It feels like the world has become too heavy to bear and we have no control over our future. Whether we like it or not the war in the middle east is affecting us all, regardless of our location, race, political affiliation or religious beliefs.
As neuro-divergents and/or those who have suffered trauma growing up, or as an adult, we become hyper-vigilant. We are visual thinkers and make movies in our heads about every possible scenario.
We lose perspective
In our twenty years together, I have seen Dave cry perhaps three times, yet Dave is a super sensitive human being. Growing up, boys did not cry. As men, they dealt with their pain by burying it deeply and lashing out when they could no longer pretend.
The other day Dave was reading me a story (it could have been AI generated), about a young man on an airplane being deployed to a war zone for the first time. Let’s call him Joe. Joe was probably not even twenty years old. His uniform was ironed and he sat stoically in his seat as he was being flown to a place which would change his life forever.
The flight attendant announced him as a very special passenger and encouraged other passengers to write him a note of encouragement.
Dave was reading these notes to me and becoming increasingly distressed. He burst into tears and sobbed.
Dave had done his compulsory military service in the early 1970’s. His first career was as a hard news photo-journalist covering riots in South Africa, Mugabe coming to power in 1980 in Zimbabwe, suicides and many other traumatic events.
All it took for him to finally break and acknowledge his trauma was a story about a young man going off to war and the reactions of his fellow passengers sharing their experiences of sending their own children to war not knowing if they would come home.
How do we get through each day?
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