What is Trauma? (Charlie Style) - by Jack Rocco M.D.
I’m once again thrilled to have another adoptee take over Who’s Wally to tell their story. This time it’s the turn of Jack Rocco.
Jack Rocco was a baby when he was adopted by a blue-collar, Italian-American family. Today a successful orthopedic surgeon, Jack’s identity was built around his Italian heritage and while he knew the story of his “Gotday,” he didn’t know the story of his birth day. His was a closed adoption, and he only knew that his birth parents were a young couple—an Italian father and a German-Irish mother—who couldn’t afford a child.
Thank you Jack … Over to you.
Trauma is a word that is frequently used and probably abused in an attempt to describe such a wide range of situations. As the use broadens it also starts to have less and less true meaning or specificity with each added traumatic circumstance. The concept of trauma has been and has meant many different things to so many different people and generations over the decades, centuries and millennia. Does it harden the steel and make you better or does it tear you down and stop you from being your true self. How can we succeed in finding the order in the chaos?
But what does trauma really mean?
In my career as an orthopedic surgeon covering level 1 and 2 trauma centers, I thought I knew what trauma was as an observer, treater and recipient of the trauma involved in these late-night emergencies. As an adoptee, however, I’ve been presented something completely different as to what trauma is. I haven’t always been and am STILL at times unable to weave this new perspective into my base understanding of what it really means to me and so many others. Fortunately, or not, I never stop trying to, sometimes masochistically, see the good in it.
One patient, amongst many, has helped me to understand what trauma is in an extremely interesting way. Let’s say his name was Charlie. Charlie was 90 years old when we met. He came into my office because he had knee pain.
Just walking into this room that day I received such an incredibly uplifting feeling. His authentic smile and bulging energy immediately lit up this already bright medical exam room.
Charlie instantly greeted me with an enthusiastic and assertive,
“Hey Doc, how are you? It’s great to meet you!”
I knew this was going to be fun!!
“You too Charlie.” I replied, “What can I do for you?”
“I know what you’re going to tell me. You’re gonna say I have knee arthritis, which I know, but I can also tell you how I got it.”
“Ok, I’m sure you do at 90, but how’d you get it.” I asked with curiosity at anything this amazing man had to tell me.
“I got it because I was the 1940 base stealing champion of Altoona Pennsylvania.” He proudly boasted.
“That’s awesome man! So you had some speed?” I love the irony of how time can often bring out the absurd.
“I sure did! That record stood for 14 years till someone broke it.”
“That’s great. Let me look at your x-rays.” I sobered up realizing that successfully stealing bases at 17 in high school was unlikely to have been the source of this guy’s knee arthritis.
As we continued with our encounter, I noticed a World War II hat that he politely removed and set on a chair next to my exam table. As a former Air Force member, I frequently took this opportunity to engage my veteran patients in conversation to hear about where they’ve been and what they’ve seen. I especially was drawn to WWII veterans for their historic perspective and fantastic humility. I typically asked these patients if they were in Europe or Asia during the war and I posed this question to him as well.
Charlie was about to blow my mind.
“I was on Iwo Jima.” He matter-of-factly shared
“Really?” I curiously prodded, “Were you there when they put the flag up?” As we’ve all seen in that powerful photo and statue commemorating the moment.
“Sure was. I was at the bottom of the hill.”
‘That’s great.” I naively said but he wasn’t finished.
“Yea doc but that flag went up after only about 4 days. We then had to fight thru from hole to hole finding the rest of them all over the island for the next three weeks. Doc, I can’t even tell you what it was like. There were bodies and parts and blood and stink and rats like it was the end of the world. It was brutal.” He became much more thoughtful and serious as I could see him going back there in his mind.
I quietly listened as he went on but then started thinking myself.
“Wow, I’m sorry you went through all that but are you trying to tell me that after spending about a month on Iwo Jima fighting hole to hole seeing whatever you saw and doing whatever you did that you think you got your knee arthritis from stealing bases in high school?”
“Shit doc, I never thought of that.” He surprisingly replied then looked up to the ceiling as if he just thought of something and was trying to figure it out.
I felt bad for mentioning it as I shared in Charlie’s confusion. I wasn’t aware of my trauma either and often hate and appreciate that I’ve allowed it to be a part of my story as well. It is a part of all of us whether we admit it or not. Facing it wont kill you.
Growing up I was told and believed that my adoption was a good thing. And it was, because like Charlie I wanted it to be. Later in life I was faced with some real issues surrounding the adoption and I started thinking about it more. Probably too much. This is what adoptees call “Coming out of the Fog”
Coming out of the fog causes you to rethink everything. Everything! And now these two thoughts of good thing/bad thing start to mess with you. And you don’t know the answer. No one knows the answer. And no one ever will give you the answer. There is not a right or wrong answer. It just is.
Looking back, however, I think this interaction with Charlie gave me the answer. And the good news is YOU decide what the answer is.
I still deeply regret bringing Charlie out of the glorious fog that got him to 90 with such a positive mental attitude despite the horrors he saw. I feel as though I failed him in that even though I may have been right, giving him an answer as a trusted professional that he didn’t need to hear just crumbled his story. He was certain and didn’t question his story until I introduced doubt into his already glorious story. I hope he left and forgot everything I said but worry that he didn’t.
I had the same thing happen to me and I never forgot and still can’t figure out the “true story”. I’m trying to realize it’s OK. I don’t need to know everything.
Trauma can be severe. It can also be seemingly nothing. It can be physical, mental, spiritual, man-made or “God made”. It can be empowering, or it can be destructive, and it can be both or it can be neither. The differences can be vast but where does this difference lie?
Fundamentally, I believe, both as a witness to and receiver of that trauma it is primarily the loss of the sense of control that leads to the spiral. None of us really have as much control as we believe we do. We try to create our world into a bubble of manageable realities. Probably most people stay in these bubbles and hopefully enjoy their life, whatever that means, in a way that is satisfying to them and others. Many unfortunately do not and they carry their burden around with them in an infinite number of ways.
How do we help ourselves and others in finding the good?
Charlie seemed to have controlled his life in a way that put those negative occurrences into a positive light and wonderful successful story. He stole more bases than anyone ever had before in Altoona Pennsylvania AND he saved the world and his family from the “evil” actions of a foreign country on the opposite side of the world. Despite the hardships, he managed to organize the vision of his life into a positive thing for his country, his family and himself. I’m sure, over the years, he made many people happy with this story as he did me upon first experiencing his larger-than-life persona. Despite finding himself compliantly sitting on an exam table with his short frail stature and dangling legs waiting in this position of medical vulnerability he took control and couldn’t wait to tell me about his incredible contribution to baseball history.
Life is constantly and simultaneously filled with wonderful and horrible events on a day-to-day basis. Each can positively or negatively affect the way we look at the world and ourselves. We can’t control the world and never have but we do seem to be able to change our glasses with various lenses to look at our contribution as either positive or negative. It’s not easy at times but there are those out there who have been able to turn lemons into lemonade or have seen others do it.
I would like to adopt the positive view of things, for me and others.
I want to thank Charlie for teaching me that I am in control of how I view my story, not others. I want my story to be a good one despite the “trauma”. I hope I didn’t ruin it for Charlie.
‘Recycled’ by Jack Rocco M.D is available on Amazon
Image: © Jack Rocco
