What Now? Responding to Constant News-Cycle Trauma

The Trauma of Violent News on the Internet

By Teddy Wayne in The New York Times, Sept. 10, 2016

“The world has always been messy,” President Obama said in 2014 after a string of doom-and-gloom news events. “In part, we’re just noticing now because of social media and our capacity to see in intimate detail the hardships that people are going through.”

As a number of people similarly commented in the wake of recent videos of police violence against African-Americans, these episodes have been happening for a long time; it’s only lately that smartphones have facilitated their widespread visual documentation.

Social media, too, has begun to play a prominent role in broadcasting tragedy. The shooting of Philando Castile was streamed as it happened on Facebook Live, which figured in another violent video since then. The app Periscope has also live-streamed its share of grisly and objectionable content, including the rape of an Ohio teenager and a suicide in France.

The effect on audiences can be traumatic. Historically, traditional mass media has also shown graphic images and horrifying videos like terrorist attacks or the 1991 Rodney King beating while barraging audiences with related content. For some people, it may not matter through which medium they consume their news: A video is a video and an article an article, whether it’s on a TV screen, laptop or newspaper.

But there are several reasons to suspect that the emotional impact of such intimate social-media

images or internet-derived news is different, and perhaps even longer-lasting in some cases, than that from old-media sources.

Contact with violence through any media can lead to what is called vicarious traumatization — and may, for some people, be more upsetting than an unmediated experience.

A 2013 study in the journal PNAS compared the acute stress symptoms of those with “direct exposure” to that year’s Boston Marathon bombing (being present at the site or in the Boston-area lockdown, or knowing someone in either of those circumstances) with those who had only media exposure. People who were exposed to six or more daily hours of bombing-related media exposure reported higher levels of acute stress than those with direct exposure.

“Unlike direct exposure to a collective trauma, which can end when the acute phase of the event is over, media exposure keeps the acute stressor active and alive in one’s mind,” the study concluded. “In so doing, repeated media exposure may contribute to the development of trauma-related disorders by prolonging or exacerbating acute trauma-related symptoms.”

But these findings didn’t distinguish between the types of media consumed. In a study presented at the 2015 Annual Conference of the British Psychology Society, Pam

Ramsden, a lecturer in psychology from the University of Bradford, found that nearly a quarter of participants who viewed images and videos from disturbing news events over social media, including 9/11, school shootings and suicide bombings, reported symptoms clinically consistent with post-traumatic stress disorder.

The main difference between traditional news and social media, Dr. Ramsden pointed out in her presentation, is that the latter “has enabled violent stories and graphic images to be watched by the public in unedited horrific detail.”

As younger generations eschew television and the print media, their only exposure to news may be on the internet, often through social media feeds. But whereas traditional news outlets are likely to issue a warning before broadcasting graphic images or decide to censor the most

offensive content, such precautions are often ignored on the web, especially from individuals and less established outfits.

In the Narrow Places, Erica Brown: "Fighting Job's Demons"

"All my trusted friends abhor me, and they whom I love are turned against me...Have pity upon me, have pity upon me, O my friends, for the hand of God has touched me. Why do you, like God, persecute me...? (Job 19:19-22)

In comparing his friends to God, he [Job] also suggests how brazen and inappropriate their judgement is - and how little it is needed, given all the calamity he must negotiate. Instead, Job tells them what he truly needs: pity. He asks the compassion of his friends, not their scorn. Imagine the loneliness of a person who confesses that his friends now hate him, and that those who loved him have left him simply because bad things have happened. Compounding the emotional pain is the alientation and isolation instigated by the responses of others.

The Talmud has no tolerance for such individuals as Job's friends, with their moral self-righteousness. It lets us know in unambiguous terms the exact nature of the prohibition to interpret the suffering of others. We are prohibited from reminding someone who has become religiously observant about his or her past; we cannot ask a convert about his parents; we are forbidden to interpret the calamities that have befallen others....While others may choose to share the past with us, that is to be an act of personal choice.

In the Narrow Places, Erica Brown, "Redeeming the Ruins"

In a midrash on the famous psalm, "By the Waters of Babylon," the rabbis of old say that the questions "How can we sing a new song on strange land?" was not rhetorical, but literal. The Levites, in their desperation, cut off their thumbs so that they would not be able to play their instruments for the enemy King Nebuchadnezzar (Rashi on Kiddushin 69a). They sat, instead, on the banks of the river and bemoaned their loss. But the midrash alludes to something darker: by cutting off their thumbs, they made themselves ritually unsuitable for serving God in the Temple precincts after their exile. Signs of mourning that are permanent can show profound loss but may also reveal a lack of faith in the future.

Three Who Cried, Rabbi Dr. Normann Lamm

This derasha was given by Rabbi Lamm at the Jewish Center (NYC) on the first day of Rosh Hashana, September 29, 1962.

Ours is an age which has forgotten how to cry. Whether at Rosh Hashanah services or Tisha B'av Kinot, whether at a funeral or theater, tears are conspicuous by their absence. Once upon a time the machzor was stained with tears; today it is so white and clean - and cold. Not, unfortunately, that there is nothing to cry about. A generation which saw the finest of its sons and daughters destroyed in the most terrible massacre in recorded history; a generation which, the more it probes the heavens, the more it ignores the heart - a generation of this sort has much to cry about. How many people here today do not have their private woes, their secret sorrows?

It is rather that we have embarrassed ourselves into silence. It has become a style of the times to restrain our tears on the theory that maybe that way the pain will go away, that by refusing to display genuine emotions the agonizing facts of our lives will be altered. But we are, nevertheless, human beings. And so the unwept tears and unexpressed emotions and the unarticulated cries well up within us and seek release. What insight the Kotzker Rebbe had when he said that when a man needs to cry, and wants to cry, but cannot cry - that is the most heart-rending cry of all.

Granted that crying is an experience we ought not to deny ourselves. But is there not a difference in how and why people cry? Is there not a vast difference between the various types of weeping and what motivates them?

I believe there is. And Rosh Hashanah suggests three separate causes for tears, two that are vain and unfortunate, and a third that is heroic and constructive.

The three types are symbolized by three Biblical characters, all women, whose tears are recalled on this ho1iday. They are: the mother of Sisera , Hagar, and Rachel.

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The mother of Sisera lived in a dream world. She refused to face reality and contemplate its bitter side. And when you live in a dream world you must expect nightmares. She had imagined that her exalted position as mother of a successful conqueror inured her to pain and tragedy - that was reserved only for the contemptible enemy, Israel. She was guilty of an immoral optimism, the kind of outlook that characterizes the unthinking and arrogant of all ages.

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Hagar - And she raised her voice and cried. No attempt to save the child, no looking for an oasis - which factually was there, before her eyes - no real effort at changing her dangerous situation. She merely raises her voice and cries - it is the cry of desperation, a morbid, fatalistic pessimism. Hers is a "realism" that leads to resignation. Unlike Sisera's mother, she sees the "facts" only too clearly. Hagar beholds the great desert of life - and submits to it.

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The third woman who cried is Rachel. We read of her in the Haftorah of the second day of Rosh Hashana, in what is one of the most moving passages and most stirring images in all literature. Jeremiah describes Mother Rachel crying from her grave over her children who are banished from their homes into exile.

Thus saith the Lord: a voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping; it is Rachel weeping for her children; she refuses to be comforted for her children, because they are not. Yirmiyahu 31:14 כה אמר ה' קול ברמה נשמע נהי בכי תמרורים רחל מבכה על בניה מאנה להנחם על בניה כי איננו: ירמיהו לא:יד

Here is a woman whose tears have moved history. Unlike Sisera’s mother, they do not come from living an easy life and deluding herself into imagining that a day of reckoning will never come. Rachel lived a hard life and a brief one; she knew trouble and anguish. She sees her children going into exile and recognizes the bitterness of reality. But unlike Hagar, she refuses to bow to these realities. So Meianah le 'hinachem, she refuses to submit, she refuses to adjust, she refuses to accept exile and destruction as the last word. Her cry, her tears, her protest to God, are the characteristic of the Jew throughout all time. The Jewish soul beholds reality in all its ugliness, but sets out to transform it. The tears of Rachel are the tears of a gallant soul who will not yield to the world but rather will make the world yield to it, though it may take centuries. They are not the tears of vain sentiment and self-pity, but of powerful protest; they are a sign not of weakness but of strength; not of resignation or frustration, but of determination. The tears of an em Sissra or a Hagar are the end of their story; for Rachel it is a beginning. To Rachel's cry there comes an answer: Koh amar haShem, thus saith the Lord, min'i kolekh mi bekhi va feinayikh mi-dimah, refrain thy voice from weeping, and thine eyes from tears, for thy work shall be rewarded, saith the Lord, and thy children shall come back from the land of the enemy; and there is hope for thy future, saith the Lord, and va shavu banim li-gevulam, thy children shall return home. The Jewish attitude, symbolized by Rachel's crying, is one which steers clear of the extreme of ignoring facts and that of surrendering to them. Judaism teaches, in the language of the Kabbalah, that the itrauta di-le leila, the impulse from above, or divine assistance, can only come in response to the itra'uta di-le'tat, human initiative. For G-d helps those who help themselves - and G-d help those who don't.

Has not this Rachel-mentality distinguished the authentic Jew throughout the ages? Are not her heroic tears our saving grace even today? We did not rely on Britain or the U.S.A. or the League of Nations or the U.N. to take care of us, assuming in naive and idolatrous optimism that all will be well with us. We knew the harsh realities of creating an old people anew on a renewed land – with ancient enemies waiting to devour us. But Jews fought. They went into battle inspired by the tears of a Rachel who is meianah le 'hinachem, refusing to accept defeat, refusing to acknowledge surrender, refusing to submit to overwhelming odds. That is why ve’shavu banim li-gevulam; that is why there is an Israel today.

Screaming children, traumatic news photos: How to stay plugged in without letting anxiety take over

Lauren ChvalContact Reporter, Chicago Tribune, June 26, 2018

In the last week, it became impossible to turn on a TV or pull up Facebook without seeing images or hearing audio of distraught children.

Scrolling through social media in the current news cycle can be a jarring experience. A picture of a friend’s adorable new baby … a snap of kids laughing on their last day of school … then, suddenly, a photo of a child caged like an animal.

In the last week, as awareness of families being separated at the border grew, it became impossible to turn on a TV or pull up Facebook without seeing images or hearing audio of distraught children. Reactions in the face of such trauma vary: While some might seek to unplug to avoid the images, others may consume as much news as they can to feel informed.

But is there a middle ground? Can you pay attention and contribute while not letting it overtake your life? Can you feel happiness in your own experiences without feeling guilty that others are in pain? According to Alexandra Solomon, a clinical psychologist at The Family Institute at Northwestern University, it’s important to understand that grief and joy are not mutually exclusive in these situations.

“I call these moments ‘both/and,’ where two seemingly opposite things are true at the same time,” Solomon said. “Those both/and spaces are really difficult to hold, but you can do it. I can hold both joy at what’s happening in life with my children and heartbreak in one. We can’t allow one to destroy the other. It’s holding on to both. Both things are true. Those moments of joy with our own children can remind us of the pain that others are going through.”

A 2017 American Psychological Association study reported that 56 percent of adults say watching the news causes them stress and 59 percent consider this the lowest point in U.S. history that they can remember. APA Associate Executive Director for Practice Research and Policy Lynn Bufka said it’s entirely possible to set healthy boundaries when it comes to consuming the news, but those boundaries are going to be different for each individual.

“Paying attention to the news is important because it can help us be informed, it can help us make good decisions, it can help us decide that we want to take particular action or relate to others in certain ways. We need information to be able to do that. But sometimes so much information can feel overwhelming and distressing that it actually no longer helps us,” she said. “Sometimes we need to give ourselves permission to say, ‘I can turn this off. It’s OK. Just because I’m not paying attention to every piece of the news for every minute, it doesn’t mean I don’t care.’”

It’s natural for guilty feelings to creep in when you take a step back from the news, but Solomon said it’s a crucial piece of coping that actually goes hand-in-hand with taking action.

“There are two parts of coping, and one is stepping up: making calls, marching, donating, making your voice heard. Taking those kinds of actions is a way of helping with feelings of depression, anxiety, things that trigger our sense of trauma,” Solomon explained. “But the other phase of coping is stepping back and stepping away and unplugging. That’s as important as the stepping up. We need both.

“For those of us who, when we step back, sometimes feel guilty that we’re not doing enough, one thing is to remember that’s how we rest in order to be proactive again,” she continued. “But the other thing is, I remember this thing I read maybe around the Women’s March last year — the idea that when there’s a chorus singing together and holding a long note, different singers take their breaths at different times so that the collective can keep the beautiful tone. So when you’re stepping back, someone else is stepping up, and when you’re stepping up, someone else is stepping back.”

When it comes to stepping back, Solomon said it’s important to do so in a way that is present and honors the five senses — going for a walk in nature, cooking a delicious meal, enjoying an uninterrupted conversation. These moments allow us to recharge so that we’re ready to engage again when the time comes.

While this sort of self-care can inspire more feelings of guilt, both Solomon and Bufka said that guilt can be helpful in that it often inspires gratitude for our own blessings, as well as action.

“If an individual woman is saying, ‘Listen, I have a trauma history. I’m teetering on depression. I have three kids who are going to be turning to me for breakfast in the morning. So I’m not going to listen to the audio.’ She ought to be able to make that choice without beating herself up for making that choice,” Solomon said. “Because she still has to do what she needs to do to get through the day. So she has other ways to be active and make her voice heard. She may call her senators, she may go to a march, she may commit herself to voting or volunteering to help people get to the voting booth. But for her, based on where she is in that moment at time, she can make the choice to not listen. Everyone is just doing the best they can do. We can be activists and self-compassionate.”