The American Trauma Society has officially rolled out the Trauma Survivors Network. Now is the time for all survivors to think about what that does, and can mean to them personally. For me, it’s a cause I’ve been in the middle of for a couple years now. Beginning with the desire to get Ryder Trauma Center committed to the program, then being appointed to the ATS’s Consumer Advisory Board, and building this site, TraumaSurvivor.org, it’s been an uphill battle and a very fulfilling journey at the same time.
As I reflect on what is important to me in life, working for trauma survivor’s issues has been and now even more the most important part of me. Being a trauma survivor is an identity that I guess I have always had since that fateful day in 1982, I suppose I just didn’t know what being a trauma survivor meant. The same was true back then for cancer survivors, and survivors of other life threatening diseases. I suppose the big difference was and is that trauma survivors have been separated and isolated to deal with their situation with whatever tools they have and if any; the support structure around them, which I believe to be a rare thing.
The Trauma Survivor Network represents a paradigm shift for all that. I believe it’s time now for all you trauma survivors out there that have the will to champion any cause at all, to pick up the cause that will fulfil their lives far more than any other, trauma survivor issues. We have pretty much for time and memoriam been each of us isolated, on our own deserted islands if you will. If you are willing to accept the cause in your own heart, that HAS changed. With the advent of the TSN, there is now a center to our universe.
This program is destined to change the face of surviving trauma for so very many new survivors, and the opportunity is there for it to radically change your life too. This program desperately needs and will feed off of long time survivors. It’s the ones who have spent plenty of time figuring all this stuff out that life after trauma leaves us all that will be the strength of the program. There are no trauma health care professionals, no trauma clinicians, no trauma surgeons that can possibly understand the issues at hand the way that we can. It’s our lives, our history, our hearts that will drive this program, and make it the best darned program of its kind on the planet. It’s already designed to do so, but without participation from you, it will be lacking the most important ingredient.
Without participation from all of you long time survivors out there, many more new survivors will suffer because a trauma center in your area needs to be convinced the program is needed and/or worth it. From the moment the website opens up (scheduled for June 2008) the expectation is there that Trauma Survivors will begin to trickle in from various parts of the US and perhaps from other parts of the world,
The way it will work is, if there is a trauma center in your area that is already a part of the TSN, you can choose to associate yourself with that trauma center. Doing so does not necessarily commit you to anything beyond involvement in the site, but you will be receiving email and alerts from that trauma center. However, if there is a trauma center that is already a part of the Trauma Survivors Network close enough to you, we strongly suggest you get involved in that trauma center as a volunteer. There will likely be two fronts on which you can be involved on the local level, the first being a group environment where you can gather and share with other trauma survivors. For most of you, it will be the first such experience. I can say from my own experience that it is a very powerful experience being in a group of people that have walked a mile in your bloody shoes; who can understand from their own experiences what you have been through and are facing at the moment.
Lets say for a second you feel like you’re doing ok, a group really isn’t for you. Fine. There is still an opportunity for you to help bring a sense of hope and can represent light at the end of the tunnel for these new trauma survivors by becoming trained as and involved with the Peer Visitation program. This is another unique and powerful component of the TSN, and one that many long time trauma survivors will find very rewarding. There is definitely a sense of redemption when you’re put in a position of offering hope through your own experiences. There is great power in doing this and probably will be the most rewarding thing you do in your life. For long time trauma survivors, the Peer Visitation program really is a great opportunity to turn tragedy into triumph in your own life while offering a presence of hope to new trauma survivors that no one else can.
So… a new day begins. This is your time! Your involvement is necessary to the TSN and will enrich your life, I can assure you. Many people reach that time in their life where they feel it’s time to give back, to do something good. For trauma survivors, that road has been made easy thanks to the ATS and their thoughtful development of the Trauma Survivors Network. There are a lot of people out there to champion the causes that are so needed, right now there is almost no one championing OUR cause, so why not you?