Stacey Manos Midterm Response – skm9566@nyu.edu

In Freud’s “Remembering, Repeating, and Working Through,” he introduces a new way to think about the act of remembering. He asserts that there is a repetition of behavior, without a conscious awareness that the behavior has been done already in the past. When a person repeats a particular behavior, their body is remembering a trauma, familial dynamic, or dysfunctional relationship in their past without their minds being in line with that memory. (150) This text and historical understanding of memory directly ties into Van Der Kolk’s “The Body Keeps Score.” Van Der Kolk takes a more specific approach when talking about trauma and the body. He speaks to the physical ailments that trauma can cause the body, an act of the body remembering. These physical symptoms include difficulties with sleep, arousal, digestion, and appetite– all the essential functions of the body. (56) This reading completely shifted my understanding of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, which I was diagnosed with at the age of nineteen. I always interpreted these symptoms as an act of punishment, remembering being so difficult for my body that it was rebelling against itself. In reading Van Der Kolk, I came to see these bodily disruptions not only as acts of remembering, but as acts of protection. When the body is triggered by remembering a traumatic event, it goes into these acts of survival in order to ensure the trauma will not happen again. Although it can misinterpret the level of present danger, it comes from the idea of the body being our first protector and most consistent line of defense. I have been very active in the sexual assault prevention movement and the sexual assault survivor community. I have been honored to speak at conferences and protests about the lifelong ramifications of sexual violence, specifically in regard to physical health. However, I had never heard Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or the effects of trauma on the physical body described in the context of protection before. This will definitely inform the work I do in the sexual assault prevention community, as I believe it is a more self compassionate and nuanced perspective on what survivors endure in their bodies.

In Caruth’s “Trauma– Explorations in Memory,” she speaks about the term “trauma” as a “possession by the past.” She goes on to say that trauma is anything that “can’t be placed within the schemes of prior knowledge.” (153) Although I mostly agree with this statement, I believe Caruth oversimplifies the definition of trauma. I would take Caruth’s words a step further and say that trauma is also something that goes against the perceived natural order of life. For example, when a person loses a child, that goes against their perception of what should happen in the natural cycle of life. When a person loses a parent, they could have prior knowledge of the inevitability of that event, but say that parent dies in a violent attack or a tragedy of suicide, the circumstances go against our informed schemes of what is probable, what is likely, and what should happen. Furthermore, Judith Hermon’s “Truth and Repair” discusses the additional trauma inflicted onto victims by the justice system, another example of trauma being something that goes against a perceived order. In her text, she describes Sarah, a rape victim who endured a self-described “second rape” through her experience being interrogated and gaslit by the system which is supposed to provide retribution and justice for victims. (53) This is exemplary of the idea that trauma goes beyond one instance that is an unexpected horror. Trauma in an individual’s body can expand on itself through the exposure to systems that deny the reality of the traumatic experience. The further assertion of control by the myth of the justice system over someone’s validity in their trauma can add a whole new depth to the painfulness of a single experience.

When the wonderful Leda Martins visited our class to speak about her book, “Spiral Time: Repairing Traumatic Memory” as well as her life and experience as Queen of her Congado in Brazil, she eloquently spoke about how the ceremonies and ritual practices in her Congado recreate the historical kingdoms that her people come from, a performance of being Black in Brazil and a reclamation of their history. She posed this question to all of us: Without technology, how have African people brought so much knowledge to the Americas? The answer was through their bodies. Through clothing, mythology, storytelling, art, philosophy, and oral performances, history and knowledge has transcended time and distance. I feel that this concept beautifully encapsulates what performance is. Performance is what our bodies do with the traumas and memories we carry. It is everything that comes after these traumatic memories, performance is how it is embodied.