblical figure. Man. Family. A good carpenter (evidently). An apocalyptic flood. 

Poor Noah; he saw and heard things that we cannot even imagine. Simply put: the end of everything that Noah knew; not only his family; not only his friend; not only the way of life; but the loss of every single reference point that Noah had used to navigate around the world. 

Gone. 

And what did this poor man do? 

There were no therapists. 

No treatments. 

No pills that could calm him. 

So what did he do? He turned to wine. To forget. To blank out. To sleep. To disconnect. 

The story of Noah contains many important dimensions of psychological trauma and its aftermath on the individual. Among them:

loneliness and disturbed social relations (and Noah’s were super disturbed)

Catastrophic confusion

Longing for calming and disconnection without regard to the consequences

Disturbances in the experience of time which impair innerProprioception and it’s many sequalae

Those who’ve experienced trauma need many things. The most important: someone to be with them. Without judgement, without words, without agendas of ‘healing’ and ‘function’. Rather the simple and profound presence that someone is waiting for them on the other side of hell. 

 

1 Proprioception, from Latin proprius, meaning “one’s own”, “individual” and perception, is the sense of the relative position of neighboring parts of the body and strength of effort being employed in movement. It also includes the sense of oneself relative to the world outside.