I don’t think I’ve shared this story here, but it is a true account of one of my daughter’s trauma therapists, and it speaks volumes about how we (the untraumatized) often react in the face of trauma.

Our therapist and her husband were on vacation on the Georgia coast and were walking along a beach one day, when they came upon a crowd gathered around a dolphin that had become marooned on a sand bar. The vast majority of the crowd just stood there with gaping mouths, almost as if they were in shock at the sight of this distressed dolphin that had thrashed enough he was near death. Some looked on and then quickly turned away or walked away faster. Only two people, children actually, were trying to push the dolphin back into the water. They requested help from the crowd and implored the therapist and her husband for help. As they started to help, so did (finally) others in the crowd. Although the majority still stood by watching, nearly paralyzed.

Our therapist told me this story many months ago, but I recalled it as I read Faith’s blogs on trauma and began thinking about why it is so hard to get help for traumatized children. In the words of our therapist, “trauma often paralyzes people.” It’s the reason that not everyone can be an EMT or emergency room worker. And it’s the reason that many people can’t look upon our children’s trauma. It is easier to pretend it doesn’t exist than to face this much pain head-on. So many are paralyzed.

I don’t have an answer for this paralysis; it’s just an observation. I can’t justify it, only try to understand it when I see it. I’ve watched the same paralysis come over the faces of school officials, social workers and in some cases parents. It’s too much to absorb, too much to process, too much pain. So it becomes easier to deny, to walk away, to ignore.

Yet…for all our empathy and the flood of overwhelming emotions we feel, it isn’t OUR pain. If our children’s trauma is too much for us to look squarely in the eye and join the push to get them back to safety, how can our children trust us enough to heal? We have to be strong for them…stronger than the pain. And I mean that “we” in the collective sense, as the parents need help pushing our dear little dolphins to safety.