O Strange New World, That Has Such People in It: Star Trek's Trauma Survivors

Grappling with PTSD from emotional and medical trauma, I search for support groups in my community but find none.

Plenty of support for soldiers and first responders, but not for people outside of combatant roles.

While I don’t relish the thought of time spent in church basements comforted only by stale cookies and bad coffee, I want to talk with others who share my experience.

Hypervigilance. Distrust. Alienation. Loneliness. Easily startled. Easily provoked.

Inability to stand down. Inability to relax.

Unable to find real people to relate to, I bond with characters from outer space (my being from outer space would certainly explain a lot).

I have followed the character of La’an Noonien Singh and other trauma survivors on Star Trek: Strange New Worlds with interest, respect, and recognition.

A survivor of a traumatic Gorn attack, La’an leverages her experience into a star turn as Security Chief on the Enterprise. When the ship encounters the Gorn, La’an’s watchfulness and readiness for battle become superpowers, saving her own life and the lives of her crewmates.

That Captain Pike, authority figure, boss, and mentor, chooses to trust La’an to manage the crisis is every trauma survivor’s dream. To be respected for the skills and attributes that emerge from trauma instead of gaslit, dismissed, and disparaged. 

O Strange New World, that has such people in it!

And La’an is not alone in being a survivor of trauma on the Enterprise. Dr. M’Benga, a seemingly quiet and benign presence presiding over Sick Bay, turns out also to have superpowers spurred on by trauma, and in the episode, “Under the Cloak of War” kills a Klingon war criminal from his past in an attack that may or may not have been provoked.

As Captain Pike argues in favor of nonviolent approaches to justice, M’Benga says what I believe all trauma survivors want to tell “normal” people: “You haven’t lived my life. You have the privilege of believing what’s best in people. Me, I happen to know there are some things in this life that don’t deserve forgiveness.”

The episode concludes with M’Benga observing, “Some things break in a way that can never be repaired. Only managed.”

Again, this science fiction character hits the trauma nail right on the head. While I am still seeking help and understanding for my PTSD in the “real” world, I am relieved to find these fictional characters confronting similar dilemmas, using trauma to inform their actions, and finding solutions to heal themselves and protect others. 

Now if only respect and understanding for trauma survivors arrived on Planet Earth, now, and not in a fantasy future….

Alone in the universe?