Iraq, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Syria: standing room only for PTSD. And, oh, that tsauami

A friend of a friend (a writer must be cautious) has a brother who spent seven years in a Serbian prison. He was the only survivor from the back of a truck who was not carrying a gun. We have Burmese in our town who will not accept the friendly offer of a ride. Who can blame them, considering what…You add the next story, there are so many. Nonetheless, I love to hit the audience button on my blog.

It is exciting to see where the next hit comes from. There is Germany and Canada, of course, but I never expected China! This week a new one was from Brazil, and Singapore keeps registering. The one before that was a completely new one, someone in Italy. The count on my software program stopped at ten, but new ones pop up. There is no way to know what personal interests – in Israel or South Africa, for instance - lie behind pursuing a key wording while googling. A person might hunch, however, there is a story behind every hit - even those from England - and that is why I blog. There is a much greater shortage of informed hope than of continuing irritations over troubling remembrances..

The host of possible interests seems mountainous, but so is the amount of research offering new understandings. Consider for a moment the investigation of the globalized sex slave trade. “Come to America and work in a restaurant for tourists.” Clunk. Clank. Reports say even seven year old have been sold by parents. We can suspect that “sex fatigue” does not differ significantly from “battle fatigue.”

In a TV interview in rural Nigeria a woman with a limp face was being asked how the people of the village in her tribe could live with those of another tribe who had done the killing. Mumble. Shrug. We who know PTSD are familiar with emotional numbness and emotional denial. It does break down, you know. I know. When it does break down, what then?

This blog has its burdens to get out, as any writer knows (so well). There is also the sense in writer and reader about the post-traumatic of the need for a realistic hope. Paradoxically, there is a need for a tradition that transcends a haunting from what was. There is a need in us all to be in touch with a creativity that transcends the locked in. Reach in. Reach out. We all need help, we can all give help.

Perhaps sharing this blog would be a beginning. To help others is a development that helps ourselves.