Sikhi and Trauma and the area of PTSD are areas I am very passionate about exploring as I feel there are so few conversations that expand on this area. As we will discover below, the effects on our population are pervasive.
First let’s just get a brief quick background so we are on the same page. Trauma is an event that overwhelms our capacity to cope. It is “unbearable” and “intolerable”, as Dr. Bessel Van Der Kolk, the psychiatrist who helped to define the area of PTSD, tells us in his book “When the Body Keeps the Score.” Our classical examples are intimate partner violence, shooting, car crash, ICU stay, sexual abuse, physical abuse, psychological abuse, neglect, loss, violence, terrorism, war, natural disasters, etc. It is not the event itself that defines trauma. He tells us “We have learned that trauma is not just an event that took place sometime in the past; it is also the imprint left by that experience on the mind, brain and body.” Over time we have grown to recognize that trauma is also intergenerational from genocide, colonialism, slavery, and war and as the name implies, travels between generations. Trauma has many symptoms such as memory problems, loss of connection and faith, difficulty setting boundaries, emotional dysregulation, fight-flight-freeze reactions, depression, anxiety, nightmares, shame, guilt, self-blame, helplessness and more. We know that trauma also affects a person’s physical health and wellness as well.
Some people who experience trauma go on to get post-traumatic stress disorder. The Center for Addiction and Mental Health defines PTSD as “a natural emotional response to frightening or dangerous experiences that involve actual or threatened serious harm to oneself or others.” It comes with its own set of specific diagnostic criterion, some of which include re-experiencing the event, nightmares, hypervigilance, sleep problems, aggression, avoidance of reminders of the event, isolation, etc. This isn’t the only thing that happens in PTSD, it effects the entire body. In one of our past posts, we talked about how people who are triggered might have difficulty putting their thoughts and feelings into words, a phenomenon proven on MRI scans. For some people, PTSD might not have come from one event, it might have come from multiple traumas over time and is now an emerging term called complex ptsd. More than ever now, we know that PTSD is real and a whole-body phenomenon.
Just like any population, Sikhs also go through traumatic life events. We’ve talked in depth about intimate partner violence, sexual violence in Gurdwaras and self-help exploitation on this blog in the past. Our population has gone through multiple genocides and prolonged persecution from the beginnings of our religion, which has not ended even now. You might have grandparents traumatized from 47 and parents traumatized from 84. In fact there was a study done that showed a “likelihood of a high prevalence of PTSD and MDD [major depressive disorder’ in women within the Widow Colony” (UCSF). You may encounter friends, siblings, cousins, or partners and children who get ptsd in their lifetimes. As we have immigrated around the world we have also faced racism and have lost some of the tools that have traditionally allowed Sikhs to survive in the past. From my observations, the effects of trauma are quite widespread amongst our community, but have gone unrecognized and labelled as other social problems. For example, Uncle X gets irrationally angry and lashes out at his partner and children out of the blue. Nana Ji is emotionally numb and disconnected. Dhadha Ji tells heroic stories of what he has survived but cannot sleep at night. Your husband has an alcohol addiction. Your wife is really emotional on a whim and she doesn’t know why. Aunty is anxious and protective of her children. They say they love you, but they push you away. They’re too clingy. They works all the time and don’t come home. Are you starting to see people you know? SALDEF (Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund) recently did an excellent presentation on intergenerational trauma that gathered psychologists and survivors of 1984 to discuss how this effects our Sikhs community. They focused on British colonization, 1984, 9/11, and farmer protests as examples of traumas that continue to affect Sikhs today. One of the speakers cites the original work on intergenerational trauma done on children of holocaust survivors by Yael Danieli. In her work, Danieli identified patterns of adaptation styles that survivors developed like emotionally volatile, emotionally detached/intolerant of weakness, valuing identity/justice while focusing on success at all costs, and distancing from the experience and its effects. I found these themes to be particularly interesting as I saw her research after I came up with examples above from our community, but they align pretty within these categories.
Healing is possible. “A central belief of trauma-informed practice is that people can recover, and the approach is grounded in hope and the honouring of each individual’s resiliency” (Trauma informed practice guide BC). Some of the methods of healing involve doctors and counselling specific to PTSD (EMDR). These have their role and are important. There is also a role for Sikhi itself to help in our healing. We know from our history that shaheeds from our history weren’t just putting on a brave face but were at such a high spiritual avastha that their mind-body connection existed in such a way that they were able to bear great physical tortures while the mind was in its home, thir ghar. Remember we know that trauma is not defined by the event itself as we mentioned earlier. Most of us are still not yet at that spiritual avastha so a lot of our progress can be made from understanding akath katha and why we came here. Gurbani talks about depression and anxiety as coming from maya (thoughts), and that we can use the gurmantar to move out of maya and into sunn. Some of the methodologies we use in Sikhi are the same as used in western science like breathing/meditation and reshaping our thinking patterns (cognitive behavioural therapy) which are similar to simran (sas-sas, sas-gras, and rom-rom). These are known to activate the parasympathetic nervous system and to help a person move out of a fight-flight-freeze survival state. It also connects us with the universal Oneness and that can help people who struggle with a feeling of disconnection, isolation, and self-blame. Gurbani also educates us about Hukam and gives us a framework to reframe our thoughts about the events that happen to us and finding meaning in our lives in the present moment. Another example is that kirtan addresses an ability to express a variety of emotions through raags which can help us to take all of our various types of energy/emotion and put them somewhere. Post-traumatic growth is about returning feelings of gratitude for life, faith, strength, connection, trust, etc. It is about how we relate to ourselves and other people, our spiritual context, how we see the future and how we appreciate life. Especially when we are in supportive sangat it can give people a feeling that they are not alone and it is very important to promoting growth after trauma.
Supporting a loved one with their trauma is most helpful when done on an individual basis by having a conversation about it, but there are some general principles that can be applied. We need to be aware that re-traumatization can occur when people don’t feel like they have a choice, decisions are made without including them, when they don’t feel seen or heard, when their trust is broken, and when they aren’t safe to express their emotions. At the very least we shouldn’t be going around the world re-traumatizing people. Taking a triggered person and telling them to use the part of their brain to rationalize or “control their emotions” simply isn’t possible because that isn’t the part of their brain that is active – their brain has gone into survival mode. The utmost importance is for us to keep our own mind calm in the face of someone who is distressed. It can be helpful for them to do some breathing or simran, and to help guide the person into the present moment (a method called grounding).
As discussed, experiences of trauma are very common amongst Sikhs and the effects of trauma, especially of intergenerational trauma, are underrecognized in our community. What we do know is that if we don’t recognize trauma and its effects within our family systems and our community, we will be unable to implement new coping mechanisms and change. We cannot solve a problem if we are unwilling to recognize and acknowledge it. A trauma doesn’t have to negatively define a person’s life, through the process of post-traumatic growth a person can find deeper meaning and appreciation in their lives. Gurbani teaches us that when we look inside of ourselves, when we deeply search, we will be able to find our path to merge back home.
Disclaimer: This article does not constitute medical advice. If you or a loved one is experiencing symptoms of trauma or ptsd please seek professional or medical care as this article is meant to just thought provoking and a conversation starter. Mental health resources can be found through a doctor, registered psychologist, crisis line (310-6789 in BC), victim support through victimlink 1-800-563-0808, or emergency room in a crisis.
References
Dr Bessel Van Der Kolk, When the Body Keeps the Score
https://anesthesia.ucsf.edu/sites/anesthesia.ucsf.edu/files/wysiwyg/Sabhlok_Pathways_0.pdf
https://www.careinnovations.org/wp-content/uploads/Post-Traumatic-Growth-Inventory.pdf
https://positivepsychology.com/post-traumatic-growth/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9Kp51N1tkc SALDEF’s presentation
https://www.apa.org/monitor/2019/02/legacy-trauma
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/community/articles/a-traumatic-legacy
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/community/articles/a-traumatic-legacy
https://www.thebigq.org/2019/05/22/qa-how-is-trauma-passed-on-through-generations/
https://bccewh.bc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/2013_TIP-Guide.pdf
