What about the evil of terrorism? What of the evil of war? Absent intervention, victims of torture or terror or war may raise tortured children who, in turn, are more susceptible to harm their own children psychologically.10 Male children raised in cultures of violence are more likely to become delinquents or violent criminals.11 For Jung, evil was inherent, not only in every human being, but also in God. He viewed evil as an archetypal Shadow, an aspect of the unconscious that cannot be controlled, but can be integrated. When it is integrated, it becomes a source of creativity. When it is repressed, it can lead to overt acts of evil. All of these approaches to evil seem to me to be important for comprehending the monstrous acts of a man like Brian Beat, and the difficulty people have believing that he was guilty.
“What do you think happens after death? Are you going to visit me after you die?” I ask my father, conscious of an embarrassing, childlike longing, which I am finally able to reveal.
“After you die, you are in the minds of others, in the perturbations and resonances that you created in society while you were alive. Societal evolution is a thousand times more rapid than the evolution of creatures or life. We have an opportunity to modify social structures according to our values. Talking to you is a way of accomplishing some of that, for example. Talking to Evan. I did that through my work.”
And then he concludes, “Having the opportunity to contribute is our most sacred job,” he says. I agree completely. I believe he has. I hope we have.
Postscript
The process of writing this book has taught me a great deal about the lingering effects of severe trauma. It is important to point out that no two victims of trauma will have precisely the same symptoms. But some symptoms are common among people suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. One is difficulty accepting love, or trusting others to take care of you. Another is the sensation of numbness. Another is difficulty recognizing the feeling of fear.
For each individual who has suffered extreme trauma, there will be specific triggers that alter one’s receptivity to inputs—causing hypervigilance, on the one extreme, and hypovigilance, a frustrating feeling of calm, on the other. I fear that I may always be subject to these altered states. Hypervigilance makes it possible rapidly to scan one’s surroundings for any kind of threat. I am able to react extraordinarily quickly, while feeling relatively calm and in control. In this state, I become efficient and can accomplish many tasks, but I am likely to be unintentionally curt and rude. It can feel like a kind of high, as Skip Shea explained. One can become a “prisoner of detail,” as Skip described it, as I was when observing the customers in the gas station after I interviewed Erik. Afterward it is shattering. You feel “physically and emotionally low,” to use my father’s words, as if you had been dropped halfway into your own death. Sometimes I experience a calm so deep that I cannot focus. It is as if I were underwater. It is almost impossible to drive when I am in this state; I can get lost in places that I know very well.
These altered states can be useful if you know how to harness them; but they can also be quite debilitating. The confusion and pain of transitioning from hyperarousal to an almost complete absence of feeling can make victims turn to drink or drugs or promiscuous sex. In extreme cases, victims are susceptible to suicide or violence against others. A girl who was raped right after my sister and me, probably by the same rapist, killed herself soon afterward.
The soldiers returning from the wars on terrorism are especially prone to suffer symptoms of post-traumatic stress. Because they are fighting in cities, the soldiers are more likely to cause or encounter civilian deaths. And because improved medical technologies have made it possible to keep severely wounded troops alive, they are returning with more extreme injuries and more horrifying memories. In the absence of effective treatment, it is likely that some of them will be vulnerable to alcoholism, drug abuse, and violence—against themselves and others—for many years to come.
Victims of trauma often suffer flashbacks in the form of violent nightmares or puzzling reactions to triggers, such as sounds or scents. It can take a very long time to recognize these triggers. It could be something as mundane as the scent of tuna fish, for example, which might bring back the feeling of terror, if not the memory, of being shot in the leg while eating a sandwich.
Some of the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder can be positive in some situations. It is possible to experience what psychologists call post-traumatic growth. The ability to stay calm when endangered can be a tremendous advantage. Survivors are sometimes able to contemplate painful truths that other people prefer to deny, such as hidden malevolence or dangers. This, too, can be an advantage, although it can be annoying to people who prefer to look away. There can also be a heightened awareness of the fragility (and preciousness) of life—one’s own and the lives of others. People who have been repeatedly exposed to severe trauma can contribute greatly to society, for example, by joining humanitarian missions in dangerous places or by serving in the Special Forces.
In my case, I know that I will never be “cured.” I understand that I am at risk of overprotecting my son or, conversely, exposing him to unnecessary danger or ignoring his needs. I am also at risk of trying to train him to survive dangers he is unlikely to encounter outside my imagination. The goal, it seems to me, should be to learn to manage one’s symptoms—to learn techniques for remaining in the present, not just in one’s thoughts but also in one’s feelings—even when there is no danger or urgency to fix one’s gaze. To recognize that danger or urgency—which makes PTSD sufferers feel calm—can become addictive. To learn to distinguish one’s reactions to “then” from reactions to “now.” To recognize triggers and one’s reactions to them, and to use them as clues about how to create a meaningful life.
Like many people with PTSD, I strongly resisted the diagnosis, which I considered to be a fad, and strongly resisted treatment as well. Because of my professional interest in national security affairs, I knew about soldiers returning from war with PTSD. It seemed patently absurd to me that a victim of sexual or relational trauma would suffer the same physiological effects as a soldier returning from war. It took a long time for me to accept the idea that treatment could help me. Once I surrendered to treatment, the results were not entirely positive. I got a lot more accomplished before undergoing treatment. I was a whirling dervish, extraordinarily energetic much of the time. The only problem was that I couldn’t sit still. Sustaining that kind of pace precludes intimacy, even with one’s children. At some point, intimacy began to feel more important to me than efficiency. But for many people who suffer PTSD, the tradeoff might not be worthwhile. I won’t pretend that there aren’t grave losses if you choose to be treated for post-traumatic stress disorder, even if, in my case, there were also many gains.
Here is what is most important in my case: I have learned to recognize the sensation of fear. I have learned, I hope, how to love.
Now I want to go out on a limb and propose some hypotheses about possible connections between the two things I now know the most about—terrorism and terror. At this point I am presenting intuitions, rather than conclusions.
I have been researching and writing about terrorism since the mid-1980s. As part of this work, I have interviewed religious-extremist terrorists in America, India, Indonesia, Israel, Lebanon, Pakistan, and Palestine. There were many differences among the terrorists I interviewed. Some were intellectuals. Some appeared to be on a spiritual high; others seemed pumped up on adrenaline or the adventure of living at least partly on the run. Some clearly enjoyed their status and power. Sheikh Fadlallah, the spiritual leader of Hezbollah who was said to have survived an alleged CIA-led attempt on his life in 1985, exuded the air of a man who feels he has the best possible job in the world. Some were obviously angry. I sensed in many that their commitment to the cause was a thin veneer covering some deeper, more personal need. For some, jihad had become a high-paying job; a few admitted they would like to quit but couldn’t afford t
o. Some were unexpectedly rich, while others lived in slums. Some spoke of grievances that were widely held in their societies, while others had complaints that were not widely shared.
While the terrorists I met described a variety of grievances, almost every one talked about humiliation. An Identity Christian cultist told me he suffered from chronic bronchitis as a child, and his mother discouraged him from exerting himself. He had been forced to attend the girls’ physical education classes because he couldn’t keep up with the boys. “I don’t know if I ever got over the shame and humiliation of not being able to keep up with the other boys—or even with some of the girls,” he said. The first time he felt strong was when he was living on an armed compound, surrounded by armed men.
A man involved in the violent wing of the antiabortion movement told me he was “vaginally defeated,” but now he is “free,” by which he meant celibate and beyond the influence of women. A Kashmiri militant founded his group because he wanted to re-create the golden period of Islam, “to recover what we lost…. Muslims have been overpowered by the West. Our ego hurts…we are not able to live up to our own standards for ourselves.”
The notion that perceived humiliation could be an important factor in explaining terrorism struck some of my colleagues, at least initially, as far-fetched. But my argument is not that humiliation alone is sufficient to create a terrorist. My hypothesis is that humiliation is a risk factor for terrorism.
And then there is the question of rape and torture. Why did interrogators in Iraq and at Guantanamo employ rape and sexual torture? Is it possible that they were exorcising their own shame, even as they believed that sexual torture was a necessary means for extracting information from people they believed to be terrorists?
It is only after commencing the research I describe in this book that I realize the possible importance of the frequency of rape at the radical madrassas I studied in Pakistan. Sexual abuse of madrassa students is widely covered in the Pakistani press, but rarely discussed in the West. I have felt, in my interviews of terrorists, that there was an element of sexual humiliation, but it was rarely more than an intuition, and I have never explored this issue.12 Also troubling is the rape of boys by warlords, the Afghan National Army, or the police in Afghanistan. Such abuses are commonplace on Thursdays, also known as “man-loving day,” because Friday prayers are considered to absolve sinners of all wrongdoing. David Whetham, a specialist on military ethics at King’s College in London, reports that security checkpoints set up by the Afghan police and military have been used by some personnel to troll for attractive young men and boys on Thursday nights. The local population has been forced to accept these episodes as par for the course: they cannot imagine defying the all-powerful Afghan commanders. Could such sexual traumas be a form of humiliation that contributes to contemporary Islamist terrorism?
Aside from the question of preexisting personal trauma, consider the impact of a terrorist’s lifestyle on his psychology. Exposure to violence, especially for those who become fighters, can cause lasting, haunting changes in the body and the mind. Terrorists are “at war,” at least from their perspective, and like soldiers, they, too, may be at risk of post-traumatic stress disorder. Those who were detained may have been subjected to torture and left with even more serious psychological wounds. A number of governments are attempting to “rehabilitate” low-level terrorists. For example, the U.S. military has been attempting to rehabilitate detainees held in U.S.-controlled detention facilities in Iraq. It will be critically important to incorporate some of what the medical community is learning about PTSD in these efforts, not because terrorists deserve sympathy, but because understanding their state of mind is necessary to limiting the risk that they will return to violence.
As I write this book, thousands of soldiers are returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. Most of these soldiers will be affected by the experience of combat, both physically and mentally. Studies suggest that the majority of soldiers recover, psychologically, within several months of their return.13 Some returning veterans—perhaps many—will experience what psychologists call post-traumatic growth.14 The army is working together with psychologists to develop a training program to improve combat veterans’ emotional resiliency, with the aim of improving combat performance as well as reducing the frequency of post-traumatic stress disorder and suicide.15
An estimated 20 to 30 percent of those who return report lingering symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder or major depression, a significantly higher percentage than was reported in previous wars.16 There are many possible reasons for the higher rate of reported cases. Deployments have been longer, and breaks between deployments are less frequent than in previous wars.17 The pace of deployments is unprecedented in the history of the all-volunteer force.18 Redeployment is a major risk factor for PTSD.19 At the same time, advances in medical technology and in body armor have reduced casualty rates.20 Soldiers are surviving combat situations that would have killed them in the past, but returning with traumatic brain injuries and with the memory of mind-breaking horrors. The difficulty of persuading soldiers to redeploy is putting enormous pressure on recruiters, who are increasingly overlooking known mental health problems, increasing the risk that troops will return with more severe psychological illness. All of these factors have increased the incidence of PTSD. The impact of soldiers’ untreated despair and hypervigilance will be borne, not only by the soldiers and their families, but also by society at large.
When we train soldiers for battle, we deliberately inculcate in them qualities that, when they return, we will refer to as symptoms of PTSD.21 Soldiers must be able to dissociate, to cut off emotion. A soldier who collapsed in tears because one of his comrades was killed or because he saw the remains of a shattered baby on the sidewalk would put his own life and the lives of others at risk. Soldiers must be able rapidly to scan their environment and respond immediately to threats. These qualities are components of what we often call strength and courage. They are the qualities that keep soldiers alive and allow them to protect their comrades.
Numbness and hypervigilance can keep you alive when you’re literally under the gun. They can even make you more efficient when you are under the gun metaphorically. But these very same qualities, necessary to keep us alive when we are threatened with death, get in the way of normal life and of human relationships. The same hypervigilance that keeps a soldier alive can make him throw himself on the floor when he hears a car backfiring. For the most traumatized soldiers, sounds or situations that trigger emotions they don’t recognize or understand can lead them to hurt themselves or others.
In the moment that a person’s life is threatened, the separation of thought and feeling may be necessary to sustain life. But this separation can become a habit, and when it does, we are only half alive. This book is a memoir—not of specific life events, but of the processes of dissociation, and of reenlivening emotions that are shameful to admit or even to feel. It is an account of the altered states that trauma induces, which make it possible to survive a life-threatening event but impair the capacity to feel fear, and worse still, impair the ability to love.
My goal in writing this book is to help not only the millions of women and men who have been raped or tortured but the soldiers who risk their lives on our behalf, returning with psychic wounds so excruciating that both they and we cannot bear to admit that these wounds exist. Denial is almost irresistibly seductive, not only for victims who seek to forget the traumatic event but also for those who observe the pain of others and find it easier to ignore or “forget.” In the long run, denial corrodes integrity—both of individuals and of society. We impose a terrible cost on the psychically wounded by colluding in their denial.
notes
1. Catharine A. MacKinnon, “Women’s September 11th: Rethinking the International Law of Conflict,” Harvard International Law Journal 47, no. 1 (Winter 2006): 25.
2. The “walking corpses” is Bruno Bettelheim’s term in The Informed Heart (Ne
w York: Free Press, 1960), p. 151. Psychiatrist and author Henry Krystal “affirms that psychogenic death can occur if the victim of catastrophic trauma completely surrenders to the situation in which no action is perceived as possible. If this surrender occurs, he/she falls into a state of immobility (catatonia), and abandons all life-preserving activity. He calls this a ‘potential psychological “self-destruct” mechanism’ and affirms that, once the process of total surrender starts it is no longer voluntarily terminable but may only be stopped by the intervention of an outside caretaker, and that, if this does not happen, the victim will die.” Krystal cited in Carole Beebe Tarantelli, “Life within Death: Towards a Metapsychology of Catastrophic Psychic Trauma,” International Journal of Psychoanalysis 84 (January 2003): 915–28.
3. Primo Levi, The Drowned and the Saved (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1988), 79; cited in Tarantelli, “Life within Death.”
4. Feminists argue about whether rape is a form of sex. See, for example, Susan Brownmiller, Against our will: Men, Women, and Rape (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1975); Catherine A. MacKinnon, “Sexuality, Pornography, and Method: ‘Pleasure Under Patriarchy’” Ethics, Vol. 99, No. 2 (Jan., 1989), pp. 314–346; and Camille Paglia, Vamps and Tramps: New Essays (New York: Viking, 1994). It didn’t feel like sex to me, maybe because the gun and the imminence of death were so central to my experience.
5. http://www.thedoctorwillseeyounow.com/articles/behavior/ptsd_4/
6. Tim O’Brien, The Things They Carried (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1990).
7. Gottfried Leibniz’s answer to the question of why God would allow a natural order that involved so much innocent suffering was that man brought such natural evils upon himself: natural evil was collective punishment for moral evil, including but not limited to the Fall. A massive earthquake that destroyed the city of Lisbon in 1755 evoked a reaction among Enlightenment philosophers and theologians similar to that of their twentieth-century counterparts to Auschwitz, Susan Neiman explains in Evil in Modern Thought: An Alternative History of Philosophy (Prince ton, N.J.: Prince ton University Press, 2002), 1–57. Jean-Jacques Rousseau would reject Leibniz’s view, ushering in a more modern conception of evil. Innocent suffering was not punishment for sin, but a symptom of ignorance. In regard to the earthquake at Lisbon, for example, it made no sense for humans to live in large cities where they were vulnerable to earthquakes. Interestingly, psychiatrists are seeing new links between suffering and sin today, as we shall see.
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