After I read one of Alison's wee rants on her blog the other day I decided to have a rant of my own:
It's in relation to what was discussed on the first day and what makes a good artist. One of the things everyone seemed overly keen on was that trauma can make a good artist. Well I would like to beg to differ...Life changing experiences can have a positive (helpfull) impact on creating art sure, but trauma and especially untreated trauma can actually have a very negative effect on a persons creative abilities. Trauma can have so many adverse effects to a person in all aspects of their life, the worst part is that usually a person suffering effects from untreated trauma (or PTSD - Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) have no idea that they are and that can make understanding whats happening to them very difficult.
PTSD can lead to insomnia and emotional numbing for starters..now tell me how that would help and artist?
Other trauma effects can be hostiltiy, arguments and self isolation...again is there any way that can really help an artist?
Then ofcourse there's the obvious reactions of depression, hopelessness, excessive guilt and powerlessness.
Also decision making can be effected and so can memory.
Now you might see why flippant remarks like: why couldn't I have had a trauma, might piss me off.
The after effects of anything trauamtic are without a doubt life changing, they shape who you are in one way or another - treated or untreated.
It's sad that trauam doesn't really make a great artist because if it did I would be fucking amazing. As it stands I'm stuck trying to remember how to function like an average person. This is no self pitying post, it's a bit angry I'll grant you, but mostly it's just informative and if you want to know more check out the links below:
http://www.ross-cohen.com/pdf/Emotional_Trauma.pdf
http://www.millspsychology.ca/Trauma.html
Not so much a rant as a well argued discussion. what do you make of this and the linked stuff?
ReplyDeleteI agree that treating anyone just after a trauma isn't very worth while because usuallly the events of a trauam take some time to sink it. It is well known that part of trauma is the shock and even people who have never experienced a trauma know that any kind of a shock takes time to go away. With trauma usually the shock has to leave and then the event has to 'sink in' (be accepted by the mind). In some cases of physical trauma the event that caused such trauma will never be remembered - the brain has a protective mechanism to block out such events.
ReplyDeleteI also agree that possibly everyone does not need to be treated for PTSD but that is why there are tests to see if an individual has devevloped PTSD.
I think that treating children in the period after a trauma is the most important thing because with childeren (especially in early teenage years) are just developing their personailty and trauma can have very adverse effects even on those with a fully formed personailty.
Sadly I can't listen to the show just now but there is my response to the article.
Sorry to keep posting links A but this is interesting to me too and I just wanted to share it with you:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-12368624