Word: numbingly
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...vacillate, however, for my turn in line had come. I slumped into a deep bucket seat, pulled the thick harness over my head, and pressed it to my chest so hard that I could barely breathe. I don't remember the ride, but I left it a bit numb...
...along with rape victims, among others) achieved some psychiatric status when DSM-III in 1980 officially defined their suffering as "posttraumatic stress disorder." In such distress, a person develops vivid symptoms after a psychologically traumatic event that is outside the range of usual human experience: he or she grows numb toward the external world, or else hyperalert, jumpy, insomniac; in nightmares the event that brought on the trauma is obsessively replayed...
...generations of immigrants, work was ultimately availing; the numb toil of an illiterate grandfather got the father a foothold and a high school education, and the son wound up in college or even law school. A woman who died in the Triangle Shirtwaist Co. fire in lower Manhattan had a niece who made it to the halcyon Bronx, and another generation on, the family went to Westchester County. So for millions of Americans, as they labored through the complexities of generations, work worked, and the immigrant work ethic came at last to merge with the Protestant work ethic...
...short story wanders 34-year-old Mark Helprin with his second collection of short fictions. "Ellis Island" and Other Stories. And though we might hope him to be the prophet of the short story's Second Coming, a blazing savior curing the lepers and breathing voltage into numb forms, we find that he's not quite what we were looking for. Instead, we must relegate him to the narrow ranks of the "solid" young performers who, while they are not yet the transcendent pace-setters, at least don't drop the torch. Pathetically, even this compromise is good news...
...survive a nuclear attack if you drive to Greenfield. Graham said. "If you are stuck in traffic, it says you shouldn't leave your car...It says you shouldn't bring alcohol or narcotics. Maybe those are the only things we should bring with us, just to numb our minds," Graham added...