Finding Missing Native American Women is Just the Start
I have long been interested in Native American culture and have spent some time focusing on how poorly we have treated what the Canadians aptly term the "First Nation people." (Don't ask who are the immigrants in the US; that's another topic for another day.) Recently, I spent some time at a university on an Indian Reservation and conducted a day-long workshop on the trauma that many Native American and other college students have experienced and continue to experience. I spent time with children as well, reading one of my trauma-sensitive books with them. My focus at all these events: strategies for responding to trauma's multi-layered symptomology.
A recent article in the New York Times (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/25/us/native-women-girls-missing.html) addressed the number of missing girls and women in Indian Nations in the US and the searches their families have conducted and continue to conduct to try to retrieve them. What is most poignant to me is the plea of some of the families of those whose missing loved ones were recovered: Help us; there is no strategy for how to help these girls/women when they are found and return.
In short, here's the problem: These survivors have experienced profound trauma and their families and communities are not trained to address the trauma symptomology.
Much of my time is spent writing, speaking, teaching and working on issues related to trauma, its symptomology and approaches for its remediation (it never disappears). I have been making the point, the importance of which often goes unrecognized, that it is not enough to be trauma aware or trauma informed. Knowing that someone experienced trauma is NOT enough.
Instead, we need to be trauma-responsive as well as trauma-sensitive. We need to do more than acknowledge that there were traumatic events. We need concrete implementable strategies to address these issues. Now. (There are many reasons for the "now" point including the epigenetic transmission of trauma.)
My primary focus has been on trauma students have experienced and how it affects their learning, their psycho-social development and their wellness short and longer term. I am teaching a continuing education course in a graduate school of social work on how to create trauma responsive institutions. I write children's books that are trauma-sensitive. I visit sites after a trauma to help them move forward in a trauma-responsive way. I meet with organizations to help them create a trauma responsive culture. I have a forthcoming book titled, aptly I think, Trauma Does Not Stop at the School Door (Teachers College Press June 2020).
What the NYTimes article reminded me of was the number of populations in addition to students who experience trauma and need to be in trauma responsive environments. It reminded me that we are not well trained to address trauma's aftermath. We do better with drills preparing for fires and earthquakes (and the value of those drills is debatable and they can be trauma triggers in and of themselves) than we are with dealing with the aftermath of trauma. The what come after is critical; it can't be overlooked.
I am reminded of a recent story of an individual who recovered from Ebola. It was a long and treacherous road back. But, once out of the hospital after months, the individual struggled to adjust to his life and it certainly was not his "old life." Re-entry was not part of the preparation and cure. We cured his illness but did not prepare him for the road ahead. We did not address, as we should have, how recovery would feel. Read the article. It is making a similar point to the ones I am making here. Recovery (whether being found or being cured) is not complete unless and until we recognize the psychic price we pay for trauma and then deal with its amelioration. See:
Think about it. Once an emergency has passed, who is there to help navigate the psychological impacts of trauma? In the context of natural disasters, the emergency workers are gone; the police are gone; the searchers have left. After a shooting, the police leave; the emergency teams pull out. The survivors are left too -- left to their own devices to deal with trauma and its powerful symptomology. And, with the plethora of trauma that exists, there are opportunities for re-triggering around every corner. There are not enough therapists, trained social workers and trained educators to make a dent really.
Consider this example. Suppose that a Native American woman is found alive by her family and they bring her back to their home. Now, apart from adjustments related to re-entry (and we are terrible generally at transitions), what happens to this survivor when "missing" posters appear in the places she frequents when the next Native American woman goes missing? Her trauma gets re-triggered and she lapses back into one of trauma's states (which are triphasic in my judgment: disregulation; isolation; over-regulation. Who is there to help and explain what is happening and how the symptomology can be addressed in the near and longer term?
Here's the good news part: we do have strategies for addressing trauma and its symptomology. They exist and many of them work. They work well. Here's the bad news: we do not have enough training so that individuals in positions of caregiving can provide these strategies.
The NYTimes story told several different stories: finding and then trying to recover. Finding someone missing is hard. Helping them recover is hard too, especially if the skills to do it and the focus on it is missing. So, we find the missing and then miss the ways we can help them. Missing: solutions have gone missing. We need to find them and use them. Now. What better time than January 2, 2020?
PS. This is an issue within the military and Veteran communities too. And, there's secondary and vicarious trauma as well.