The Relativity of Trauma
I waited just off the black, scuffed stage, highlighted by the iconic brick wall that signifies that this is the Improv, a storied comedy club where stand-up comedians such as George Carlin, Richard Pryor, Ellen DeGeneres, Rodney Dangerfield and Joan Rivers have performed. As the MC introduced me, I psyched myself up and held down the nervous vomit rising up into my throat. I looked at the packed house, and hoped that the audience would laugh at my five minute routine that mocked my darkest emotional moments — moments I had dealt with since my deployment with the Army to Iraq in 2005.
The paradox of comedy is that often comedians are tortured, even though their success relies on making others laugh, and, presumably, happy. Several of the most talented comedians have died from drug overdoses and suicides. Robin Williams died by suicide. Lenny Bruce, Chris Farley and John Belushi died of drug overdoses. Comedians live in and look for humor in the dark. Richard Pryor delivered a brilliant routine in which he mocked the time he lit himself on fire after freebasing cocaine. I stepped onto that stage with my own demons, having struggled to get clean from opioids, and motoring through undiagnosed PTSD and chronic depression. While in the outside world I was a sad anomaly, among comedians I was just a stereotype.
My performance was part of a year-long documentary called “Comedy Warriors: Healing Through Humor.” The idea behind the program was that in creating a stand-up routine and performing it, we would experience the healing power of laughter. Throughout the year, we worked with seasoned comedians on a five-minute routine, and performed at a few lesser known comedy venues throughout the country as practice. As the crowning moment of the year, we performed at the Hollywood Improv and another famous Hollywood club, The Laugh Factory. I was one of five injured military veterans. I was the only woman and non-amputee, and I regularly felt that my trauma was inadequate compared to the others. The other comics included Bobby Henline, the lone survivor of an IED attack on his Humvee, an amputee, and burn survivor. Joe Kashnow is an Army veteran who lost his leg in Iraq while on a shopping trip to buy a Bowflex, as he humorously describes. Steve Rice lost his left leg in an IED attack while running down the road to assess another IED. Rob Jones is a Marine and bomb detonation expert who lost both legs above the knee in Afghanistan. And then there was me, an overweight, pregnant, pseudo-victim involved in a minor IED attack that didn’t even damage our vehicles.
My injuries were mostly psychological. I hitched a ride with a Special Forces crew who happened to be traveling from Mosul to Erbil, Iraq. We left Mosul with two Humvees, each with a driver, navigator, gunner and two passengers. We took a rarely used route that had not been cleared of IEDs, reasoning that the cleared routes became high traffic areas that drew attacks. I remember hearing staticky radio chatter from other vehicles as they moved throughout Mosul, and our distracted banter. I do not remember the sound of the explosion, or the vehicle as it rocked from the impact, but I remember having to take a few seconds to recognize just happened. Even as insurgents fired their AK-47s toward us, and our gunners riddled their position with a machine gun, I hadn’t registered that someone had just tried to kill us. Once we drove through the minor ambush, we were all silent for a beat, and, knowing that everyone was okay, we awkwardly laughed to ease up the tension. Our jokes that night allowed the palpable pressure after the explosion to release as we all evaluated our own lives, and the lives of the others.
Among military veterans lies an unspoken hierarchy of experienced trauma, and these trauma evaluations are exclusively for combat veterans. Training victims need not apply, even though one can experience and witness a debilitating injury during training. Soldiers (and marines, airmen, sailors and coast guardsmen) who have been injured in combat are at the top of this hierarchy, especially if they lost a limb or eyesight, had a brain injury, or were burned. In the next level down are servicemembers who witnessed a death, especially of a close friend. A veteran gets extra points if he or she was in a direct combat role, such as being an infantry soldier, a marine, or a member of special operations. This unspoken ladder is a terrible categorization of traumatic events. On this hierarchy, my IED attack barely rated on the scale, and when I applied for a disability rating for my ensuing PTSD, despite having panic attacks, nightmares and night sweats, a VA representative advised me that since the IED attack resulted in no injuries, I did not qualify for a disability rating. After twelve years, the VA finally issued me an appropriate rating, though I still felt unworthy of it, despite years of crippling symptoms, mental breakdowns and self-medication.
Logically, I know that keeping score in trauma is ridiculous, self-destructive, and a dangerous form of relativism. Mental health professionals say that everyone reacts to trauma in different ways, and that I should not be ashamed of having PTSD for my experience in combat. While well-intentioned, this mantra only worsens my guilt. It not only highlights the fact that I feel undeserving, it also further insinuates that there of levels of experienced trauma, and mine is insignificant.
Each of us took different approaches in incorporating our trauma into our comedy routines. A couple of us avoided their struggles altogether and told funny jokes about various social observations. The other few, including me, challenged our war experiences in painstaking detail. One of my most successful jokes dealt with the insanity of addiction, and how I fantasized about robbing a pharmacy for more pain medication. In downgrading my own trauma, I robbed myself of the potential in any kind of therapy.
Throughout the documentary, I repeated a similar refrain — that now I can joke about events from my military experience that used to make me cry. This is not untrue, and the whole process was certainly cathartic. While on stage, you have complete control, and you experience an addictive rush when the audience laughs in unison. But then everyone leaves, the lights of the club are turned off, and the door is locked. You return to your hotel room, and once the rush subsides, you are alone, and mostly, in your head. This is a time where you continue down a spiral of self-deprecation, and a feigned humility that only leads to more dysfunction. The unfortunate truth was that my darkest days were still ahead of me.
I wish I could say that my awareness of my backward thinking has led to a personal revelation, and that I accept my experience was traumatic, and allow myself to have my symptoms. I am not sure I will ever accept this thinking, even though this belief system prevents me from attaining a level of emotional harmony. I have reached a basic level of emotional balance, though, and, as time goes on, my memories of Iraq fade further into the background.
As I left the stage that night, I felt exhilarated. I couldn’t believe how happy I could feel about others laughing at my most personal misfortunes. About an hour after my performance, I reviewed the night, which included five powerful comedy routines that brought down the house. But as I reviewed the night, I couldn’t help but fixate on our routines, and again began to compare stories. Out of the five of us, I was definitely the worst performer — but there I go again, comparing.
