The Washington Post reports that nearly 1 in 3 Americans experienced a weather disaster this summer. Their count has to do with federal disaster declarations. If you take all of the counties that have received disaster declarations and add up the number of people who live there it comes to about a third of the population of the country. The count of fatalities nationwide due to hurricanes, floods, heat waves and wildfires since June is at least 388 and continues to rise as the full effects of Hurricane Ida and the resulting torrential rains and flash flooding that recently occurred. And hurricane season isn’t over yet.

Among the disaster declarations caused by hurricanes, flash flooding and wildfires, the record-shattering temperatures that hit the Pacific Northwest in June and July are being listed. People died in their own homes because of the heat extremes. I don’t want to downplay the dangers of extreme weather, but like other disasters, there are survivors of that heatwave. We traveled across the country during July, but we were around to see some of the hot weather. It was 108 degrees when we stopped for lunch in Coulee City, Washington. That’s hot enough to make one grateful for air conditioning, which we had. Lots of other folks were not so fortunate. Air conditioning in homes is not very common in our area. Then again, temperatures in the 90’s and above is not very common here, either. Climate scientists say our heat wave, which killed more than 200 people in June was “virtually impossible” in a world without climate change.

Studies show that the changes of a given tropical storm becoming a hurricane that is Category 3 or greater has grown by 8 percent every decade since 1979. For every degree Celsius of warming, the atmosphere is able to hold 7 percent more moisture, leading to exponential increases in rainfall. People from Tennessee to New York have experienced the effects of disastrous rains that result in flooding.

The predictions about the future are dire. As extreme weather events become more frequent and intense, they are more likely to coincide. This creates “compound catastrophes” that are still more dangerous than a single disaster would be on its own.

All of these disasters result in a lot of trauma stories told by survivors. It seems that everyone has a story of an experience with extreme weather. Stories of narrow escapes and survival strategies make interesting news, but they also shape the lives of those who experience them.

A friend who is a counselor once told me that everyone has a trauma story. It may be an experience with an extreme event, or a personal tragedy, but everyone can tell of something that disrupted their life in ways that made permanent change. Decades ago when I was studying and practicing counseling, the most frequent trauma stories I encountered had to do with War. I was seeing veterans of World War II, who had not spoken of their trauma with others, but kept it to themselves. As they experienced illness, often related to their age, they began to seek out someone with whom they could share their story. Their way of dealing with trauma contrasted with the way it was being handled by soldiers returning from Vietnam, whose lives were being disrupted by their experience of trauma. In those days the use of the term Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) became common. We thought it had to do with the experiences of war. We learned that people experience post traumatic stress from a whole universe of other experiences.

There are traumas that are visible to the public. In general, we know who has survived a flash flood and who has endured a hurricane. We see pictures of the homes burned by wildfire and hear interviews with the victims.

Alongside public trauma, however, there are all kinds of traumatic experiences that are less visible, and often less shared. In any group of people there are lots of stories of accidents witnessed, suicides discovered, miscarriages, health crises, and thousands of other traumas. Many personal tragedies result in a unique kind of grief. My work with the survivors of suicide taught me that there is a unique grief that comes from sudden and traumatic death. Suicide often takes the survivors by surprise. They had no indication that this loss was coming. The suddenness of the event gave them no opportunity to prepare. They were plunged into life-changing grief in a sudden and shocking manner. Then they experience social stigma. Suicide is a taboo subject in many circles. Mental health doesn’t receive the attention it deserves and people often thing that the mental health struggles of their loved ones are rare. They have no idea that there are so many others whose experiences are similar to those.

The unexpected ending of a pregnancy to miscarriage and the loss of a child is another type of grief that is unique and often hidden. When such an event is experienced before the pregnancy had become visible or announced, it does not result in social support of the grieving family. Many of our traditions of dealing with loss and grief are based on public ceremonies and events. Experiencing the loss of a miscarriage is often devoid of any type of public ceremony. Often it isn’t even discussed within families. The grief is made worse because of the loneliness of the grieving process.

We all have our trauma stories to tell. Post traumatic stress is not just something experienced by a small slice of the population.

In general, there is more support for the telling of weather stories than other trauma experiences. Every winter I experienced living in North Dakota was accompanied by plenty of other stories. Each time the temperature dipped below zero and stayed their for a while, there were plenty of stories of past winters. Big blizzards provoked even bigger blizzard stories. “You think this is bad? You should have seen the blizzard of ’48!”

So be gentle with each other, folks. You never know the full stories of the lives of the people you meet. They may be experiencing stress of which you are unaware. In a world of extreme climate events, trauma stories will become more and more common.