Our Whole Nation Has PTSD

(Here is a blog I submitted to the Huffington Post on 11/18/09.  One of my favorites that never got published.  Any ideas why?)

Floods, wildfires, earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes, blizzards, nor’easterns, droughts.  Just a few of the natural disasters this nation has endured these past few years.  Is global warming real and has it contributed to these latest catastrophes?

On 9/11/02, two planes were flown into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in NYC, one struck the Pentagon in DC, and another headed for the White House crashed in a field in Pennsylvania after the brave passengers put up a fight with the al-Qaeda hijackers.  

Then we started two foreign wars in which we witnessed beheadings, suicide bombings, and IED attacks on our troops and recently an attack by an insider terrorist  on Army recruits at Fort Hood.  On Christmas day, 2009 a terrorist who boarded a plane in Nigeria detonated a home made bomb after the flight landed in Detroit.  Luckily it misfired and no one was hurt except the suspect.

Several “rogue nations” such as Iran and North Korea are developing nuclear weapons.  The Middle East is heating up.  The world is teetering on the edge.

In the last two decades, we have seen domestic terrorism in Oklahoma, high school students shooting their classmates in Columbine, a Washington DC sniper kill several civilians, a Virginia Tech college student going on a rampage, while countless disgruntled workers turned on their employers (creating the term “going postal”), and a seeming no end to violence and crime in our cities.

The most scary and violent program on television is the local news.  Murders, rapes, kidnappings, animal abuse, and robberies:  it’s just too depressing to watch.  And the sad thing is that it is real, not a fabricated plot.

Now as a nation we face a recession, high unemployment, a mortgage crisis, banks and automobile manufacturers failing, rising health costs, huge deficits, increased homelessness, and a divided nation as to how to solve our problems.

I believe we are collectively suffering from some form of PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder).  This affliction usually affects those who have experienced a life-threatening situation such as a war zone, a car accident, a plane crash, a physical attack or rape.  The VA Hospitals have long waiting lists of returning soldiers needing help for PTSD.  These are the extreme cases of the disorder.

But I also believe that to a lesser degree every one of us has a connection to the illness, if not personally afflicted, through our friends and family.

How many people do you know who have experienced a car accident, a life threatening disease, witnessed a crime, lost a son or daughter or sibling to war, had a family member that has committed suicide, or survived a natural disaster?  I know all of the above applies to me and my extended family.

Ironically, all of the above situations are also favorite subjects for our TV shows, movies, and books.  Why do we like to be frightened by our entertainment?  Why are horror films like “Friday the 13^th” and “Saw” so popular?  How is that the movie “2012” (that chronicles the end of the world due to solar flare-ups from the sun) is doing so well at the box office?  Aren’t movies supposed to be an escape from our stressful society?  More importantly, does art imitate life or does life imitate art?

I was recently shocked by my eight year old nephew when I asked him what he wanted to be when he grows up.  He said a “weapons builder.”  I couldn’t imagine where he got that idea, coming from a loving Christian family, then I remembered that he spends a lot of time on the computer.  Could it be the video games he plays? 

Come to think of it, that is what we Americans do best:  build weapons and sell them to the world.

Is the Bible right in that “whatsoever we sow, that we shall reap”?  Was President Eisenhower psychic when he warned about expanding the “military industrial complex”?  Are we as a nation conflicted internally because of the destruction and suffering we have contributed to around the globe?

How can we turn all this around?  Maybe we all need group therapy.  I also believe that change begins at home.  We can pressure our leaders, particularly our new President, to put an end to the wars, produce green jobs over weapons manufacturing, pass health care reform, bring back some form of gun control, and clean up the environment to prevent further climate change.  But they can’t do it alone.  We all have to do our part.

Many of our spiritual advisors suggest a personal moratorium on the evening news.  What is the sense of going around depressed all the time?  While we’re at it, how about a moratorium on scary, gory, or violent movies and TV shows?  Producers only produce what they think the public wants to see.  Also, how about a boycott of violent video games?

We need to change our collective consciousness to one of peace and compassion to replace conflict and stress.  It begins with us as individuals making a conscious decision to choose a different way of life, to reject the violence of the past and emphasize healing and reconciliation.

If someone is seriously afflicted with PTSD they should get professional help.  Meanwhile, the rest of us can find personal peace and comfort in our spiritual faith, our friends and family, and with our commonality rather than our differences.  As Michael Jackson so eloquently stated in his song, “Man in the Mirror”: “If you want to make the world a better place, take a look at yourself and make the change.”