Traumatic experience - Essay Example

When I was assigned this task to interview someone with traumatic experience, a lot of s came to my mind. While it is true that most people have a comfortable or happy life on the surface, they are actually suffering inside from some grief. I believe many of us experience sadness also and almost every family has its own issues. The first one I contacted was my aunt whose husband died about three years ago, I had attended his funeral and saw my aunts sadness. When I called and told her about this assignment, she said she probably could not help me at this time. The reason why was quite surprising. Her husband’s affair was discovered right after his death when his mistress came to the funeral and ended up asking my aunt for money. My aunt’s deep sadness turned to anger. Then I wanted to interview my first Chinese literature teacher who also became my friend for almost ten years. She just lost her mother recently. However, in Asian culture, it is never a good idea to share the bereavement if the death is recent. She refused and I understood this because it would be a reminder for her of such sadness. The third person I planned to interview was my tutor and she said yes. But after further and deeper consideration, I decided not to pursue this. We had worked together for almost two years and the relationship was both friend and tutor. It was just hard for me to ask for a story of deep, sad experience that happened to her and this will break our nice relationship. I had finally decided to come to my best friend. We send messages to each other everyday even if she is in the United Kingdom. I know her almost as well as myself because we share a lot of secrets. She lives in a complicated family, in which she has been through a lot of family issues. So one day I mentioned this interview task to her, and not surprisingly, she replied yes. She asked if it must be about someone’s death; I said it is not necessary. It could be about something else that is equally sad. She said, “The only event that made me experience a truly post-traumatic experience and feel a loss is the ‘web thing.” I suddenly realized what she was talking about because I was of one of the people who was there with her at the time and all my memories of the event came right back as if it had happened only yesterday. The “web thing” is about, let me call her Miss H, what she wrote in an article that she then posted on-line. This article gained her “fans or followers” in her fight against her father and his “lady affair.” H lives in a family that is full of many challenges all the time. The challenges are basically from the different ladies who got involved with her father in extra-marital affairs. H went back home during her winter break before the event (Web thing), which happened in spring of 2012. During her time she was at home, she received a package from an unknown lady. The contents of that package were vacation and travel pictures of that lady and H’s father. H’s mother and H were not surprised at all by the pictures, but still both of them felt sad and angry. H also received several phone calls from an adolescent boy who claimed that Mr. H was his father too. After H went back school, she went about her ordinary academic activities as usual. She felt more peaceful because all the events that happened during the winter break seemed distant already and gone just as before (talks and rumors of extra-marital affairs happened several times in the past but H always let these go and forget all about them). However, one night, she had a chat on Skype with her mother and her mother cried, and said, “I cannot stand it any longer and that woman showed up again here.” H’s mother was usually always the one who is calm, but this was the first time ever that she had complained and looked stressed out in front of her own daughter. H felt so hurt and decided to do something about his fathers numerous affairs so these will stop forever. There are a lot of Web sites called forums where people can share and discuss. In China, there is a relatively large forum, which has sub-forums for different cities as well as for different institutions (e.g. schools) in each city. H chose to post her article under the forum of a women’s school in her city, so that she can see it and know that it was about her. It was an article about several things that H’s father did to his own family and how his lady tried to make H’s mother feel really bad. The article was so well written and it suddenly gained a lot attention. Within just a week, the article could be seen not only in that forum, but also in many different Web sites nationally. “I was more than surprised because I started to receive e-mails and messages from many people who are willing to ‘solve’ this problem for me,” H said. And I know what they mean is to physically punish her. “I am scared,” H told me. “I also got an email from a man who claimed he is the dean of the law school of that lady (the woman is one of the masters degree students in that law school there). The dean said he can expel her, but I needed to delete the article because it is bad for the school’s reputation. H also received a lot of friends requests from her social network account although she had no idea how they found out her accounts in different websites and what they wanted by becoming her friends. There were some people who even knew which college she attended and where she lived. The most scary thing was she will never know who these people are who were hiding behind the anonymity of the Internet. Someone who offered to help H could in fact be a friend of that woman. Some people even wanted to meet with H to “talk about how to solve this problem” but no one knows for sure what these people will actually do after meeting with H face to face later on. One cannot anticipate their reactions or what they will do to her. It is quite frightening to consider this possibility of getting harmed because of an article. At the same time, as the article had spread, H’s father also saw it and recognized he was the one being talked about and being blamed on-line. He called H day and night, he was desperate. H finally picked up the phone but all she was told was to delete the article as soon as possible. During the interview, H said: “I did not feel any anger from my dad and all he wanted to do was just to help me.” Her dad promised once she pulled out the article from the Web site, he would leave that lady immediately. However, even though it was only a week after it was first posted, it was too late already to pull out the article from the Web site. The reason was that the article earned clicks and was shared many times and had already spread everywhere. In order to pull it out, H had to write an e-mail to the customer service department of the host Web site to apply the delete. But the manager replied her post could not be deleted unless H as the writer will openly announce the article was completely fictitious and she had to apologize for such slander. “I was scared those who had supported me would feel that they were cheated and might turn their anger and disappointment to me. I do not know if they can still find me or not but they already knew my accounts in the different social networks,”H said. “I did not want to apologize but it looks like I had no other choice.” So H posted an announcement that claimed she was just a writer and all she wrote was only a story she had made up. It was not hard to imagine how the readers reacted to such “fact” or confession. H became the target of negative comments and cyber-bullying, judging her as immoral and irresponsible. She closed all her social network accounts and only wished her father kept his promise. However, after she had pulled out the article, her father did not call again as if like nothing had ever happened. H said to me, “I felt I was played and manipulated at that time and I ended up being hated by so many people.” H had developed hyper thyroid when she was in grade 6-10. She later recovered after treatment till the occurrence of this event. This experience subjected her to a lot of pressure and she started to become easily agitated. H said: “It has been nearly one month and I feel increase in my heart beat and I have become quite aggressive. I know probably because it comes back.” She went to the school hospital for blood testing. She was again diagnosed with hyper thyroid. She called her father and talked to him about her illness. He advised her to take rest. Mr. H never mentioned the event again and H knew he had not kept the promise. I think this interview went quite sad. During the whole interview, Miss H appeared calm in the face but troubled deep inside. I could only reply that I knew and understood it. It has been nearly three years since the event happened. The answer to how H and her father were doing now shocked me. H’s father had divorced with her mother and married another lady this year about three months ago. “I cannot believe this happened because my father never wanted to have a divorce before” H said. “Do you think you have any change after this experience?” I finally asked. She said: “I don’t think so. I have not came back home for a long time because I am usually very busy. Besides, I do not want to go home. My mother often visits me. My father came once as well. We both pretended as if nothing had happened and I guess I have no courage to go back home again.” Beyond what H said, I do not see any other change in her life. She still is a great student and takes care of herself well. She also mentioned that she did not post any other articles or even comments online again. She has also started t avoid picking the phone up for unfamiliar numbers. I can understand why she has become more concerned about network security. However, I think she still functons well despite those details. 4. LONG-TERM CONSEQUENCES AND/OR REACTIONS: How did your respondent react over the course of time, the months and years after the event? Did he/she have any long-term reactions or consequences? Did the event change or not change his or her life? Points 3 and 4 should comprise the bulk of part I. Read More