From Battlefield History Guide to Trauma-Informed Therapist
My career has had interesting twists and turns, to say the least. Along the way, I may have learned some things.
Maybe it was the planets in Retrograde. Some things from my past were bound to pop up again.
And so on a recent Sunday morning, I found myself at the foot of a small but familiar hill, looking at hundreds and thousands of soldiers’ graves.
Cyclic events and coincidences aren’t a stranger to me, so when I’d spotted a spiritual healing event calling participants to a remote war memorial I hadn’t seen in 14 years, I emailed to sign up. Even the circumstances leading me to find the event were a bit unusual. It would lead to a small union with spiritual folks I hadn’t met with since 2016 or so.
Maybe this is where I should backtrack a little.
History Nerd with a Curiosity in the Supernatural and Esoteric
It says counsellor and artist on my Medium profile. But the different job titles I’ve held in my Gen X life actually run into the double digits.
In (run-on) list form, they are: private tutor, data-entry assistant, copyeditor, editorial executive, freelance illustrator, publisher, editor, web & CMS designer, customer service representative (phone & email), educational officer, heritage tour guide, children’s magazine editor, magazine column writer (Technology), meditation teacher (weekends only), published author, Tarot reader, astrologer, art museum guide and after-school educator, and most recently, counselor and therapist.
If the path has been dizzying, it doesn’t include the things I didn’t manage to do but wanted to: To become an architect, a fantasy author, and fantasy genre cover artist.
What I managed, though: To find out after decades that I had Complex Trauma and a lot of behaviors that fall under ADHD.
Perhaps it just fits that I’m now studying for a Masters in Counseling. I had known for years I couldn’t really see myself “healing” others until I knew what was wrong with myself — and perhaps not even then. If I look back upon my path, a consistent driving force was my curiosity to know what drove people to do the most inexplicable, hurtful, and self-destructive things.
And at the same time, I loved sharing stories of genius, bravery, and creativity.
A Battlefield Tour Guide
Between 2007 to 2013 (with a couple of years off when I became a mom) I lead groups of people around the WWII battlefields, memorials, and POW sites around Singapore. When I look back, it feels like a fever dream.
On a tiny tropical island that was becoming more concrete jungle every year, it was my work to bring people young and old to quiet and powerful sites rich with history and meaning. I got to tell stories of cruelty and savagery, but also heroic stories of extraordinary and ordinary individuals, soldiers and civilians alike.
Kranji War Memorial would be the last site for many Battlefield tours around the island. My tour company employer usually arranged for a uniformed bugle player to be present for larger groups (anywhere between 80 to 300 people).
It was occasionally my honor to be the person on the dias to give a final, informal speech for the day and to lead everyone into a minute of silent prayer.
These occasions were usually the big finish after hours of stories at various sites. It was solemn and tiring, but meaningful work.
It was also when I had some of my inexplicable encounters that could only be termed “supernatural”. These experiences brought my long-held curiosity in the “other realm”’ into real life, and when I had to seek spiritual teachers who would teach me how to protect myself and to deal with the strange phenomena following me home.
What no one taught me was how to handle the stuff that come up in my night-time dreams (though I learned myself over time). It was not uncommon for me to be lucid while facing WWII soldiers who would approach me to share information I could never recall later in my waking world. In these dreams, these soldiers seemed satisfied just to have me bear witness without me holding judgment or negative feelings towards them.
This is, funnily enough, the work I do now as a counselor and therapist.
War and Trauma
So, on July 23rd, 2023, I found myself at Kranji War Memorial again after more than 10 years. With me was no tour group, but eight gifted, sensitive individuals who’d felt called to come to the site with singing bowls, prayers, and intentions to bring healing energy to any souls who wanted to meet us there.
To be honest, I went empty-handed, only wanting to walk on old grounds again and to lend what useful information I had to the group. I was also fairly confident in my navigation skills and calm-in-crisis mode honed by years as a tour guide and educator.
Perhaps what I didn’t expect was time to reflect on all I had learned since my days as a WWII history guide, particularly in the field of psychological trauma. After all, I had been the history nerd who had wondered how and why human beings could be driven into taking part in atrocities such as wars and civilian massacres. Even in peacetime, I’m confounded by cruelty, callousness, authoritarianism, thoughtless conformity, and miscarriages of justice.
Now, I’m starting to understand how much of destructive and senseless human behavior may be explained by psychopathy in perhaps one percent of the human population, and a combination of trauma, environment, and cultural conditioning in the rest.
Still, there always remains a minority of extraordinary individuals who are able to shrug off their fear and the baser expectations of mere survival, and live their higher, intrinsic, courageous convictions.
In psychology, we can talk about self-individuation and people who have an internal locus of control.
It’s an inner compass and faith in oneself, even when one has made mistakes and will make more. It’s the essential stuff of daring heroes and conscientious objectors; those who spit in the face of convention, overwhelming odds, immoral orders, and bullying superiors.
This self-individuation and living of one’s highest values is not always well understood, embraced, nor even encouraged in parts of society. But I’d like to believe that the more healing of trauma we accomplish, the more people can gain an internal sense of control that makes them less vulnerable to external coercion, manipulation, and turning to violence.
And maybe our communities and cultures will also become better for it.
The immediate and long-term effect of trauma, whether from one incident or from a series of repetitive incidents over time (which includes neglect and abusive parenting and relationships), is now a topic of unending fascination for me.
Every day, more studies are increasing psychologists’ and therapists’ understanding of psychological trauma and safety, bodily autonomy, attachment needs, and the autonomous nervous system. And this in turn has helped us understand more of how destructive and self-destructive behaviours manifest.
And we’re still learning.
For the first time as I walked among the graves, I found myself able to hold compassion for both the victims and perpetrators of war that I hadn’t been able to before. And to do so while feeling my grief and anger over violence and trauma itself driven by trauma and Man’s pursuit of external dominion.
“As above, so below” is no less important than understanding the axiom “As within, so without”.
From my own personal experience, I know it takes will, awareness, and know-how to heal inside even long after we may have left abusive or survival situations behind us. But it’s not something to be forced or even wisdom to be handed down from on high.
We all just need someone to walk beside us, and to bear witness to our experiences without judging.
Only from there can peace begin.
