Invisible Battles and Invisible Wounds: The Urgency of Compassion in Modern Society

May 8th is a very special day; it’s the birthday of one of the first Nobel Peace Prize laureates, Henry Dunant, whose story's irony completely touched my heart. He is the person behind the creation of the Red Cross Movement, an organization that helped millions of wounded people.

The idea for this organization came from a traumatic experience Henry had after seeing the aftermath of the Solferino battle in 1859. With many years of solidarity work, it was automatic for him to feel the pull to help the wounded that day, all the wounded, taking no sides. On this day, dunantism was already being created, which is a category of humanitarian organization that stands for organizations that follow the principles of humanity, impartiality, neutrality, and independence, like the Red Cross itself.

The irony that touched my heart is that, despite his huge legacy in helping the wounded, he died extremely wounded, from what we call today “Invisible Wounds,” wounds of the soul. Many organizations today, not the Red Cross, are starting to care for these kinds of wounds. The technical word for that in psychology is PTSD, or c-PTSD. Dunant died without the proper help to heal these wounds; his last words were “where have humanity gone?”.

As someone studying c-PTSD, who have dealt with this issue myself, I felt great empathy for that. And it put me in a lot of reflection on how our society, more than a hundred years later, still did not open its eyes completely to see that we live in a global aftermath of wounded people, and this is causing tragedies. So much violence comes from those unhealed wounds, like those kids and teenagers that shoot in school or hit other people in the streets for “no reason”; those are clear symptoms of inter-generational unhealed invisible wounds.

My god, we are such a creative species, with solutions for so many things that are not even important; can’t we start to think of systematic collective actions to take responsibility for this systemic problem? For how long are we going to keep ignoring the wounds of the heart and soul as a collective problem and not a personal problem? Human beings are wired for connection and places like Europe, Luxembourg, many other countries, are living a pandemic of loneliness; what happened to us? What will be necessary for us to warm our hearts again and be more kind to ourselves and others, to listen to our emotions, to take others’ emotions seriously as well?

Dunant died with depression and some paranoia symptoms, and when you read his story, you see so many pieces of evidence of a lack of empathy from the ones who should have stood by his side and did not; the paranoia was not out of the blue. Henry is not here anymore in his body, but his soul continues living among us, in the organizations he inspired and through the people who work for them and the ones who were helped by them. We can still heal this living soul and honor him by starting to be creative and open-hearted to give more proper attention and solutions to address this systemic crisis of invisible wounds. Let’s be creative, either in small gestures in daily life or, as organizations, thinking about how collective solutions can be created for us to have a more empathetic society that does not step on each other’s “heart” as if it were a secondary issue. Let’s become a society of love, not war, as we desire for us and our future generations.

Henry Dunant's life serves as a poignant reminder of the importance of empathy in our world. It prompts us to ask ourselves: where do we stand in terms of empathy? Have we lost sight of the struggles of others in our pursuit of progress and success? As we celebrate his legacy and the invaluable work of the Red Cross, Red Crescent and Red Crystal, let's also take a moment to reflect on how we can cultivate empathy and compassion in our communities. How can we effectively do this, and transform things from the inside out? Should we also count with the creation of a Red Heart or a White Cross to deal with the wounds where blood is not visible? How to make this revolution starting with ourselves?

In memory of Henry Dunant and all of those who suffered with c-ptsd and didn't have the proper care.

Disclaimer:

This article was created in collaboration with?ChatGPT, an AI language model developed by OpenAI, with thoughtful input and oversight from a human author. The content reflects a partnership between artificial intelligence and human creativity, ensuring a balance of accuracy, ethical considerations, and a human touch. While every effort has been made to provide reliable information, readers are encouraged to explore and verify additional sources as needed.

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