I bolted upright in bed, my heart racing, eyes wild and bewildered as I tried to make sense of what was happening. I frantically felt the space in the bed next to me as I tried to locate the presence of my husband, all the while attempting to figure out if I was still dreaming or this was really happening. A siren was blaring in repetition, its volume and urgency filling every crevice of the apartment and making rational thoughts almost an impossibility. My mind registered the lights on in the kitchen and bathroom, signaling the presence of Phillip before he emerged from the latter looking as shocked as I was feeling.
“What do we do?” I was stood up now, moving about the space but with no direction, like a pin ball getting thrown from wall to wall in a machine.
“We need to get out!” Philip was scrambling to gather clothes and a couple of essentials. I began to kick myself into gear and opened the door to the walk-in closet which our one-year-old had commandeered as his bedroom. Freedom was somehow still managing to peacefully sleep, even as the alarms continued to thunder through the apartment building. I gathered our boy into my arms, throwing coats onto us both, grabbed my handbag and headed for the door. The noise was deafening as we made our way outside where other bewildered and rather grumpy looking tenants were gathered in social distanced array across the street. I held Freedom’s head close to mine, an attempt to protect him from a potentially frightening experience, as well as trying to calm my own shattered nerves. Amazingly the child did not cry once but seemed to embrace the whole experience as a midnight adventure which he could later tell his toys about.
As it turned out, the whole thing ended up being a false alarm - the result of a restaurant’s fire alarm being accidentally set off - and we were soon allowed to return back indoors and resettle for the rest of the night. Normally events like this don’t seem to phase me too much, in fact my response is often similar to that of Freedom’s - reveling in the excitement and looking forward to having an ‘out-of-the-ordinary’ story to tell later. This time, however, I found myself on edge and unable to calm down. The very hairs on my skin felt like they were stood on end, my whole body tingling and set to alert. I forced myself to go back to sleep once again, an inner monologue working to assure me that I would feel normal in the morning.
This reaction to an emergency situation was not a usual one for me. I was taken aback when, for the next day or so, I found myself stricken with a continual anxiety. My body felt on high alert, constantly tingling with the expectation that something bad was about to happen. As I tried to make sense of this very visceral reaction I was having, my mind was drawn to the many stories of trauma I have been reading about recently.
When someone experiences an event that is deeply distressing or disturbing, it has the effect of creating a wound in the mind. An injury is caused as the person’s system goes into shock in an attempt to cope with the high stress of what is occurring. Some traumas can be almost momentary, our resilience doing wonders to quickly heal the cuts to our mind, or the intensity of the situation quickly flagged as a false alarm. When an experience goes beyond the boundaries of what would normally be classed as a ‘bump in the road’ or an ‘unfortunate incident’ though and moves into the category of ‘truly horrendous’, our mind and body experience a deep wounding. If untreated, this laceration can remain with us for a lifetime, even having the ability to be passed on to the generations that follow.
Now, my physical reaction to being woken up in the middle of the night by a fire alarm remained with me for about 24 hours before my system fully recalibrated and returned to a state of normalcy. It was not a serious trauma; there was no real threat. However the experience drew my attention to how many people live in a constant state of high alert. Fear abiding just below the epidermis as the threat of danger is a daily reality in their world, whilst living in their skin.
In writing this, I am all too aware of the privilege involved in acknowledging this feeling, essentially from the sidelines, gained from a one-off experience that really only stemmed from having my sense of security rudely shaken. I happen to have been born into skin which affords me the luxury of never having to think about how I need to act around law enforcement, or that one wrong word or look could cost me my life if perceived as a threat. I live in a system where I am of the dominant caste and have therefore never questioned that I would have a life full of opportunity and endless open doors. Experiences of trauma that I have endured were as a result of my gender and not the hue of my skin, they were received in my lifetime rather than being handed to me through my bloodline.
Racial trauma exists in the very bloodlines of America, passed from one generation to the next as we continue to attempt to move forward without fully acknowledging the gaping wounds of the past. Whole communities live out their days on high alert, their skin working as sensors, taut and tingling, ready to hit flight at the first hint of danger. This is no way to really live. This is no way to love one another. This is no future to hand our children of tomorrow.
Choosing to look at the wounds, stopping to clean them out, bending to stitch the skin together again is not easy work. It requires uncomfortability and sacrifice. It requires the cost of our time, our privilege, and a relinquishing of power. But it is NECESSARY in order to allow rest to come to those who built this country, in order for shalom to truly find its home.
For more helpful information regarding racial trauma and how to receive help, please check out these resources:
Mental Health America (resource site)
Healing Racial Trauma: the Road to Resilience (book)
Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents (book)
Identifying and Addressing Racial Trauma in Counseling (article)
Dr. Barbara Shabazz (psychologist and life coach)
