We’re in a day and age where we have unprecedented access to news all over the world. As of July 2023, we’re watching detailed news on the attacks happening on Palestinians in Jenin. And the news cycle seems to report in extremes. Either there will be a few reports on this and that is all we will hear about. Or we will hear about every detail and angle to what’s happening in gruesome detail. This pendulum-like way of reporting changes depending on the subject.
The constant bombardment and mishandling of information about wars, conflicts and death around the world feels traumatizing. We are constantly watching human suffering. And we are constantly watching human suffering from a distance. I think it becomes more challenging for people who have a sort of connection to the traumatic events happening. Those connections could be through ethnicity, race, social class or even the trauma itself. It might give a person a sense of control by understanding everything that is happening, but they might be retraumatizing themselves, especially if they feel a connection to the trauma. I’m going to detail why this could be retraumatizing, why the boundaries are needed, and what types of boundaries and supports might be helpful.
Trauma is a normal part of the human existence. We all witness or experience traumatic events- that is a part of being human. Trauma stays in the body and affects us for years depending on how it’s responded to. There are several indicators of what makes a traumatic event more traumatizing. How close the person was to the event, how life threatening it was, how old the person was when the event happened, how well they comprehended the event, if there was a protective community in existence, if there were guardians to protect, and if they (the person who experienced it) were able to respond to the event. The stronger the severity of all these factors is directly related to how severe the PTSD symptoms are.
Generally, when we are excessively watching the news, we might feel like we’re not traumatizing ourselves because we’re not experiencing the trauma.
The idea that we might be experiencing trauma might even sound ridiculous in comparison to what we’re witnessing. Unfortunately, this is not true. The definition of PTSD includes experiencing a life-threatening and even hearing about a life-threatening event that happened to a loved one. There is a chance that by overconsuming videos and pictures of human suffering, that you might be developing PTSD. Some might say that the people you watch on TV are not loved ones and so it’s unlikely to develop PTSD. I don’t believe this to be true necessarily, especially for people who have a connection to the event.
In Chowchilla in 1976, three men kidnapped 26 kids and a bus driver. They held their captives in a box truck buried in a quarry with the intent to demand ransom for their release. After being held for 16 hours, the bus driver and the older boys were able to dig themselves out of the box truck. A research study on the effects of the trauma was published in 1979 and again in 1983 by Dr. Lenore Terr. In the 1983 study, the Dr. Terr was able to interview a child who was on the bus but was dropped off just before the kidnapping had occurred. This child was interviewed the next day in the middle of a thunderstorm early in the morning by policemen. Dr. Terr found that he also suffered PTSD symptoms. They were not as severe as those that were kidnapped. They manifested as a fear of thunderstorms, a strong attachment to his mother and fear of policemen. The connections this child had to the event was that if he had not been dropped off earlier, he would have been kidnapped and would have gone through the same experience his other bus mates had gone through. Had he been interviewed by policemen early in the morning during a thunderstorm about another event that was not as life-threatening to people he knew or himself, would he have been similarly traumatized? In my opinion, I don’t think he would have been. This kidnapping was severe, had barely missed him and was reported on quite extensively. This was something big that he almost endured.
Those of us who have connections to traumatic events either by being that particular ethnicity, race, gender, sexual orientation, and/or disability are reminded of what could happen to us, what could have happened to us and our loved ones and how the communities we currently live in would react. Knowing that if a relative had not had the opportunity of a visa marriage, a work opportunity, or a sponsor, that you too could be there, experiencing those same traumas is traumatizing. I believe that it could be very similar to hearing a loved one experiencing something life threatening because to a certain degree, they are a loved one and it could have been a loved one or even you.
“It’s a very lonely grief.”
An added challenge is the response that the community you live in has. As we know, the news over reports on certain events and under reports on others. The communities we live in also hold specific ideologies that might not recognize how traumatic an event might be. This could be quite invalidating and upsetting. It can create a sense of isolation and almost a feeling of being gaslit about how terrible the event is. Here you are completely aware of an attack or a natural disaster that has affected thousands of people who look like you or are like you and no one around you is aware or is affected. It’s a very lonely grief. It is also a very helpless grief. There is almost nothing you can do (physically) to stop the injustice, to resist against it, to escape from it, or to change it. Instead, you watch the worst of it on your phone, traumatize your body, and then your body is confused about how to react. There is no real threat around you but it feels threatened. There is nothing to be scared of but it feels scared. And the news probably will not report on the healing that population went through after and so neither will you. It becomes simply another trauma stored in your body.
It’s important to stay informed while also creating some strong boundaries. Here are some boundaries that I think might be helpful in creating limits and supports to dealing with traumatic news from abroad:
- Get connected with your local community. You need to make sure that home feels like home. It’s important to feel a sense of purpose and connection with the community you live in so as to not feel so displaced when a traumatic experience happens in your country of origin. It’s also important to make sure that your community does have similar values as you so that you feel comfortable sharing your pain with them.
- Limit your news intake when a traumatic experience is happening. This isn’t to say that you should be unaware of what is happening in the world. But, getting updates every 15 minutes is not helpful. Receiving that many updates won’t help you or the people experiencing the pain and it will remove you from your present. Create a limited on the amount of time you’ll spend on the issue and ensure that you’re cushioning this time with comforting people. Be aware also of when in the day or the work week you are engaging in this news. Try and make sure you’re not completely isolated when watching the news.
- Make sure you are grieving communally. Be intentional about grieving with your friends and family over what’s happening. Don’t only exist in social media and isolation. Be with people and grieve with each other over what’s happening. This validates your experience and doesn’t make the pain of seeing what’s happening so isolating.
- Expand your community grief. If most of your close friends don’t understand what is happening, help educate them and let them know that you need to rely on them and how you need support. Only do this to those who feel safe to you and would be able to show up. It’s hard to have those closest to you not understand why you’re grieving.
- Make sure you are resisting communally as well. Go to a protest with friends and family, connect with others in the protest, do an act of good for the community together, show up where refugees might be coming and give help where you can. The more physically involved you are, the more your body understands that you are responding to a threat that is occurring.
The amount of information we are connected to could be great with these few tips on how to protect ourselves. Otherwise, it could just be a tool to stay stuck in trauma.
