Self Assessment on Secondary Trauma

Starting A Shot at Survival with a self portrait.

After a generous grant from the Regional Art’s Commission, I am painting a series of watercolor paintings of survivors of violence in St. Louis titled A Shot at Survival. I want to give a glimpse behind the police tape and news headlines, and show what it takes to survive violence in St. Louis. I am meeting some amazing people along the way. I want to take you with me on this journey, as I collaborate with local organizations supporting survivors, meet and photograph survivors, and paint their portraits. My first piece is a self portrait, exploring my own secondary trauma as an ER nurse. This is what motivates me to paint this series.

Self Assessment on Secondary Trauma11 x 14 Watercolor on Aquabord2020 — Self Assessment on Secondary Trauma
11 x 14 Watercolor on Aquabord
2020

My own Secondary Trauma as an ER Nurse

My “day job” or actually, my night job, is as a pediatric ER/Trauma Nurse. I work 2pm-2am in a busy level one trauma center in St. Louis, Missouri. For the most part, I really enjoy my job. I enjoy the fast pace. I am home with my kids the majority of the time, but I have an escape too. Sometimes a 12 hour shift is easier than bedtime with these two crazy kids.

However, in my 9 years as an ER nurse, Summer 2019 just did me in. As a city, we lost around 20 children to gun violence. I would be sitting in the break room eating lunch. A fellow charge nurse would burst in. “Lydia, GSW Trauma bay, 5 minutes.” I would pull my headphones out, toss them into my tray of food and run to the trauma bay, only to return hours later to throw the tray out and collect my headphones.

I have stood in puddles of blood in the trauma bay, frantically trying to save the life of a young teenager whose chest has been riddled with bullets. I’ve heard a mother’s screams outside the door as we wipe the blood off the floor so she can come in and say goodbye to her son. I have heard the uncle pleading with a survivor to get involved in a victim of violence program because too many in the family have already been shot and killed. I have seen that as soon as St. Louis starts to warm up....the ambulances start rolling in with victims and only some of them survive.

For me, this is personal. By painting this series, I feel empowered to make a difference. To lend a voice to the survivors and to the organizations that help them get on their feet. I am not the person to grab a bullhorn and march, but I have a brush and I will use what I have to affect change.

I have started this series with a self portrait and an honest assessment of how affected I am by the violence in my city, and I’m not even a victim of it. How can I ask these survivors to be honest and vulnerable in sharing their stories and serving as muses for my paintings, if I as the artist, am not willing to be raw and transparent myself?

So, here we go. Here is my journey. I am painting this series for myself as much as I am for anyone else. It will be raw and maybe messy at times, but there is hope, because survivors and organizations working with them are making a difference one day at a time. St. Louis, we can survive this together.