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| Physicians cannot heal themselves |
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There is a kernel of truth in the adage that “physicians cannot heal themselves.” This message constantly crept out of my unconscious during a time in my life when I was experiencing loss and trauma. It was an invasive thought; one that intruded at the most inopportune times, seemingly uncontrollable. I had spent almost two decades in the mental health field visiting those dark vestiges in the minds, hearts and souls of La Raza, encouraging patients to heal their wounded spirits. However, when it came down to brass tacks, it was difficult to follow my own advice.
Without sounding supercilious, I recently traveled back to that time in my life after reading about Army physician, Major Malik-Hasan psychiatrist who went on a shooting spree, killing 13 people and wounding another 28. The verdict as to whether or not the Major is an Islamic fanatic or a victim of some sort of mental aberration has not been reached. It appears that some members in Congress want a full fledged investigation about his motivation for going on a shooting rampage.
It was reported that receiving his military orders to deploy to Afghanistan may have been the catalyst for his assaultive behavior. It appears that the price for admission into infamy no longer rests on killing the “enemy,” but in destroying your own.
For whatever reason, the Major decided to act on a morose impulse; not to commit suicide which would certainly have kept him from participation in a war; but to kill others. It strikes me as a stark contradiction. Why not kill yourself so that you won’t have to kill others or confront the enemy on the battlefield? Why kill others? What was his true motivation? This may never be discovered.
Whether it was a super inflated ego or just being human with the same fears and defense mechanisms that all human beings possess, such as a proclivity to deny that pain exists, healers often time need psychological intervention. Somehow, healers feel that they should be able to dissociate from themselves and apply mental surgery to those things in life that are daunting reminders of their own emotional aches and pains. One of the realties is that no one irrespective of his or her education is immune from the vestiges of human frailty as it seeks to avoid or cause others pain.
Healers can have an uncanny resistance to seeking out support. If Dr. Malik-Hasan had acted according to his own Hippocratic Oath, 13 families might not be grieving following the loss of their loved ones. Without sounding like a psychobabbler, the human organism is capable of acting on intrusive thoughts that can be instantaneously disabling activating those negative impulses hidden deeply inside of ourselves; urges to act “crazy,” deviate from the norm, or practice some form of psychopathology.
Dr. Malik-Hasan may have been suffering from Pre Traumatic Stress Disorder, which incidentally cannot be found in the Diagnostic of Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. It is defined as premature stress, an overwhelming feeling that malevolent forces await you in the future; a premonition that something bad is going to happen to you. Or maybe he was suffering from secondary or historical trauma; a condition that manifests itself when people are told traumatizing stories about how others have suffered. He may have heard horror stories from his patients and decided that he would not travel down this path.
There may be other explanations. Maybe he is a fanatic and acted on his religious beliefs. If this is the case, there can be no justification for the murders he committed.
Newspapers reported that Major Nidal Malik-Hasan had been grappling with religious bias in the military. Being a Muslim and wearing an American military may have triggered prejudicial feelings from his fellow troops, who purportedly treated him in some prejudicial fashion. Prejudice also has an uncanny way of popping up unannounced. How can one be expected to defend the honor of a country when one does not receive its benefits?
Maybe the healer’s imagination ran amok as he thought about killing people who look just like him. Those images whether in dreams or fantasies can produce a plethora of schizoid reactions. During America’s involvement in the Nicaraguan Conflict in the 1980’s, I wrote in a poem, “Please don’t send me to Nicaragua. I don’t want to kill anyone who makes tortillas. It won’t free any of us. ” The grim reality of Brown people killing Brown people became clear to me as we protested this war. What an awful thought, that is, killing a mirror image of yourself, under the name of patriotism. Even the rules of war that justify destroying life, the sanctioning of the state giving permission to annihilate another human being or a raving lunatic who has gone berzerk, a rational modern society should work at ameliorating this from happening again.
For this Veteran’s Day, we should remember that the idea of participating in military maneuvers during war and the trauma one experiences may never fully be resolved; especially for those who have violated the sacred commandment that of “Thou shalt not kill.” Historical trauma and pain remain long after a truce is signed. The real peace that soldiers seek after participation in war is camouflaged, repressed beyond belief, released in dreams, negative impulses, and unexplainable behavior.
The thought that destroying innocent people and the truculence associated with it can be so mortifying so as to send someone into a killing frenzy, should be enough to call for world peace.
Dr. Ramón Del Castillo is an Independent Journalist.
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