Trauma of Atomic Proportions

Akash Kolte

APA defines trauma as “An emotional response to a terrible event like an accident, rape or natural disaster.” (American Psychology Association, 2019) Trauma varies in its degree across different situations and different people. It is a subjective phenomenon, as what affects a person in one way, may affect another person in a completely different way. PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) is “a mental health disorder that can develop in some individuals who have experienced trauma .” ("PTSD vs. Trauma - Hope and Healing Center and Institute", 2019) PTSD symptoms include reliving their traumatic experience over and over through flashbacks or nightmares. This results in general agitation in PTSD patients.

One of the most traumatic events this world has ever seen took place in 1945, when America dropped atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. One of the most hauntingly beautiful piece of writing on this harrowing experience is, “A Doctor's Journal Entry for August 6, 1945”, by Vikram Seth.

“I saw the shadowy forms of people, some
Were ghosts, some scarecrows, all were wordless dumb –
Arms stretched straight out, shoulder to dangling hand.”

(Seth, 1990)

The aftermath of the bombing is described through him meeting or seeing various people. The narrator describes the survivors as shadowy forms, ghosts and even scarecrows. This is because what he sees, can barely be described as human. There were several similarities between all of them. Most of them did not have clothes on, and at that point of time, it was okay. They were all severely injured by the debris and most importantly, none of them spoke and were very mechanical in the actions they did. This implies loss of agency. It is hinting towards the fact that they were so traumatized, they could not think of what to do or even feel anything. This only goes to convey how shell shocked all of them were. Even if they were to say anything, what could they possibly say?

After interviewing several of the survivors, it is evident that while none of them can forget what happened, not many remember all the details. All of them remember seeing a blinding flash of white and then just debris everywhere. This is indicative of the event being imprinted on their minds while the details were being repressed by the brain, too horrible to even remember. Many of them were in shock, as none could fathom what had happened. In the words of Masao Nakazawa, a Japanese psychiatrist who has been treating atomic bomb survivors since the 1970s, the scars left by the bombing of Hiroshima-Nagasaki are “the worst PTSD in human history.” (AP, 2015)

The total number of casualties is very high, constituting of almost 30% of both the cities’ population. While an accurate count of the number of casualties is not known, there have been several efforts to get to the closest estimate. However, with mental illnesses being a stigma in most parts of the world till almost the middle of the 20th century, there have been almost no studies done on the psychological effect the bombing had.

Okumura and Hikita were the first people to notice and report the psychiatric effect which the bombing had. One of the examples put forward by them were the remarks of a 38 year old woman, who says that even after losing her parents, children and sister, she felt no sorrow and sympathy. She was mystified even by her husband shedding tears. Only after a couple of weeks did this wear off and that is when she started to mourn. When 7297 of the survivors were surveyed for medical examination in 1956, it was found that 7.3% of them suffered from neurosis. There was a General Health Questionnaire (30 questions) conducted in 1997 as well, which showed that psychological distress in survivors was significantly higher than in the controls. (Ohta, Mine & Wakasugi, 2000)

The trauma and the other mental ramifications caused by the bombing, which were felt by the survivors, were not just their own but were also passed on, both vertically and generationally in their families. While western culture considers survivors to be strong, in Japan, being a survivor or being related to any of the survivors in considered taboo. While they describe these survivors as “Spoiled Goods”, they unknowingly refer to the trauma which the survivors went through and the inheritance of said trauma. It is the lack of information on the psychological effects of the bombings and the stigma associated with mental illness which has caused this.

Ayako Ishii is a survivor who was affected because of the aforementioned taboo. She lost the man she loved as his family objected against the union, simply because she was a survivor. She says, “There are many things I could have said, but I didn't as my heart was closed and I was resigned.” (Hitomi, 2015) Instead, what she did was open her nursing home, “Garden of Amity”, where survivors such as herself were helped rehabilitate. With the stigma against mental illness fading, today, over 600 people who survived the same tragedy, live in four such nursing homes.

“The worst part about having a mental illness is people expect you to behave as if you don’t.” (Phillips, 2019) This is a haunting dialog which stayed with everyone who watched the movie. This pinpoints the exact problem which society had created. If only the society was more attuned to mental health care at that time, stories of being shunned like Ayako’s would have exponentially reduced. The survivors would not have to go through both, the tragedy that was, and a lifetime of being shunned.

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References

Trauma. (2019). Retrieved 10 October 2019, from https://www.apa.org/topics/trauma/

PTSD vs. Trauma - Hope and Healing Center and Institute. (2019). Retrieved 10 October 2019, from https://hopeandhealingcenter.org/blog/ptsd-vs-trauma/

Seth, V. (1990). A Doctor’s Journal Entry by Vikram Seth. Retrieved 10 October 2019, from https://raitimsi.wordpress.com/2013/06/27/a-doctors-journal-entry-by-vikram-seth-video-of-bomb-explosion/

AP. (2015). ‘Hiroshima-Nagasaki Caused The Worst PTSD in Human History’. Retrieved 10 October 2019, from https://www.thequint.com/news/world/hiroshima-nagasaki-caused-the-worst-ptsd-in-human-history

Ohta, Y., Mine, M., & Wakasugi, M. (2000). Psychological effect of the Nagasaki atomic bombing on survivors after half a century [Ebook]. Nagasaki: Psychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences. Retrieved from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1046/j.1440-1819.2000.00643.x

Hitomi, K. (2015). Those 'with same scar' find peace at Hiroshima nursing homes. Retrieved 10 October 2019, from https://www.stripes.com/news/special-reports/world-war-ii-the-final-chapter/wwii-victory-in-japan/those-with-same-scar-find-peace-at-hiroshima-nursing-homes-1.361919

Phillips, T. (2019). Joker [Film]. Hollywood: Warner Bros. Pictures