Failure, Dread, and Displacement: A Case Study in ‘Soft’ Trauma

Why I’m leaving England

Bursting with promise: Perth, Western Australia, the city I will be returning to this October [Image courtesy of the author]

Derived from the Greek for wound, trauma is closely associated with acts of explicit violence or disturbance. Sexual assault, physical and mental cruelty, alcoholism, and eviction from one’s home are watertight examples of what one would accept without question as traumatising experiences. The process of recounting…