Commentary on Bullying Happening at APS and " A Summary of Trauma" by Jena Matise

Trauma is defined in Webster’s-Merriam dictionary as:

* An injury to living tissue, such as a wound caused by an external agent

*A disordered state of the mind or behavior caused by severe mental or emotional

stress or physical injury

*An emotional upset

*An agent, force or mechanism that causes trauma

The word traumatic is an adjective that means causing great and lasting pain or distress. For example; she was shoved so hard, she went through a wall and broke a toilet with her head. Thus causing a Traumatic Brain Injury. This is an example of physical trauma.

The verb form of trauma is traumatize, which means to inflict trauma upon. For example; the student kicked his teacher and screamed he wished her to die, in front of a classroom of children.

Thus inflicting both physical trauma on the teacher, and emotional trauma on the children.

With prolonged exposure to repeated physical and verbal assaults, the lasting effects of those traumatic events on small children and the teacher can carry long term implications of mental health issues that can go on through adolescence to adulthood.

Both of these above examples of physical and emotional trauma are true examples. In the first example, she is me.

In the second example, the children, our children, witnessed a child attack his teacher! 

I can openly talk about my traumatic experiences, and though it may be difficult to hear of these traumas, it is part of my everyday reality. A full life of being exposed to both physical and emotional trauma.

From my earliest memories I have experienced both physical and emotional traumatic events, and those traumas followed me into adulthood. While all these traumatic events where taking place, my growing brain was being overwhelmed by a chemical reaction. Signals being interrupted on a molecular level. When these interruptions take place, the brain is blocking messages and it’s not receiving the necessary signals, and the interruptions are altering the brain’s chemistry and inhibits the brain’s ability to learn and process trauma. As a result of repeated exposure to trauma, my brain has never properly learned how to process trauma.

Recently, since the start of the new school year, children, our children have been exposed to several incidents of physical and verbal assaults by a student, toward their teacher! And as a result, students went home very upset, and I will go as far as saying OUR CHILDREN were traumatized

This kind of disruptive and violent behavior cannot go on, especially in a school, a place of learning and growth. All of our schools are experiencing very traumatic times and we need to find a way to end this culture of trauma.

These events have astonished me! I have to ask, will my brain ever be able to process these traumas as an adult? I doubt it

However, these children and their teacher can be helped and protected. The longer they are exposed to traumatic events, the harder it is to correct any potential damage. Through steadfast council and prayer, they have a good chance of overcoming these lasting effects of repeated exposure to physical, verbal and violent outbursts of behaviors, before the damage sets in.

Jena Matise

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