On Memorial Day: Stories of Trauma, Survival and Renewal

This Memorial Day, The Takeaway brings you five stories that deal with trauma, survival, psychedelics, music and convalescence. The memories of three mass-shooting survivors exemplify the somber legacy of surviving an American tragedy and demonstrate how it reorients your worldview; When the brain survives a traumatic experience the toll taken has traditionally been seen as an emotional scar, but new research is helping to overturn this narrative; outside the more mainstream therapies for PTSD, there’s another class of drugs currently being tested: psychedelics; soldiers returning from Iraq faced insurmountable obstacles as they reintroduced themselves to society. Some injuries, such as burns and amputations, bore palpable signs, alerting the public to the pains rendered in the line of duty. Others scars were borne invisibly; and Singer-songwriter Mary Gauthier tries to illustrate the experience of returning to civilian life in her new album, “Rifles and Rosary Beads.”