One of my brothers is a graduate of West Point and a veteran of the U.S. Army who has gone on to studies and research in psychology. He explains post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in terms of "fight or flee." Soldiers know that there are only two options in the face of the trauma of combat: Put up a fight or flee to safety.
The fight-or-flee mentality makes perfect sense in combat. Yet that same mentality in everyday civic life is PTSD, an affliction that can begin with just about anything that instills fear or a feeling of helplessness.
A neighborhood in the Echo Park district just a couple of miles northwest of Downtown Los Angeles — a section of the city that has become a national poster child for the gentrification trend in recent years — is having a collective case of PTSD these days. The case follows a March 1 shooting spree that left one man dead and another wounded along Echo Park Avenue on an otherwise pleasant Sunday afternoon, with a third victim shot down a few miles away.
A man in his mid-30s named Eric Zamarripa died in his wife's arms. There's one case of PTSD. The couple's children have lost their father. They had lots of family and friends in the neighborhood — he walked a line between the local gang members he knew since childhood and the larger community. Count them all as PTSD cases — and multiply that for the other two victims.
Count more cases in the larger community, too. Kids often spend Sundays at a schoolyard on Echo Park Avenue that's right next to the crime scene. Folks were on the patio of a coffee shop just 100 feet or so from where shots rang out and a scream pierced the air on that Sunday afternoon. Many neighbors saw or heard it all and remain fearful, wondering whether they'll ever feel safe again.
So everyone in the neighborhood now has some degree of PTSD, and the most common symptoms are fear and anger, which often lead to the fight-or-flee mentality. This can rear its head in seemingly small disputes that could be talked over and settled. There's a good chance, however, that someone with a fresh case of PTSD won't see any room to come to some understanding. So a small dispute can become a big problem. Maybe that means a punch for the clerk at the counter who gave the wrong change. Or it could mean an angry exit by the customer.
That's where the cycle gains new life. Fight and win and you've passed the PTSD along to your vanquished victim. Flee the scene and you're left frustrated, perhaps figuring out how to regroup for a return confrontation.
Echo Park is chock full of PTSD, just like so many other neighborhoods in city's throughout the U.S. Some of the cases are obvious: Battered spouses, children who have seen their classmates killed on the streets, witnesses and survivors of other violent crimes. Then there are less obvious cases that result from — and might also be caused by — smaller encounters that add up to a sort of cumulative trauma over time: A lack of personal acknowledgment in everyday encounters, vaguely threatening rudeness, or getting shut out of jobs or social settings because of discrimination. All of those and more can cause some form of stress. Some cases build to the level of PTSD.
This PTSD is complicated stuff — just like the lives of the fellows who were gunned down in Echo Park. Just like the future their families now face. Just like the range of emotions that neighbors feel as they try to balance compassion for the victims against their own fear and anger about watching a shooting spree play out on a Sunday afternoon in the neighborhood they call home.
It's no secret that Echo Park has long been a place of garden lifestyles and gangs, with a lot of folks in between. It's clear that various segments of the community sometimes collide and produce stresses. And sometimes stresses arise from the ways that folks strive to avoid one another. It's a lot of work to avoid your neighbors. It's stressful to live with a lack of understanding so constantly near at hand.
It remains true, however, that there's more interaction across socio-economic lines in Echo Park than you'll see in most districts of the city. It doesn't always work, and stereotypes of hipsters and gangsters abound.
None of that erases the fact that Echo Park tries harder.
Now is no time to quit trying — no time to give up on Sunday afternoons.
Jerry Sullivan is editor of the L.A. Garment & Citizen.
Story collage by LA Beez
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