Trauma is Really Strange

[boxofdelights]

Trauma is Really Strange, by Steve Haines, art by Sophie Standing.

I like this format, though I don't know what to call it. Non-fiction comic? It's 32 pages of drawings with word balloons and captions, on the topic of recovery from trauma. I found the visual images very effective in communicating feelings. A few didn't work: a drawing of a padlock inside a head was, I think, supposed to signify "security", but to me it looked like the freezing up and losing access to words that can happen when you're overwhelmed. And sometimes there were just too many metaphors: the author used the word "titration" to talk about increasing your exposure in small steps, and stepping back before you get overwhelmed. I don't think that metaphor adds anything to the concept of small steps if you don't already understand titration, and if you do, it only adds noise: titration is about how to discover an exact concentration, while exposure to things that cause fear has too many unmeasured and uncontrolled variables, in the environment and inside the person, to learn exactly how much is too much.

Still, I found the book effective at communicating that

To heal trauma we do not need to understand and we do not need to remember[....] Please don't try too hard to think or rationalize your way out of trauma. The old parts of the brain that deal with trauma do not know how to do these things. But we can use our body and senses to feel and orient our way out of danger. Body up rather than ego down.

Comments

[sonia]

Those are good points about the titration metaphor. They used it in the Somatic Experiencing training, so I'm guessing that terminology comes from Peter Levine.

In the training they also used "pendulation" for alternating between higher stress and lower stress. Was that in the comic too? I remember being frustrated with a lot of the terminology.

Sounds like a good book!

[boxofdelights]

They didn't use "pendulation".

I think the book is definitely worth reviewing!

[sonia]

My library didn't have it, sadly. Perhaps I'll dig for it in interlibrary loan.

[sonia]

I did get it through interlibrary loan, and review is here:
http://curioushealing.com/2017/12/trauma-is-really-strange-by-steve-haines-art-by-sophie-standing/

Summary: I liked what it covered, and I would have liked to see it acknowledge its limitations in scope. The last thing a traumatized person needs is to hear, "This works for everyone," when that thing doesn't work for them.

Thanks again for the rec!

[jesse_the_k]

It's part of a series, I learn, from visiting the publishers' site:

The "is really strange" series of graphic novels are all drawn by Sophie Standing. Pain and Trauma are out now; Anxiety and Forgiveness come out in Q1 2018.

As far as the genre goes, the librarians call these "graphic novels" even when it's non-fiction. The folks who write them generally call them simply "comics."

These particular volumes look right at home in the Graphic Medicine section. Turns out comics make an excellent canvas for telling stories about pain, emotions, mental states, and so on.

Penn State University Press is publishing a whole series of G.M.-themed comics, all of which I've adored.

https://www.graphicmedicine.org/book-series/