On the featured picture: The Class of 76 of my High School. I’m in there, too. Almost invisible in the background.
I grew up with Peter Gabriel’s towering work, whether in “Genesis”, or with Gabriel’s later solo phases of artistic development. One of my all-time favourites songs is “Signal To Noise”. Here are the lyrics:
“You know the way that things go
When what you fight for starts to fall
And in that fuzzy picture
The writing stands out on the wall
So clearly on the wall
Send out the signals, deep and loud
And in this place can you reassure me
With a touch, a smile while the cradle’s burning
All the while the world is turning to noise
Oh, the more that it’s surrounding us
The more that it destroys
Turn up the signal
Wipe out the noise
Send out the signals, deep and loud
Man, I’m losing sound and sight
Of all those who can tell me wrong from right
When all things beautiful and bright sink in the night
Yet there’s still there’s something in my heart
That can find a way to make a start
To turn up the signal
Wipe out the noise
Wipe out the noise
Wipe out the noise
You know that’s it
You know that’s it
You know that’s it
Receive and transmit
Receive and transmit
Receive and transmit
No receive and transmit
No receive
Receive and transmit
Receive and transmit
Receive and transmit
Receive and transmit”
Let the lyrics sink in first and consider whether, and how, you relate. Then take in the soundscape of the song. Here is a reference to the epic musical performance in it’s original version: Peter Gabriel – Signal To Noise – 2003 Original via Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zM7QaPiwqE. And here a live version featuring the combination of Gabriel’s rock band, combined with the great Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan surrounded by his fellow performers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5KcEy3y23w. Consider how you feel, against your own memories of the time growing up with his music. Or against the background of your memories of the early 2000’s. Or against your cultural positions or affinities. Or against your current mood, whether you are depressed and feeling hopeless, or feeling hopeful. Or not knowing how you are feeling at all.
In all cases you will come to own specific contexts of how you relate to the lyrics, the soundscape, and the combination of a rock ballad with arabic tunes and sounds, and visuals.
As always on my blog, I am after something like common patterns. In this case, I am trying to wrap my mind around an impression which I have: That there is a rapidly increasing and all-pervasive desire of shutting down which I come across in many personal conversations, and which I suspect, with some personal heuristical indication, appears to be increasingly endemic at least in those societal contexts in which I live and move around.
Since a very long time, I am no stranger to feelings as they are expressed in these lines, the way I personally relate to them. This song is part of a playlist on my devices which I continue to listen to all over again, since many years. Like with any piece of art, my emotional relationship to it is based on the context of my personal memories, the way I grew up, the way I relate to the iconic music of my defining young years, the Rock music of the late Sixties and early Seventies which later made me select which performers I would follow, and what kind of new music I would let in, and where I simply wasn’t interested at all, and how I come back to my defining Classic Rock music as I grow older. Yes, of course, this is how nostalgic feelings develop, too. A friend for many years, who is considerably younger than I am, shares some favorite music with me every day during these weeks advancing the Christmas Holidays. That music is so different, and I relate so differently.
But I am also putting this masterpiece into my personal and professional context of history and experiences which include many severely traumatising events which I have had to process, and continue to do so. I do know a great many people who struggle with that they have gotten stuck in this trauma process, so I will offer an important word of optimism from the outset on. Because if you read the lyrics, they end with an impression that there is no way forward. Yet, there is one. It is a long and arduous process, but a promising one, always requiring outside help. I do strongly recommend professional help being part of it. I am not suffering from my trauma past. Not any longer. As far as I can tell. My processing work continues. But there is hope, and there is a way. I have integrated my past, welcome it, do not regret it, am not stuck in it. But I relate very much to the feeling of utter hopelessness which I listen to in conversations with an increasing amount of people who appear to have been on a different trajectory of lifetime developments than I have been and who seemed to have led lifes with much less trauma-induced self-harming behavior than I have. Until relatively recently that is.
And I feel much has begun with the Covid-19 pandemic.
In most simple terms, trauma is a consequence of harmful events. A trauma literally is a wound. Trauma is not the triggering event, but its consequence. Physical wounds, emotional wounds, cognitive wounds, spiritual wounds. That is why medical doctors describe wounds using the word “trauma”, like in the case of “concussion trauma”. In the very same way events create wounds in the brain.
The body-brain-relationship on cognitive level includes that physical wounds, trauma in the body, creates mirroring wounds in the neurophysiological setup of the brain. The brain reflects the sensoric input through constant neuronal change. Like every part of our body, for example, has a mirroring section in the neuronal setup of our brains, changes to this body, even temporary changes like through wounds will be reflected in the neuronal setup of our brains, and in a way that you can see on an MRI scanner or using other devices.
But it also goes the other way round. Not only that physical injuries create their mirror-representations in the brain, cognitive injuries will also become visible in the body. Traumatising events can leave the body seemingly unharmed, but not the mind, and then as a consequence of the complex reaction to trauma, the wound in the mind becomes visible on the “outside”, through behavior, or also through somatic consequences. We even name them “psychosomatic”. Think headaches, ulcer, strokes, cardiac arrests, and myriads of other forms of the mind-body-interrelationship which constitutes us. If I go any deeper, I will already have to be selective in describing the many interrelated consequences of trauma. If you think deeply, you will recognize that any border between “body” and “mind” is artificial. It literally is All One.
That is why it is so wrong, and so dangerous, to perhaps minimize, or belittle, psychosomatic illnesses. Like as if “just being stronger” would be a remedy. Using the same “logic”, less educated people will belittle traumatisation as a “desease of the weak”. Nothing could be more wrong.
Harmful events creating trauma can be “one-of-a-kind” but severe. Or cumulative by constant, but may be with less severe events forming a chain. Or in its most extreme forms, trauma can be the consequence of a repetition of severe events, each of which in itself would already constitute heavy traumatization but where the repetition creates devastating results. Like as if you would use a hammer and constantly bang on the concussion which you already got from the first time when the hammer hit your hand incidentially, and not the nail which your hand was holding against the wood.
You would never do that, would you? Hammering on the same wound all over again which you received in the first place? Pretty unheard of? Not really. Think of cases of severe mental illness, where people can’t keep themselves from banging their head against a wall, for example. Or take self-abusive sexual behavior re-enacting severe trauma from earlier abuse. The Internet is chock-full with videos of it, simple Google-searches show. In addition, many browser histories will be filled with such searches.
The conduit especially visible in the last example which I use in the previous paragraph is: In cases of mental trauma the mind often goes into re-enactment-mode, meaning that people with an initial trauma for example in early childhood will develop a life pattern of seeking situations in which they unknowingly or knowingly expose themselves to trauma, over and over again. I only began to understand that at the age of 55 years. I was not aware of this pattern, and it took quite a while until I reached an initial position from which I began to appreciate the consequences of my patterns on a cognitive level. That includes, importantly, people whose depression is masked to the extent that they even don’t know they suffer from it.
So, the first half if my interpretation of that song is one in which Peter Gabriel expresses the feeling that hope is drowning, then he expresses a glimpse of hope: Man, I’m losing sound and sight Of all those who can tell me wrong from right When all things beautiful and bright sink in the night Yet there’s still there’s something in my heart That can find a way to make a start.
Was I too early offering a glimpse of hope for instances in which all things bright seem to disappear, when even pain relief doesn’t work any longer? Because Gabriel’s lyrics include that, towards the end, hope seems to disappear. “No receive“. The signal seems to be lost, drowned in the noise of things falling apart. People who do not have personal experience with depression will have a hard time to even relate on a cognitive level.
Without a deeper investigation, my feeling is that an increasing number of people is experiencing what Peter Gabriel is expressing. A word of academic caution: Even if I can give testimony that in the overwhelming number of conversations which I have, people confirm that they feel numb, angry, depressed, helpless, just wanting to shut off communication and retreating to a beautiful peaceful place, it still is nothing else than my selective subjective experience.
But I travel a lot, I talk with friends, colleagues, and random people in societies all over the world. What I hear is often the same: It feels like a tendency to increased and enduring depressed feelings. Conversations communicate a struggle with hopelessness, feeling overhwelmed, feeling helpless, feeling exasperation and desperation. And there is anger, all over these conversations. Sometimes visible. Sometimes repressed and masked. Just listen long enough and deeply, you will see the repressed hidden anger.
It is not that I’m stuck in something myself and therefore selectively only talk to people who feel “like me”. My recovery from trauma and it’s life-long consequences, including systematic re-enactment of trauma by exposing myself to more of it, it is based on experiential wisdom which is confirmed by cutting edge science, whether psychology, psychotherapy, trauma-treatment, or the vast knowledge coming from neuroscience. It includes that I always remind myself to remember the codeword H.A.L.T.: Never get too Hungry, Angry, Lonely, or Tired.
In this context, emphasis on “angry”, and on “lonely”.
Living my time- and science-tested recovery way-of-life I work very hard on practicing positive attitudes and principles of living. I deeply know what anger, resentment, fear, and the feeling of helplessness can do and to which dark places it can get lead.
Do people who have never had to recognize severe trauma know how much they have been traumatized? The word “traumatised” may often be used in superficial conversations, without a deeper understanding. It mainstreamed into conversations, before, during, and after the Covid-19-pandemic. Does the intellectual knowledge of the fact that one received severe trauma help, on deeper levels? My personal experience is confirmed by science: No, intellectual knowledge does not necessarily help. A typical response is: “I can fix it myself. I just have to change the circumstances. I don’t have to change myself. I’ll just fix it”. Of course this will prove wrong with no exception. The path from intellectual acknowledgement of own traumatisation towards a deeper understanding creating the willingness to seek and to receive help, it usually is a long-winded path with many injuries to oneself and to loved ones until one is able to recognize this fact. Until then, even those who try to be helpful will stand in the way when they will not submit to the victim’s expectation to be helped in fixing the environment, instead of helping to address the real roots of what individuals have to change within themselves, in order to embark on a path of healing. Witnessing the path down to rock bottom, not being able to help someone to avoid it, especially in the case of people one loves dearly, it can be heartbreaking. Being pushed aside as a consequence of the paranoid level of self-protection which has arisen in a traumatised person using every survival strategy under the sun in order to find relief from a pain too big to be acknowledged by oneself, it is a tough experience. Giving in, meeting the expectations of a suffering trauma survivor to stay stuck, or to believe that it is the circumstances, and not oneself who has to change, it moves any supporting person from the side of solutions to the side of problems. It is called co-dependence.
How many of us have experienced radical trauma during the pandemic? Each of us has own memories which we have neatly put into a mental closet. How many of us remember the traumatic isolation? Sure, I also know people who will report that they enjoyed the solitude. But many suffered from a deprivation of social contacts on an unprecedented level. Others suffered from trauma through the stress which Covid-19 brought into their private lifes, locking them up in one place, amplifying the catastrophic way of interaction in unhealthy relationships and abusive situations with no means to escape. Domestic violence increased. Cases of suicide and attempted suicide increased. The impact on children during a period of their lifes requiring social contact to peers has been catastrophic, and there is ample scientific research on this, whilst long-term impact studies necessarily are only in their infancy. Our lifes only started to normalize less than two years ago. Few people remind us of these times by still wearing masks in public. It seems like we have muted our traumatic memories to the maximum. For now. Just think how societies would react if a new serious wave of a pandemic would lead to a medical recommendation to repeat the containment measures which we applied from 2020 onwards. Literally everyone whom I present with this hypothetical scenario responds with “Unthinkable”.
Now, the next conduit: Remember how we witnessed the escalative proliferation of conspiracy theories at the same time, and fueled by the pandemic, and with some politicians and a bunch of crazy people pouring gasoline on the wildfire?
Talking about the meaninglessness of “truth” has become the new normal. Who would have not said you’re crazy if one would have described today’s reality to you just, say, less than ten years ago? Since 2014, this blog alone carries many examples of developments which always “upped the ante”. Until now with no peak in sight. We live in societies in which the deterioration of mannered attitude and bi-partisan discussion culture progressed into something where people will roll their eyes and say “Again? Please give me a break!” Or where people have taken sides and can’t talk to the other side any longer. Or where they have a hard time even acknowledging that the other side has a point, or can at least sense the shoes the other side is wearing.
Which is a another pointer towards a human attitude which also is a typical consequence of trauma reflected in earlier paragraphs of this writing: Denial.
Another one is Anger. Anger in it’s repressed forms as a consequence of trauma. Anger as a strong emotion used for control and manipulation. Anger as one of the key emotions exploited in social media and through algorhythms on basis of Artificial Intelligence. Remember what I wrote about H.A.L.T.?
Cypher: You know, I know this steak doesn’t exist. I know that when I put it in my mouth, the Matrix is telling my brain that it is juicy and delicious. After nine years, you know what I realize?
[Takes a bite of steak]
Cypher: Ignorance is bliss.
Cypher in the iconic movie “The Matrix” about the Grace of Ignorance
Can anyone relate to pure figures of suffering?
The scene with Cypher as quoted above is the most incredible way how to bite into a piece of juicy steak I have ever seen in any movie. Watch it.
Remember the statistics and figures with daily, sometimes hourly global development of how the Covid-19-virus rampaged through the World? The figures of infections, the figures of infection-related deaths, and then a year later on the figures of vaccinations, and how we struggled to see a relationship between vaccinations and a downward trend in infection-related deaths? Remember the denial, and how our societies were ripped into vaccination-supporters and vaccination-deniers, and how militant this discussion was, partly? How the fact whether someone was supporting or refusing vaccinations ripped through families? I remember a conversation where someone in my family spoke about a vaccination-denier who got severely sick, almost dying, from Covid-19. I could hear a subdued element of “Schadenfreude”. And remember how we needed to exemplify suffering through singling out individual stories of suffering in order to grasp the extent of what was happening, on a massive, global scale?
That was 2020 and 2021. Remember the numbers blowing your mind related to the suffering of people in Afghanistan after the implosion of all international activities there in 2021? An implosion and withdrawal which came, at least for many, without clear signs. And in any case, notwithstanding how premeditated it was, in its execution it happened fast, not in steps allowing to adjust policy of withdrawal. And then there was the highly unanticipated progress of the Taliban, taking over large swaths of Afghanistan, and then Kabul, much to their own surprise even. Do you remember the figures of casualties on the side of civilians? Or do you, more than that, remember the pictures from Kabul airport, and the individual stories of people. Do you remember the stories of Afghan women? How often do you read about the suffering of Afghan women, these days? Are you aware of the refusal of the Taleban, but not only them, related to the figures, and the facts of human rights violations? Have you been exposed to stories of denial, like it was the case with Covid-19? Stories of distortion and manipulation of facts, and conspiracy theories, and blaming the respective other side, singling out and protecting own decisions in a collaborative catastrophy with many factors needed to be taken into account, whilst people were looking for simple answers to yet another shocking and traumatising chain of events?
That was 2020 and 2021. Remember the numbers blowing your mind, of the suffering of people in the Ukraine, following the ongoing onslaught and the suffering through displacement, deportation of children, forced adoption, the war crimes and the crimes against humanity in occupied territory of the Ukraine, in 2022, whilst people in late 2021 would still dispute the intentions of an autocratic leader, Vladimir Putin? Who was helped in his disinformation campaign not only by denial and wishful thinking on the side of the West, but also through people like Nr 45 in the U.S., who until today sings songs of praise related to him, and to the dictatorial killer in North Korea, and an autocratic leader in China? Do you remember the statistics, and how we needed to create empathy which can not be reflected in numbers, by flooding the news with individual stories of suffering, and heroism, of the Ukrainian people?
Were you, at that time in 2022, still able to pay attention to Afghanistan? Were you, by then, able to also take in the sheer numbers of suffering of people in other parts of the World, less relevant to your own local and regional neighourhood? Like in Africa, just as an example?
That was 2020 and 2021 and 2022. What does the figure “1.200” do to you, on a level of empathic relating to suffering, when Hamas unleashed unimaginable terror, atrocities, murder, maiming, raping, mutilating Isaeli citizens October 07, 2023? The international news were only able to create understanding through individual stories, bordering, sometimes overstepping the limits of what can be put into press and TV by responsible media. Very much unlike the video streaming and glorification undertaken by Hamas. Almost immediately, despite the fact that I am almost not present at all on social media, I received messages from friends who had friends in Israel who, in their outrage and unimaginable pain even justified thinking about retaliation, and corporate responsibility of the Palestinian people. Reasonable words of caution against such holding a people responsible on a collective level drowned in the anger, fury, despair, pain. And in a specific German context which is visible in previous articles on this blog, it also began to deeply affect the German society, both related to how we deal with our Holocaust past and our collective responsibility to protect the Israeli State and its citizens, and how we experienced the consequences within our own multi-cultural setup which includes citizens and residents and temporary residents and people granted asylum who live in Germany, constituting parts of the German society.
What does the figure “18.000” do to you, related to the rough and daily increasing estimation of death tolls of Palestinian civilians? Except, that the collective figure of “1.200” and “18.000” defies any reference model which you had from previous news, where the decrying of massive suffering was already stressing your tolerance. Again, you are confronted with unimaginable suffering as reported in individual stories which are needed in any reporting, in order to make you being able to relate on an empathy level. Do you belong to those who have already forgotten the Covid-19-casualties and the suffering in Afghanistan and who barely think about the numbers as we digested them from the Ukraine just a year earlier?
In this section of my long writing, I want to make the point how deeply this collective development, taken together, has been traumatising us on a societal level. Pandemic, Afghanistan, Ukraine, Israel and Palestine, I often hear “What will come next?”. Almost no capacity left for appreciating suffering in other parts of the World. We take this in within an onslaught of news which still includes more, including climate change and natural catastrophes, including worrying political developments. And each of these news stories scare the hell out of us.
And please remember what I wrote earlier: Brains are highly social organs, and in addition to what trauma on an individual level does to us on a neurophysiological level, the same is true when we mourn the loss of a relative, or a loved one, or experience heart-break. And the same is true with our societal connections.
Each of the developments above has led to individual and societal traumatisation on a level which I have not witnessed in my personal lifetime, in this life. Can’t remember what happened in my previous lifes. Maybe I am blessed.
Leading to my final part of dealing with typical reactions to trauma, beyond being wounded, becoming numb, becoming angry, entering into denial: Another important effect of trauma, because of the way the survival mechanisms in our brains work, is shutting down.
This, I believe, I personally witness more recently, and especially since October 07, 2023. Remember the following lines from Peter Gabriel’s song: ” Man, I’m losing sound and sight Of all those who can tell me wrong from right When all things beautiful and bright sink in the night“.
I feel we are ripped into pieces because we loose orientation. We can not compare 1.200 and 18.000, since every single life is invaluable. Where is the guidance on a question like “How many civilian casualties compose a violation of the responsibility of a Party to a War to protect the civilian population?” How do we stomach numbers according to which more than 70% of the Palestinian population are internally displaced, mostly having no shelter, no food, no water, at the brink of starvation, with almost no medical provisions?
In many discussions which I am part of, I can feel how this rips us into pieces. Not only in a specific German context. You can read about it in great detail and masterfully written in this essay in the “New Yorker“, which was sent to me by my nephew (the one who wrote a response to my blog article). Please, if you can, follow the link. But this rupture includes all of us, including the United Nations, for example. Please, also read the OpEd by Michelle Nunn, Tjada D’Oyen McKenna, Jan Egeland, Abby Maxman, Jeremy Konyndyk and Janti Soeripto, titled “Why the U.S. Must Change Course on Gaza Today“.
Ms. Nunn is president and chief executive of CARE USA. Ms. McKenna is chief executive of Mercy Corps. Mr. Egeland is secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council. Ms. Maxman is president and chief executive of Oxfam America. Mr. Konyndyk is president of Refugees International. Ms. Soeripto is president and chief executive of Save the Children U.S. – How much higher can you get in the international humanitarian community?
This OpEd is heartbreaking in it’s own right. Because it struggles with some of the questions which are part of this long essay of mine.
I need to conclude on “Shutting Down”, being part of my title for this blog entry, too: I am increasingly confronted with statements like “I can’t bear this any more”, or “I don’t want to hear about it any more”, or “I want to leave to an island where I can just live a simple life, leaving all this behind”.
I can understand this reaction.
I also note reactions like regressing into familiar local contexts. In these cases people shut their eyes and ears, because they can’t bear the emotional pain any longer, and regress into a combination of denial, and self-serving domestic points. Like, “See, I understand all this, but is anyone talking about what is happening in my neighborhood?”.
I also can understand this, though I am fiercely calling for remaining compassionate and understanding for a global interconnection of events. No domestic problem can be solved without taking the global interconnection into account.
Finally, I note denial, regression, fake news, conspiracy theories, and radicalisation as a pattern which emerges also from the desire to find simplified answers to seemingly intractable problems. This is mixed with pure selfishness, egotism, and malice.
Whilst I appreciate the mechanics behind it, I can not even begin to understand this, nor tolerate it. Also this extremism, on the left and the right, narrowing the focus of observing problems to the point of almost becoming deaf and blind for anything outside the own area of interest, it both is a consequence of the long story on trauma which I have written down here, and at the same time it acts like an escalating agent. It puts gasoline on the wildfire which has become a global storm.
That is why shutting down must be fought with all individual and collective means. Without empathy, compassion, and the attempt to lovingly understand and to support collective values, we are literally doomed.
Stefan Feller 
Pingback: Empathy – And the sharp side of means protecting it | Stefan Feller