Steiner - How to survive : the extraordinary resilience of ordinary people

How to Survive 2015 by Andy Steiner. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form whatsoever, by photography or xerography or by any other means, by broadcast or transmission, by translation into any kind of language, nor by recording electronically or otherwise, without permission in writing from the author, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in critical articles or reviews.

ISBN: 978-0-9892352-5-9 (paperback)

ISBN: 978-0-9892352-6-6 (ePub)

ISBN: 978-0-9892352-7-3 (Kindle)

Designed by Mayfly Design

First Printing: 2015

Think Piece Publishing

Singular Voices. Social Issues.

www.thinkpiecepublishing.com

To Alicia and Harry

Acknowledgments

I am inordinately thankful for the trusting kindness of the many people who shared their stories of everyday survival. Without them this book would not exist.

A long time ago, I told my friend Adam Wahlberg about a book Id like to write. Later, after I had long given up on the project, Adam approached me to say that was leaving his job and starting his own company and that he would like to publish my book. I couldnt imagine a more eager, enthusiastic, or thoughtful publisher. My collaboration with Adam has been a lucky pleasure.

Years ago, when I first started working on this book, I sent an e-mail to friends and colleagues asking for suggestions of people I might want to profile in this book. Thanks to everyone who responded with sources, encouragement, and advice.

Throughout the long process of conceiving, reporting, and writing this book, Ive sought the advice of many talented friends and former colleagues, including the amazing Cathy Madison and Jerry Creedon. Many thanks to both of you for your time, advice, and willing ears. I recall that Frank Bures added sharp insight, wit, and direction on this books title. Thank you. A debt is owed to the Rev. Janne Eller-Isaacs, a knowledgeable early resource who added useful insight to my reporting. And a grateful nod goes to the great Jessica Gallo, who lent her skilled eye.

To my sweet, smart, sassy daughters, Astrid and Iris: thank you for your faith, encouragement, and support. And never-ending thanks is owed to my sweetheart, John.

Contents

Introduction

Our Fragile, Imperfect, Beautiful, Powerful Lives

This book isnt about me.

Or at least thats what I kept telling myself when I first embarked on this project. Im trained as a journalist, so I donned my hat of objectivity and set out to locate and interview people whod lived through trauma and defined themselves as survivors.

As my interviews started to pile up, it didnt take long for me to begin feeling the weight and the sadness and the truth and the joy in my subjects stories. Then I began looking at the people around me a little bit more carefully. What I discovered was that bad things eventually happen to everyone, and that just about everyone holds some capacity to survive.

Thats when I realized that this book really was about meand also about everyone else on this planet.

One memory keeps coming back. Decades ago now, when I was in my mid-twenties, I was seriously ill and had to go to an urgent-care center. It was one of the lowest points of my then fairly short life. Sick, tired, and scared, I felt strangely comforted when a nurse lightly touched my shoulder and said, sweeping her hand in a gesture that seemed to take in everyone, patients and health care providers alike, Welcome to the ranks of the walking wounded. You might not be able to recognize us at first glance, but were everywhere.

I still clearly remember how she used the words we and us, deftly including herselfand mein the ranks. To be defined as a wounded person felt jarring, but somehow beautiful. I looked around that room and saw people of every color, age, and size. Some looked obviously sick, some healthy and vigorous. I had felt so alone in my own particular trauma that I couldnt see the traumas of others. When the busy nurse made her comment and then rushed off to help another patient, it was like my blinders were knocked off. The rest of the worldbright, confusing, noisysuddenly filled my vision.

For a moment, anyhow, I didnt feel so aloneor, for that matter, so self-obsessed. Same goes for my work on this book. As my research deepened, and my interviews expanded, I felt a strange sense of peace and community within other peoples stories of struggle. I felt wiser; comforted by the reality that trauma is something we all experience, something we all can survive.

So if youre still wondering: What makes her qualified to write this book on survival? Your answer is in the paragraphs you just read. Trauma is a shared human experience. I am a trained writer, a researcher, an interviewer, and an observer of the human condition. But, like everyone else on this planet, I am also a fragile human being. I have experienced my own traumas both big and small. Somehow Ive survived them and gone on to live my own mostly quiet, mostly happy life. Ive included my own experiences in this book when it felt appropriate, but mostly Ive focused on other peoples storiesbecause they always seem more interesting than my own. Im working to turn my focus outward, rather than inward, to realize the connections and humanity created by the shared human experiences of trauma, resiliency, and survival.

By the end of this book, I hope youll see the world the same way.

From victim to victor: The survivors journey

Sometimes with very little warningand often none at allbad fortune rains down from the sky.

Father Michael Lapsley, a South African Anglican priest and anti-apartheid activist, discovered this reality one morning more than two decades ago when he opened a package sent from South Africa to his home in exile in Zimbabwe. Hidden between the pages of two religious magazines was a bomb. The blast blew off both of Lapsleys hands, destroyed one eye, and shattered his eardrums. Later, it was discovered that the bomb was sent by individuals opposed to Lapsleys human-rights work.

Recovering from the physical trauma was a long and arduous processLapsley spent months in an Australian rehabilitation centerbut what he learned was that the process of physical survival, of helping his body heal from his injuries, was nothing compared with the strength it took to take the next step, to forgive his attacker and move on with his own life.

There is no doubt that Laspley had been a victim of a horrible crime, but with time he refused to be defined by the violence that had been inflicted on him. Instead he chose to use the experience to inform his own life and positively affect the lives of others. To do that, he realized he had to move beyond the trauma.

The imagery I often use is when something terrible has happened to you, you have one of two responses, Lapsley tells me. One response is to say and believe, Something has been done to me. In that response we say we are a victim. We may survive the trauma physically, but if we never move beyond that emotional sense of ourselves as a victim , we remain prisoners of that one moment in history. We are stuck there forever.

Lapsley takes a deep breath and continues.

Think of life being like a river. The river flows unencumbered until this terrible thing happens, this thing that defines us as victim. When trauma happens, when we dont move on, we become a stone in the river. The water whirlpools over and around us, but we ourselves are stuck. We live only in terms of that moment in history. For Lapsley, the struggle seemed immense, but he was determined not to become a stone in the river.