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AOC's recent revelations about how her her history of personal trauma connected w/the trauma she experienced on 1/6 need to be looked at in a broader light. As an expert in trauma I think we need to speak abt the collective trauma experienced by Americans during this pandemic.
Job loss, economic uncertainty, lack of health care and concerns about COVID are universally experienced among the working class. Suicides, overdoses, addiction and mental health issues are rampant due to the pandemic and subsequent economic depression.
This is a form of collective trauma that we are all going through. Unlike most other traumas, we are all experiencing it to one degree or another, so there are few who are immune that can help us through this.
Mental health professionals and medical professionals are also experiencing it, in some degree, even more so.
It is known in my field that people who have a history of significant trauma, like AOC, are more at-risk to negative reactions when furutre traumas arise. So those of us w/histories of abuse or sexual violence are in even more danger moving forward.
Mental health solutions must be made widely available for all for years to come in order to treat this trauma. Its going to be with us for a lifetime, even after the pandemic is over.
The for-profit insurance system is inadequate to provide the mental health support needed for all the Americans who will need this help moving forward. We need a Single Payer, Medicare for All system, and we need it now.
Anything less will leave a generation who are chained to this trauma, costing us much more in the long run when it comes to mental health as well as physical health. As Bessel van Der Kolk says, the body does indeed keep the score.
