February 23, 2017

I feel edgy and stressed.

I’m out of sorts (where did that phrase come from?). Worried and anxious.

You know why if you’re reading this blog labeled “social commentary.” It’s how so many of us feel. For example: The rescinding of the bathroom directive for transgender youth in schools. Yet another inconceivable – but inevitable I suggest – Trump action.

So I’m reading a James Rollins action novel. And the hero is ex-military with PTSD. One of the hero’s counselors used the term MORAL INJURY to refine the diagnosis of PTSD…. MORAL INJURY occurrs when “someone’s understanding of right and wrong was deeply violated.”

That’s what so many of us are feeling…. A violation of our basic values and beliefs. A violation of our vision of community and the good life and common cause … And our hopes for the United States of America. A violation of what we want this country to continue to aspire to and fight for.

What Papa Georges taught me and raised me to believe and how to act… The USA has always violated – to various degrees – my understanding of right and wrong. But never more so than this moment of my lifetime.

Sometimes I think about leaving. But then I realize the world violates my understanding of right and wrong to various degrees in every country and every community and … So I’ll stay here and fight.

I’m rambling. I’m on the road for 10 days and feeling tired anyway.

I just wanted to share the PTSD description for all of us who are feeling somewhat stressed and shakey and and and …. PTSD is a moral injury… when someone’s understnading of right and wrong is deeply violated.

[P.S. If you like action adventure etc. novels…. I’m liking Jim Rollins.]

 

 

Filed under: Social Commentary

About Simone Joyaux

A consultant specializing in fund development, strategic planning, and board development, Simone P. Joyaux works with all types and sizes of nonprofits, speaks at conferences worldwide, and teaches in the graduate program for philanthropy at Saint Mary’s University, MN. Her books, Keep Your Donors and Strategic Fund Development, are standards in the field.

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