What science tells us about kindness, healing and helping each other through trauma

DECEMBER 24, 2021
Illustration by Dorothy Leung

Trish Dribnacki-Pennock stood on her Calgary street in the sunny June, in front of the wet husks of her basement condo. Everything he had had piled up like garbage on the street – books, photographs, clothes, even his toilet. A few days earlier, she and her 18-year-old son had abandoned their home in Calgary’s floodwaters with the dog, but were unable to hold their grumpy cat. She returned to find the place covered with thigh-deep water. Her records and posters, held high on a shelf by her quick-witted son, were spared along with the cat, but the rest drowned or swam. On that summer afternoon in 2013, when the water was pouring mud, a group of friends were helping her remove whatever they could to stop the mold.

Someone held a melted Popsicle in her hand—a delivery from another friend dealing with her own flooding issues, a neighborhood away. “A popsicle?” That laughter, which was already a gift. He lifted his face into the hot sun, and squeezed the snow out of his white plastic. Helicopters hoisted up, and emergency vehicles raced across the road. She was covered in mud from her kitchen which could be sewage. He had gone home. And she was slapping a popsicle like a child. Surrounded by the devastation of his adult life, he experienced moments of silly, childish bliss.

Eight years later, she still remembers the importance of that friend’s simple kindness. “She saw me, she knew me and she understood what I wanted,” says Ms. Dribnacki-Pennock. “Isn’t that what we all need to see?”

In pandemics and floods and fires, there are grand gestures and courageous defenses that save lives, and then there is simple kindness that saves lives. They hug a stranger in Edmonton when you collapse in tears after an eight-hour drive from their burning city in the oil sands. The friend who skips dinner without asking is taken to an ambulance after your husband is infected with COVID-19. The Thursday night drinking buddy who goes to your swampy house in Merritt, BC to save your birds. That little girl who draws a picture to say she’s sorry you lost all your chickens in a flood in Sumas Prairie. Versions of these acts of kindness appear over and over again, with stories people tell when the world is turned upside down, when they remember the fires that devastated Fort McMurray, Alta. in 2016, BC floods still retreat. And this pandemic seems like it will never end. They are the meaty popsicles that keep us going. The moments that make us feel like we are not alone.

These simple actions are so powerful because of the message behind them, says Shane Sinclair, founder and director of the Compassion Research Lab at the University of Calgary. “The Popsicle is symbolic. It says, ‘You mean a lot, I saw and I felt for you, and I did something about it.'”

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What defines these moments of connection is that they are not random acts. They differ from donations made from afar, and are more concrete than sympathy. They require one human being to acknowledge the specific pain of another, and then act to alleviate that pain—the Latin meaning of compassion, according to Dr. Sinclair observes, is to “suffer”.

In research, the act of being present is related to social support, and based on the findings of countless studies, it is arguably the most important factor in why some people recover quickly after a traumatic event, and others do not. Even the belief that help is available, if needed, is linked to better outcomes in clinical care. And it’s not just about receiving care; Giving support, studies show, is healing, too.

What gives resilience, according to those studies, is the real edge, not innate patience or an optimistic personality: it’s connection. We learned this during the early months of the pandemic, when life shut down, and people found ways to reach out; When we understood intuitively, that a wave at Grandma’s window was hopeful, and a rally of gratitude to the doctors and nurses was soul-awakening. We are seeing this now, as communities are coming together after the floods in British Columbia. But we can already observe the wear and tear of another pandemic wave. It’s the same in science: People want to move on, and they sometimes get impatient with people who find it difficult to move on.

Yet these waning times are when society needs a booster shot of communal kindness, because what used to be normal was not working for many. Modern, urban life has long been eroding social support. Years before the virus shut down the world, experts were raising the alarm about loneliness, a growing percentage of respondents to surveys who said they had no one to trust for their problems.

This is particularly concerning as the demand for mental health care is increasing, with Canadian psychiatrists, publicly funded psychologists and social workers dwindling in supply. But even if those most in need can easily access the best treatment, even if there are enough physicians to give them – which is not the case in Canada – therapy and medicine alone may not work. What science shows, and what life teaches, is that after these many months of forced isolation, followed by floods and fires, we need to maintain a community of compassion, which in times of crisis does not burn up. . Ms Dribnacki-Pennock, Calgary flood survivor and now health care worker on the frontline of the pandemic, knows it all too well: We cannot heal alone.
Illustration by Dorothy Leung

Last December, Therese Greenwood went shopping for Christmas cactus at Walmart in Fort McMurray, only to find them sold out. The cactus had become a new tradition after The Beast, as it turns out, in a 2016 fire that destroyed much of her home and town. The first winter after the fire, Christmas trees and decorations were in short supply. It felt like a priority for families with young children, Ms. Greenwood says, so she and her husband celebrated with a whimsical, almost leafless, cactus. The plant had become a symbol of harsh existence, and not one in a pandemic year, after a spring flood forced them to evacuate – yet again – from their home, in what felt like a new affliction. But Ms Greenwood had to speak to the woman at Walmart, who asked where she was living during the fire. “Abbasand,” said Ms Greenwood. “Beacon Hill,” replied the woman, placing the two of them in the neighborhood that were hardest hit. “I’ll put in a special order.” Within a week the cactus arrived.

Even after all these years, the people living through The Beast share a common language. “They just know how you’re feeling,” says Ms. Greenwood, who has written a book about fires, What do you take with you One of the non-material takeaways is the importance of community, having friends who listen actively, without being discovered, when you want to talk, and small actions that make a big impact. In January after the fire broke out, Ms. Greenwood was shopping in a pair of rubber boots – she hadn’t turned around to buy winter boots. She was visited by a friend, and a few days later, she received a gift card for new shoes. “It really helps you remember that people are nice and decent and kind,” she says.

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Vincent Agyapong, a psychiatrist working at Fort McMurray, was also evacuated along with his family in 2016. In the years since, he and a group of researchers have been tracking anxiety and depression rates among people affected by the fires. His work returned a consistent finding: the more social support a person feels, the greater his resilience. Those who said they received no social support were 13 times more likely to suffer a major depressive episode after a fire than those who reported receiving a high level of support. Compared to receiving financial aid for damage caused during the fire, social support for mental health was more protective in the long run, Dr. Agyapong says.

Dr. Agyapong’s job was to copy decades-old research. A 1982 paper about residents living near the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant found that those reporting social support were more protected from stress after a disaster. The same finding shows up in studies of firefighters, soldiers, new mothers and babies, and in post-floods, fires, bombings and school shootings. People with post-traumatic stress syndrome who receive clinical care have better outcomes and are more likely to stick with treatment longer when they feel socially supported. Children who have had adverse childhood experiences are more resilient when they have at least one adult they can trust. Military veterans who believe they have higher levels of social support are less likely to have suicidal thoughts, according to a Yale University study published in November. Researchers at Ohio State University recently found that people who reported providing social support also had lower levels of inflammation, an important indicator of stress and long-term health.

So hugs make us feel good – did we need to study for that? The problem is, it’s not always easy to be around people struggling with trauma and mental-health issues, and they don’t always find the help they need. They push people away only when they need their support the most. Or people walk away on their own, or feel unskilled to help. Research suggests that while social support may be high during or right after a traumatic experience, it may drop, as people become tired or simply want to move on with their lives—a fatigue that has been described as an epidemic— A tired country can undoubtedly understand.