On Friday morning, September 10, 2010, the day before the nine year marker of 9/11, I was listening to the local ABC radio affiliate in our town. The host of the show was interviewing, Tim Brown, a NYC firefighter who had been on-scene that fateful day, and had survived—barely. He survived, in essence, because the 1993 attempt to blow up the World Trade Center had failed—at least in part.
He was in the Marriott Hotel which was also called 3 World Trade Center [3 WTC], a 22 story building that sat dwarfed between the twin towers. The lower levels of the Marriott had been badly damaged in the 1993 plot, but had been rebuilt. Firefighter Tim Brown said he survived "because of the ironworkers of New York City." In the reconstruction, they had overbuilt the lower levels of 3 WTC.
The massive steel column he clung to as the building above him pancaked down floor by floor, saved his life and several others who were using the lobby of the hotel as a staging area to help with what was happening in the other buildings.
Tim's brother died in one of the towers as did many of the first responders, most of whom he knew. I had tears in my eyes listening to Tim tell his story. The host of the radio show was also emotionally moved and said so.
And then the co-host of the show, usually a bright and delightful young woman, made what I believe to be a classic error. She planted an incorrect, judgmental analysis, coupled with an amateur psychological diagnosis, onto the fireman. She said to him, that the after-effects on him had to have produced "survivor's guilt."
I almost drove my car off the road.
But wait, it doesn't end there.
The firefighter's immediate response to her imposition of "survivor's guilt," was to say, "I don't believe in it." He went on to explain that he believes he was saved because "God wants me here."
Yes, I have triple highlighted his response, "I don't believe in it," in bold, italics, and quotes. I wouldn't want anyone to miss his point the way the interviewer did.
I couldn't believe that she would suggest something that was neither stated nor indicated in any way by what the fireman said or how he said it. I was massively affected, in part because I have spent the majority of the past 24 years here at The Grief Recovery Institute, talking to grieving people, many hundreds of whom have survived tragedies of no small moment. I am vigilantly alert to never plant words-thoughts-feelings into their mouths, only to harvest what they are telling me.
"Real-Time" Educational Moment Lost in the Exchange
At first I was so infuriated by what she had done, that I almost overlooked the fact that his response was one of the most "real time" educational moments I'd ever witnessed. He educated her and the listening audience, as to what was true for him. After that exchange, the host jumped in and made some wonderful comments, thanked the firefighter and concluded the interview.
It would have been fabulous had it ended there. But after the firefighter went off the air, the young woman started up the "survivor's guilt" theme all over again, insisting to the host—and the live audience—that the firefighter had to be suffering from it.
I'm pretty sure the reason you're reading this —or that it was written—is because the young woman not only made a colossal blunder in planting a feeling, but that she compounded it by trying to sell it after the interview subject was gone.
When I started this post and titled it "Survivor Guilt - What is it and does it really exist?," I was going to use the interview as a fulcrum to rant about the controversial and not universally accepted idea that there is any such thing as "survivor's guilt."
You can probably guess my position on it, and if not, we'll leave it for another time.
Even though it's a few days after the commemorating date of 9/11, I want to stay with my feelings for those who perished and those who tried to help that day.
