I recently attended Skooliepalooza AZ 2024. It is a festival that takes place in the desert with an unknown number of attendees, 99% of which are nomads. At its peak the estimate was 3000 people. These are all people who live (at least part time) in vehicles whether it is a Skoolie, Van, Truck Camper, Class A or other. Of course being a nomad/camping festival there were a number of activities from a Folk Fest, to morning Yoga, to Potlucks etc…
When we arrived there was a person by the name of Matthew Yodual that decided to publicly announce (on video recording) that he and his “friends” were there to destroy the gathering. He did not destroy the gathering and while every human has value, his value is less. That isn’t to say he didn’t try, law enforcement (both county and federal) was called multiple times by many people at the gathering because of his (and friends) acts of harassment and noise disturbance. This individual was antagonistic enough that his own micro community were no longer his allies and they started calling law enforcement as well.
On one particularly difficult night, my better half was unable to sleep for the entire night due to the noise created by these individuals. For most, lack of sleep is a crankiness issue. People may get short tempered, nap during the day or be a little slower in movement or thinking. For others it can cause pain flares and that is the case with my better half who has chronic conditions that are directly affected by the ability for her body to heal every night. While lack of sleep hits her harder than others, over stimulus through input can also be particularly difficult to manage.
It was clear that Matthew was focused on not just the gathering but also Welcome Camp (which I was a part of) and in an effort to de-escalate the situation we collectively decided to move camp farther down the road. That was a difficult decision for everyone in the camp. That feeling of, “We can’t let him win” was setting in. Lovingly, our people determined it wasn’t about us and our pride but of the greater good of the community and the people we were serving. If we moved camp and made it better for everyone at the gathering, it was a win for us.
What does this have to do with trauma?
The noise that Yodual’s team was creating was loud enough to keep people 500 yards away awake. It was loud enough to keep my partner awake all night even with Benadryl, CBD and ear plugs. It was loud enough that people who hate calling Law Enforcement, did so. It was loud enough that we had to collectively work with different groups of attendees that were willing to be vigilantes about the situation. In other words, it was loud enough to cause trauma.
The night after the trauma event that caused us to move camp I was awoken by a thump, thump, thump. My body instinctively went into fight or flight mode, my adrenaline spiked and I checked in on my partner to see that she was o.k.. It was only then that my brain registered that it wasn’t the thump, thump, thump of extremely loud bass. It was the sound of the fuel pump for our diesel heater, normally a soothing sound. That morning I woke up realizing that the night that caused us to move camp had caused me trauma and enough of it for a moment of panic in the middle of the night.
If you have stayed with me this far in the article, I would like you to take a deep breath. I do not want you to feel others’ trauma. I want you to think back on your own experiences. I want you to find the event in your life that causes that fight or flight mechanism to kick in. I want you to take that moment and hold it. Be within that moment for just a few minutes. That feeling you have whether it is fear, anger, loss of control, or pain is what Matthew Yodual was putting people through for days. That is trauma.
The next time you feel you have an individual liberty to infringe on others, remember: You are the asshole.