This is Trauma, Too

How Witnessing Injustice Can Wound the Psyche—and What to Do When You’re the One Left Numb

Muslims in America post 9/11.

Parents of survivors of school shootings.

School children watching war footage on television of fighting on the other side of their country.

Jewish Americans after the latest synagogue bombing.

Highway patrol officers who respond to fatal car accidents.

Trauma therapists hearing graphic details of torture narratives.

Detectives investigating child porn.

Western social media doom-scrollers watching reel after reel of Gaza war footage.

Emergency room medical professionals unable to save the child drowning victim.

Inner-city children witnessing violence outside their doors.

Angelenos witnessing abductions by masked and armed men, ostensibly employed by the federal government.

What do all of these have in common?

All are examples of vicarious, and often collective, trauma.

Trauma comes in many forms. As I wrote in my Trauma Recovery Workbook for Teens, while all trauma has certain commonalities, there are unique traits of acute, chronic, existential, spiritual, collective and vicarious trauma.

Trauma occurs as a result of an experience that overwhelms your capacity to cope at the time that it happens, involving a threat to your life or bodily autonomy or in witnessing an attack on another’s life or physical sovereignty. What may be encoded as trauma for one person may not register as such for another, depending on developmental stage, pre-existing trauma, support systems, level of exposure, and overall resilience. Experiences that overwhelm become stored as sensory fragments, unprocessed as with typical memories, coming back to haunt repeatedly in nightmares and flashbacks of images, sounds, smells, or sensations.

In my trauma-focused clinical practice, I have helped survivors heal from sexual assault, child abuse, mass shootings, terrorist attack, weather-related trauma, wildfire destruction, domestic violence, traumatic pregnancy loss, and many other specific assaults on safety and freedom.

But lately, as I sit with my clients here on the outskirts of Los Angeles, I am witnessing in rising numbers the signs of vicarious and collective trauma. Vicarious trauma arises when we see ourselves in the direct victims. Collective trauma results from tragedies and atrocities that impact whole communities. What’s happening right now fits both.

In a recent post, I shared a guilt-saturated memory of being an unwitting and helpless bystander to a homophobic hate crime as a teenager. Despite my own clinical specialization, I hadn’t mentally categorized it as trauma until in discussion with

Dr Christine DiBlasio

. Sometimes it is harder to see what is right up close. In the comments, another reader shared her experience of witnessing a racist beating of a Black man. We commiserated on the sense of helplessness and guilt emanating from the experiences - two symptoms that consistently result from trauma.

Between the time of writing and posting that story, ICE sweeps escalated in Los Angeles, and angry protests broke out. In the two weeks since, the stories are rolling in all around me. Friends, neighbors, clients losing family to the racially-targeted detentions, witnessing arrests, changing habits and patterns and locking self in to avoid being caught up in racially-profiled arrest-now-check-later sweeps. Business owners suffering as their clientele stay locked in at home. And from the carnage arises a theme I recognize from this recent post exchange: The guilt. The helplessness. The frozen fear and shattered sense of safety.

It is not only the direct targets who are traumatized, but the whole community, as well. Trauma does not result only from direct attack, but from witnessing unjust violence, too.

Parents struggle to be present with their children, images of gentle neighbors subdued by armed and masked men replaying in their minds. The frozen state that paralyzes in the moment lingers, and the unwitting bystander remains feeling stuck long after the moment has passed. People watching war footage from afar consume reel after reel, unable to help, and feeling unable to disengage from viewing the carnage. In ways that don’t make sense to the individual but in fact make perfect sense psychologically, they feel unable to make decisions, to have agency over the small choices of daily life. Making dinner, exercising, sorting laundry – it all feels too hard, and too meaningless.

woman in distress

The body is stuck in trauma response mode: fight or flight or freeze. In scenarios wherein fighting or fleeing are or feel unavailable or inappropriate, due to the size of the foe, lack of opportunity to escape, or likely outcome, freeze takes over. And trauma responses remain stuck if they don’t have a chance to move through to an adaptive resolution.

When we don’t acknowledge or recognize that something has impacted us as trauma, we continue to bear its effects. Too often we dismiss our experience because others were more directly impacted, or we think we should be stronger, and we don’t allow ourselves to acknowledge what is. Perhaps universal to the many survivors of mass shootings with whom I’ve worked is an inner conflict or resistance to acknowledging the depth of trauma and allowing themselves to lean into healing, because they were the “lucky” ones. Their classmates, coworkers, fellow concert-goers or bar-hoppers didn’t make it out. They should be grateful, they think. Yet gratitude isn’t the emotion that dominates. Should-ing yourself will never move you from fear or anger or helplessness.

Denying your experience doesn’t help others heal. It doesn’t release the unjustly detained. It doesn’t soothe the bruises of the beaten. It doesn’t bring anyone back to life. It just keeps you stuck.

This is one of the particular challenges of collective vicarious trauma: comparison and self-denial. As I wrote recently in Downward Social Comparison, the only way to move forward is to acknowledge the truth of your emotional experience, and accept that you, too, need and deserve to heal.

Where trauma impacts a community, healing also ripples out to the community when it begins in one. As a therapist, I know how important it is to deal with my own wounds so they don’t negatively impact my clinical work. This is true for all of us: when we heal, we can use the insight and strength gained to bring healing or compassion or support to others. Sometimes the best thing you can do to support your community is to acknowledge your own trauma and let it heal – whether that trauma be from direct attack, vicarious trauma as a witness to horrors, or the collective trauma that settles on a community under assault.

Because empathic people are more capable and willing to put themselves in other’s shoes, to see the shared humanity and recognize there is nothing but happenstance that separates our experience from the tragedies of others, we are more vulnerable to vicarious trauma. The answer, of course, is not to harden your heart. Recognize the strength that creates this vulnerability. Hold that part with tenderness and care.

And, acknowledge the impact. Let any frozen adrenaline move through your nervous system by consciously moving your body, let yourself shake, or run, or even scream, completing the trauma response that got stuck. If you feel like crying, let yourself cry. If no tears come, that’s okay, too. Process what you saw or experienced with someone you trust: friend, family, therapist. Write about it in a journal, putting language to the unspeakable to organize the fragmented images and memories.

Resettle your nervous system through intentionally soothing activities. Last night, I joined a fellow immigrant friend for a long hot tub soak to release the tension we felt built up in our bodies, and we talked for hours while our skin pruned. This morning she sent me a message saying she had slept well at last – and so had I. What soothes you? Consider meditation, yoga or gentle stretching, deep breathing, a bathtub soak, a massage. Remind your body of the sensation of safety and rest.

And then shift to empowerment and action. What steps can you take to resist injustice, to help others who are suffering, to remind yourself that you do have power? If you feel stuck on this, reach out to a friend who might help you brainstorm or connect you to organizations with a plan.

Vicarious trauma is real trauma, even when your body is untouched, even when you’re thousands of miles away. Acknowledge your experience, and allow yourself to receive support and to heal.

~ from my heart to yours,
Deborah

*** BONUS! On this last weekend of Pride month, I made an audio recording of my June 2024 post, Where Do You Go When No One Wants You? The Hidden Trauma of Queer Youth Homelessness—and the Radical Power of Belonging. If you haven’t had a chance to read this one, you can listen or read it here.

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