"When I was 20, I met a man. In the first 5 minutes of talking with him, I learned that he was a veteran of World War II, and had been a prisoner of war held by the Nazis. Everyone who knew him knew the story within 5 minutes of meeting him. He defined himself by that one event in his life, 40 years later.

You can choose to define yourself by one event in your life, or you can choose to reframe your life."

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"One event," huh? Buddy, you've got a LOT of nerve.

BLECH.

(As for me, the sooner I know I am in the presence of someone who may indeed be a true hero, the better I like it. It matters, TO ME.)

Oh God, thank you. I completely agree with your insights.

I don't even know what to say about the comments other teachers have made to you -- and two of them, no less! (Where do these people come from, anyway? And why are they all the same?) I'm speechless.

How wonderful that your students have you. How easy it would have been (a change in work schedule, a time conflict with a required class) for them to have missed out.

that's a really smart comment. You don't "get over" some things even if you do learn to carry on with certain aspects of your life. Barring amnesia...I used to work with older people who could and would still cry when they remembered emotional events from decades before. Telling trauma victims to get over it is similar to saying to someone who is in extreme anxiety to "calm down." It tends to exacerbate the symptoms.

We live in a society where people seem to expect to live trauma-free lives or to get over every tragedy on a socially acceptable time scale. This will only make it harder for those coming back from war and combat zones to integrate their experiences with life at home. In some of my writing classes writers would write stories based on their own experiences with incest or rape or prostitution, and in my writing program no less than two teachers advised to steer away from such stories because "it's been done."

The one thing about some poorer countries is that whole communities experience tragedy together and so they can support one another through painful times. They don't expect pain free, anestetized lives. In this privileged country, people who are in pain too often suffer alone, and go through all the "why me" questions that they wouldn't have to if we just realized that suffering is not outside of normal for most humans on this planet.

That's so sad about your friends.

You verbalized exactly what I am thinking of, still working on. Thank you dear, and keep on!

Last Tuesday, following the announcement of the death of Robert McNamara, Bob Herbert of the New York Times wrote the following op-ed piece:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/07/opinion/07herbert.html?_r=1

Here are a few excerpts:

"That's who was shipped off to Vietnam in droves -- youngsters 18, 19, 20 and 21. Many, of course, would die there, and many others would come back forever scarred. . . . Many would end up weeping on the battlefield, crying for their moms with their dying breaths. Or trembling uncontrollably as they watched buddies, covered in filth, bleed to death before their eyes -- sometimes in their arms. . . . My sister's boyfriend got shot. A very close friend of mine came back from Vietnam so messed up psychologically that he killed his wife and himself. The hardest lesson for people in power to accept is that wars are unrelentingly hideous enterprises, that they butcher people without mercy and therefore should be undertaken only when absolutely necessary. . . . The obscenity of war is lost on most Americans, . . . ."

Does anyone else see a contradiction between the usual advice we give to people who are suffering -- that they can choose how to react to what has happened to them, that they can reframe their personal narrative, or better yet, "reinvent" themselves (or better still, "rebrand themselves"), and so forth -- and what Herbert says here?

I wonder whether part of the reason we go to war so easily is that we have been conditioned to believe a set of cruel and repugnant lies, which ultimately lead to blaming the victim for his own fate. I mean, if any tragedy is something you can get over using will power, group therapy, and a positive outlook, I guess it's not that big of a deal after all. ("Come on, get a grip." "No one wants your drama.")

I'm not saying people can't overcome their pain. I agree they can. I agree that as long as a person is alive, they have no choice but to try, and try. My point is that this sort of trauma is a VERY big deal, overcoming it is very difficult, and that those who do overcome it have made a tremendous effort which has taken them well beyond the ordinary experience of most people in the United States. Until people start grasping that, and respecting it, all they will be doing is causing more pain to those who have had quite enough.

And if you're inclined to think it's all so easy . . . maybe that is part of the reason we are at war. Yet again.

This is a very cruel society. When I read some of this stuff, then I realize why (something as mundane as) losing their jobs has driven several of my friends to contemplate suicide.

That's half the challenge of living - communicating your story to those who cannot possibly understand it. The other half is trying to understand others' lives.

You lost both parents at 16. I lost my father at 9. I envy you the 9 years you had with both parents that I didn't.

When my mother remarried, I was 19 years old. At the reception, the minister, a stranger, approached me, and without preamble, stated, "So, I hear you lost your father at a tough age."

Life's full of idiots without empathy. Accept it, and detach from them when you encounter them. They're not important, and they have no more control over you than you allow.

Trust me - there are people of quality out there, too.

When I was 20, I met a man. In the first 5 minutes of talking with him, I learned that he was a veteran of World War II, and had been a prisoner of war held by the Nazis. Everyone who knew him knew the story within 5 minutes of meeting him. He defined himself by that one event in his life, 40 years later.

You can choose to define yourself by one event in your life, or you can choose to reframe your life. How soon after meeting them have you told the men who disappointed you that you were orphaned at 16? You don't have to tell them anything about it at all, or you can lie, or you can brush it off with the comment, "My parents aren't living," and steer the conversation to another topic.

What do you think? Can you start a new habit to break an old one? Can you redefine yourself, without self-imposed limits? Courage is not a lack of fear - it's persevering in spite of your fear. It gets easier with practice.