OTSD: Ongoing Traumatic Stress Disorder — a diagnosis for what ails and divides us all

The term PTSD does not cover what I believe to be the largest and most difficult to heal traumatic stress disorder: that which is ongoing as it is built into patriarchal/racist culture.

December 28, 2020.

Note: this is re-posted from 2018. It is my most read Medium piece over several years with more than 1.4K views.* It is particularly pertinent to our current times, especially our Pandemic Holiday Season, where joy can be so difficult to find for many people. It’s what the news business calls an “evergreen” piece.

The stories surrounding the pandemic are seriously traumatic both nationwide and worldwide. And the holiday season is a special stressor unto itself because it is so centered on family, and family is a major (if not the primary) source of trauma, particularly trauma not confined to recovery from a single incident but recurs again and again.

And in cases such as trauma involving racist and misogynist political, social, and cultural relationships, it is always structuring lives on a daily basis. Full recovery requires dramatic change in the structure of our lives based on relationships of power.

EDIT 7/12/2021: since the first time I wrote this, I discovered that there is, in fact, a new…