Trauma - The toxic time machine.
Trauma is a toxic time machine. It can take us back to the moment of the trauma, over and over again, in our thoughts, feelings, and bodily sensations. An isolating and debilitating experience, which can feel like there is no coming back from
Before I became a Counsellor, I fostered aspirations of being a photographer. I would regularly get on the train and visit my hometown of Manchester to spend hours walking the streets, photographing people and places, and developing (no pun intended) my skills as a street photographer.
One of the most well-used phrases in photography is' the decisive moment', a term used to describe the instant when all the elements of a scene come together to create a perfect photograph.
This moment is often fleeting and can be challenging to capture, but it can create a truly iconic image when it is.
On a cold October day in 1999, I captured a decisive moment. However, it was not in the form of a picture. It was in an interaction with a person I had photographed.
I was walking outside Victoria railway station in Manchester when I saw a man sitting at a table outside a cafe. He was slightly older than me (he would have been in his late 50s), smartly dressed in a grey sports jacket with a distinguished look and a moustache to match.
I asked him if I could take a few pictures of him, and he happily obliged. I offered to buy him a coffee and soon sat at the table chatting.
In most conversations, the 'And what do you do' question appears', when asked. I replied I was ( at the time) a sales manager supplying photo products to retailers.
"And you?" I asked'
He looked away and said he used to be a soldier, was currently diagnosed with combat stress, and was now 'on the sick'.
He said, 'I am going away next week,' It's the fireworks, you see,' his voice tailed off, and I was sitting opposite a motionless man who looked like a statue, gazing into the middle distance. It was a decisive moment. I had unknowingly witnessed the perfect storm of disassociation and traumatic shutdown.
With the conversation grinding to a halt and time uncomfortably ticking away, I made excuses and left; as I looked back, I could still see him sitting rock still, staring into the middle distance.
With the benefit of hindsight, I now understand that the reference to 'going away' was that ex-servicemen and women sometimes go to retreats to avoid the sound of November 5th fireworks, which can trigger memories of battles fought long ago. Which for them, they struggle to forget.
I have seen this staring-into-the-middle-distance behaviour many times as a therapist. I can now see it for what it is: disassociation, the toxic time machine that transports people from the 'here and now.' to the past, where traumatic memories play like a video game on repeat with all the associated feelings, sights and sounds.
Clients sometimes become motionless, staring into the middle distance in what is sometimes referred to in military circles as the thousand-yard stare.
As a trauma-informed practitioner, I possess the skills and insights to gently guide clients from 'there and then' into the 'here and now', grounding them in a safe reality.
It also allows me to teach self-help techniques that can help arrest the process of disassociation.
Over the years, I have sometimes looked at the photograph of the man with the moustache and the smart grey sports jacket.
If there was a time machine, I could transport myself back to that cold October day in 1999, and perhaps, I could have gently brought him back into the here and now, from the there and then he was experiencing.
I hope he found respite, support and therapy so he could be finally able to say, for him, the war is over.
Rory Lees-Oakes July 2023
