Trauma Idiosyncratic Ambiguity: A Bad

Trauma

Idiosyncratic Ambiguity: A Bad Scene

Fear can play quite a substantial role in the development of identity. A number of different texts indicate this point-of-view, including Susan Faludi's "The Naked Citadel," Martha Stout's "When I Woke Up Tuesday Morning it Was Friday," and Tim O'Brien's "How to Tell a True War Story." In Faludi's essay, the author details the routine hazing practices that occur at a paramilitary institution in which faculty members and personnel accept and endure misogyny and violence that has a traumatic effect on both parties. Stout's essay explains the phenomenon known as disassociation, which is a way of mentally and physically distancing oneself from traumatic events. This phenomenon is explored through a variety of case studies of the psychologist's different client. O'Brien's essay is about a Vietnam patrol and the effects that war had upon it. The author explains these effects primarily in a psychological sense in which truth and reality become perceptibly distorted so that they are decidedly ambiguous for the participants in the armed conflict. Yet each of these essays deals with trauma, and the repercussions of the fear that such trauma induces in its victims -- and even within its perpetrators, at times. They indicate that fear of some event or occurrence that has the ability to traumatize induces a formative method of withdrawing that has the potential to dominate a person's identity. To that end, fear creates idiosyncrasies within the identity of trauma victims, which become manifest in individual ways that allow people to deal with traumatic situations. Essentially, fear creates a void within a person's identity, which is filled by some idiosyncratic personality trait that allows him or her to cope with both trauma and the fear it produces.

There are a number of examples of victims of trauma who have had their identities inexorably altered by traumatic events, which have in turn ceased the normal development of their identities and replaced them with some form of a crutch that the traumatized person relies on when re-experiencing trauma or other fearful evens. One of the best of these examples is in Mitchell Sanders' "How to Tell a True War Story." The military company in this essay is on a mission to go into the mountains of Vietnam. The company has been involved in the war efforts for some time, and the traumatizing effects of the war are clearly evinced within the identity of Sanders. The soldier relies upon his yo-yo as an integral part of his personality in order to cope with the stress and fear of this dangerous, life threatening situation -- including that in which one of the company gets blown up by an unseen trap. The following quotation demonstrates Sanders's reliance upon his yo-yo as part of his identity during this trying situation. "At one point, I remember Mitchell Sanders turned and looked at me, not quite nodding, as if to warn me about something, as if he already knew, then after a while he rolled up his yo-yo and moved away" (O'Brien, 270). Sanders' idiosyncrasy is his reliance upon a toy; he is in the midst of a peril and he is powerless to speak or to convey his emotions, so instead he turns to his yo-yo as a crutch for this difficult situation. In Stout's essay, one her clients, Seth, has a particular idiosyncrasy that constitutes a large part of his identity in which he disassociates and perceives himself to be drifting out at sea, distinct from reality -- but not necessarily separated from fear or danger, as this quotation implies. "I've always thought that if something in the real world scared me enough, I'd drift out and out to past the dropping-off part, and then I would just be gobbled up, gone, no coming back, ever" (Stout, 395). This quotation demonstrates that Seth's reaction to traumatic events, things that "scare" him, is to disassociate in the form of an idiosyncrasy in which he believes he is drifting at sea and monsters will devour him. and, despite the fact that Faludi's essay does not go into as much detail regarding the coping mechanisms of the victims of trauma in due to the fourth Class system at the Citadel, the following quotation from this essay also demonstrates idiosyncratic behavior. "Another former cadet said that he had withstood "continual abuse" until he found himself thinking about jumping out the fourth-story window of the barracks -- and quit" (Faludi, 90). The desire to end one's own life -- in particular for someone who is young, on the cusp of adulthood, and who has much to live for and to offer the world -- is an aberration which, in this context, can be considered idiosyncratic from "normal" behavior. This quotation also proves that fear induced by trauma can create a void in a person's identity, which is filled by an idiosyncrasy to help that person cope with such trauma.

Furthermore, it is noteworthy to mention that in most cases in which a victim's identity is substantially shaped by the fear associated with a traumatic act, such a person has a considerable amount of difficulty relating to other people in ways that are appropriate for particular situations. This point, which is directly related to a void of normalcy in one's identity, so to speak, andwhich fear of trauma engenders within those who have survived it, is evinced quite clearly within O'Brien's essay when the death of Curt Lemon, the soldier who stepped on an explosive and died -- thereby traumatizing his whole unit -- is related to his sister by his best friend, Bob "Rat" Kiley. Kiley describes Lemon in the letter as someone who "paints up his body all different colors and puts on this weird mask and hikes over to a ville and goes trick-or-treating almost stark naked, just boots and balls and an M-16…Pretty nutso sometimes, but you could trust him with your life" (O'Brien, 270). Due to the fact that Kiley has been traumatized by the loss of his friend, he does not know that it is highly inappropriate to describe someone's dead brother as a "nutso," as "boots and balls," and to talk about the gun that, to his sister, more than likely represents all the things that got him killed. This propensity to have difficulty relating to people in ways that are appropriate for given situations is also detailed within Stout's essay, as further examination of Stout's case study with Seth proves. Seth is unable to recall important details about a conversation he had with his wife during a momentous occasion such as the birth of his twins, and also exhibits emotional and psychological behavior that is definitely at variance with that which is normal during other parts of their relationship, as the following quotation demonstrates. "But you know, most of the time when she and I are making love, and I'm not there, she doesn't know it then" (Stout, 397). This quotation indicates that Seth has the proclivity to disassociate even when he is involved in an intimate sexual act with one he cares for, his wife. Such behavior, to distance oneself mentally and emotionally, is atypical and demonstrative of the fact that due to a traumatizing fear, Seth's identity has a void which is replaced by this idiosyncratic tendency to disassociate. In "The Naked Citadel," it can be argued that many of the students and even staff members of this educational institution feared the threat of female students enlisting in the school. At a traditional all-male institution, the enrolling of female students very well could produce a traumatizing effect on the male chauvinism, violence and misogyny that routinely takes place there. Therefore, the patterns of denial manifested by staff members about such behavior can be interpreted as their having difficulty relating to people appropriately in given situations, as the following quote implies. "When I asked Citadel officials to respond to reports of barracks violence, harassment of women on staff, or verbal abuse of Faulkner, the responses were dismaying. Cases of violence or abuse were "aberrations," cadets who spoke up were either "troublemakers" or "mama's boys"..." (Faludi, 98). This quotation shows the pattern of denial among staff members at the Citadel, who have been traumatized by their longstanding association with the violence and misogyny that takes place there and are more than likely too fearful about keeping their jobs -- based on the traumatization of working in such an environment -- to respond appropriately/honestly about the anti-female sentiments and physical conflicts between students. Thus it can be seen that their identities have a void, which has been filled by an idiosyncratic denial of what is actually taking place.