Experts Call The Pandemic A Collective Trauma. Why Don't We Talk About It That Way?
Consider This from NPR
NPR
4.2 • 6.2K Ratings
🗓️ 24 January 2022
⏱️ 13 minutes
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Summary
Psychiatrist, neurologist and author Bessel van der Kolk explains how the brain processes and recovers from trauma. His 2004 book The Body Keeps the Score surged to the top of bestseller lists during the pandemic.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Back at the start of 2020, two years ago, Julie Hogan was on the list for a kidney transplant. |
| 0:05.9 | And that February, she got the call. There was a donor. |
| 0:09.2 | I remember standing at my sink and thinking, what about this virus? |
| 0:14.0 | Like, is this going to be a problem? |
| 0:15.6 | But it was a rare opportunity that wasn't going to come around again. |
| 0:19.2 | She said, yes, to the transplant. |
| 0:21.2 | And the day I was discharged was the day that country shut down. |
| 0:24.9 | She is thankful for the transplant, but it left Julie severely immunocompromised. |
| 0:29.9 | Even now, fully vaccinated and boosted, she and her husband and college age daughter |
| 0:35.3 | all wear masks at home. They have to be extremely careful about who they see what they do. |
| 0:41.1 | We're trying to control for everything. |
| 0:43.3 | And it's, you know, kind of impossible. |
| 0:45.4 | Julie works from home. |
| 0:47.2 | She rarely leaves the house, really, only for lab tests. |
| 0:50.6 | And when she does these days, it's incredibly stressful. |
| 0:53.6 | I'm so nervous. Like, my heart rate is through the roof when I'm out for anything. |
| 0:58.5 | And I wonder, you know, like, if I'm ever able to go out safely again and be normal and like, |
| 1:04.8 | go into a store, like, am I going to be feeling that forever? |
| 1:09.8 | That kind of anxiety, viewing the world as unsafe, is often a symptom of trauma. |
| 1:16.1 | But Julie is conflicted calling it that. |
| 1:18.5 | It doesn't fit the definition of trauma that she knows. |
| 1:21.5 | There's no violence, no explosion, no assault. |
... |
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