root shock
The threat to the life of a plant caused by moving it from one place to another and in the process disconnecting the roots form the soil with which they are bonded. Careless transplantation can kill a plant; some plants will not tolerate it at all. The traumatic stress reaction to the destruction of all or part of one’s emotional ecosystem. It has important parallels to the physiological shock experienced by a person who, as a result of injury, suddenly loses massive amounts of fluids. Such a blow threatens the whole body’s ability to function. (Fullilove, 2004, 11) At the level of the individual, is a profound emotional upheaval that destroys the working model of the world that had existed in the individual’s head. Root shock undermines trust, increases anxiety about letting loved ones out of one’s sight, destabilizes relationships, destroys social, emotional, and financial resources, and increases the risk for every kind of stress-related disease, from depression to heart attack. Root shock leaves people chronically cranky, barking a distinctive croaky complaint that their world was abruptly taken away. It was a major part of people’s stories that old people died when the neighborhood was uprooted. They couldn’t take the move. (Fullilove, 2020, 209) Root shock, at the level of the local community, be it neighborhood or something else, ruptures bonds, dispersing people to all the directions of the compass. (Fullilove, 2004, 14) This is what happens to people or a community when it’s geography or neighborhood is destroyed. Popularized by Dr. Mindy Fullilove in the 1990s.