Coping with Violent Images
May 29, 2024 5:02 AM Subscribe
I'm struggling to handle graphic violent images from Palestine. I'm having visual flashbacks, nightmares and am starting to lose my ability to cope. I'm an activist in my local leftist party, though, and am deeply committed to direct action, so it feels impossible (and on some level immoral) to stop viewing these images. How can I balance staying politically informed and with my eyes open, and also manage the toll that these photos and videos are taking on my health?
This is an actively occurring atrocity with devastating emotional and physical consequences, so I'm not going to pretend like there are easy or apolitical discussions here. I'm also really not trying to make this atrocity about me or take away from the fact that many people, especially those close or trapped in the violence, don't have the privilege I do to even choose whether they witness brutality or not. But I wasn't sure where else to turn—talking to my friends doesn't necessarily feel like an option right now, since they're also overwhelmed.
My social media feed has been flooded by immensely graphic images from Palestine. I believe war journalism is incredibly important, as is bearing witness to atrocity and not denying that it's happening, while pressuring those in power to put a stop to it. However, despite knowing this, my brain is not coping well. I'm a parent with a young child, so a lot of the imagery hits very close to my heart. Not a bad thing, but it is intense to deal with. I've started having visual flashbacks, and swing between dissociation and weeping. I can't sleep, and can barely eat. Some of these images have made me vomit. I'm trying hard to keep it together for my kid (and would never ever expose them to this type of image).
But looking away feels immoral—especially when we've been asked to bear witness by some of the victims' families; when sometimes the only action victims can take is to share detail of what is occurring in Palestine; and I want to be in solidarity with the Palestinian people. Turning away from this type of request feels callous and doesn't align with my politics.
And yet. I'm barely functioning at this point, and I'm tipping towards emotional crisis. I know I need to take care of myself to be an effective ally, I know it's okay to take breaks—but all of that feels so hollow in the face of atrocity and requests for bearing witness. How am I supposed to balance this? It's not that social media or viewing war photography is my only way of fighting—I go to weekly protests, I organize with my party, I call my politicians, I donate what I can to aid. But moving away from bearing witness, that feels impossible right now. And I'm also running up hard against my limits as to what I can physically and mentally take.
Any thoughts or experiences in navigating this are welcome. Again—I'm asking this so I can continue to be an effective ally; I don't mean to center my pain or imply that it's more important than the genocide the Palestinians are suffering. I just want to know how to cope so I can keep trying to help. Thank you.
This is an actively occurring atrocity with devastating emotional and physical consequences, so I'm not going to pretend like there are easy or apolitical discussions here. I'm also really not trying to make this atrocity about me or take away from the fact that many people, especially those close or trapped in the violence, don't have the privilege I do to even choose whether they witness brutality or not. But I wasn't sure where else to turn—talking to my friends doesn't necessarily feel like an option right now, since they're also overwhelmed.
My social media feed has been flooded by immensely graphic images from Palestine. I believe war journalism is incredibly important, as is bearing witness to atrocity and not denying that it's happening, while pressuring those in power to put a stop to it. However, despite knowing this, my brain is not coping well. I'm a parent with a young child, so a lot of the imagery hits very close to my heart. Not a bad thing, but it is intense to deal with. I've started having visual flashbacks, and swing between dissociation and weeping. I can't sleep, and can barely eat. Some of these images have made me vomit. I'm trying hard to keep it together for my kid (and would never ever expose them to this type of image).
But looking away feels immoral—especially when we've been asked to bear witness by some of the victims' families; when sometimes the only action victims can take is to share detail of what is occurring in Palestine; and I want to be in solidarity with the Palestinian people. Turning away from this type of request feels callous and doesn't align with my politics.
And yet. I'm barely functioning at this point, and I'm tipping towards emotional crisis. I know I need to take care of myself to be an effective ally, I know it's okay to take breaks—but all of that feels so hollow in the face of atrocity and requests for bearing witness. How am I supposed to balance this? It's not that social media or viewing war photography is my only way of fighting—I go to weekly protests, I organize with my party, I call my politicians, I donate what I can to aid. But moving away from bearing witness, that feels impossible right now. And I'm also running up hard against my limits as to what I can physically and mentally take.
Any thoughts or experiences in navigating this are welcome. Again—I'm asking this so I can continue to be an effective ally; I don't mean to center my pain or imply that it's more important than the genocide the Palestinians are suffering. I just want to know how to cope so I can keep trying to help. Thank you.
You’ve seen it. You know what’s happening. You’re not turning away. You’re doing what you are able to try and help. Continuing to look at these images and videos is not a moral imperative. There is nothing moral in continuing to do this to yourself. You’ve seen more than enough and are not about to forget what you’ve seen or stop trying to do your best.
What I get from your post is actually you are desperate for a break, but cannot acknowledge that, and so are willing to have the matter taken out of your own hands by having a break down. You are allowed to take rest from this. You are allowed to stop looking at these images. You having a mental break down helps nobody. There is no morality involved here. YOU ARE NOT COMMITTING WRONGDOING BY LOOKING AFTER YOURSELF.
posted by Balthamos at 5:24 AM on May 29, 2024 [47 favorites]
What I get from your post is actually you are desperate for a break, but cannot acknowledge that, and so are willing to have the matter taken out of your own hands by having a break down. You are allowed to take rest from this. You are allowed to stop looking at these images. You having a mental break down helps nobody. There is no morality involved here. YOU ARE NOT COMMITTING WRONGDOING BY LOOKING AFTER YOURSELF.
posted by Balthamos at 5:24 AM on May 29, 2024 [47 favorites]
Yes, these things need to be witnessed. You, personally, do not need to witness all of it. Other people's witnessing is just as valid as yours. Don't devalue their contributions by insisting you must take on the whole burden yourself.
Please do yourself and your groups a favor and step away for a week, or at least a weekend. Limit social media time going forward. Set healthy boundaries. Burnt out activists are not helpful to this cause.
posted by ananci at 5:25 AM on May 29, 2024 [11 favorites]
Please do yourself and your groups a favor and step away for a week, or at least a weekend. Limit social media time going forward. Set healthy boundaries. Burnt out activists are not helpful to this cause.
posted by ananci at 5:25 AM on May 29, 2024 [11 favorites]
Not sure if this helps but...war journalism is critically important for the people who aren't politically active. You're already convinced of the atrocities. The images are draining you of energy and will to help. There really is no moral obligation to have your feed flooded with violence. It's not doing any good.
Think about why you won't expose your kid to these images. You're also a human whose brain can get scarred by the trauma. You're developing, too. You do not need to take on an unreasonable amount of responsibility for crimes of others. Take care of yourself, or your brain will do it for you by burning out.
posted by toucan at 5:29 AM on May 29, 2024 [16 favorites]
Think about why you won't expose your kid to these images. You're also a human whose brain can get scarred by the trauma. You're developing, too. You do not need to take on an unreasonable amount of responsibility for crimes of others. Take care of yourself, or your brain will do it for you by burning out.
posted by toucan at 5:29 AM on May 29, 2024 [16 favorites]
The most important part of bearing witness is believing. It is enough to believe; that is why you act. You do not get additional cosmic points or have additional impact by willingly subjecting yourself to the horrific.
posted by DarlingBri at 5:38 AM on May 29, 2024 [30 favorites]
posted by DarlingBri at 5:38 AM on May 29, 2024 [30 favorites]
My fairly strong opinion is bearing witness is an imperative as a society, not as atomic individuals. There is no requirement that every individual must be exposed to atrocity with ____ frequency or for ____ duration. You do not need to continue to traumatize yourself (and I also believe what you are experiencing is real trauma, even if it is not in pairity with what someone in Gaza is going through, and minimizing your trauma on those grounds helps no one).
To put it another way: it's the comfortable among us who need to be afflicted a little bit in this situation. You're obviously not among them.
posted by pullayup at 5:43 AM on May 29, 2024 [11 favorites]
To put it another way: it's the comfortable among us who need to be afflicted a little bit in this situation. You're obviously not among them.
posted by pullayup at 5:43 AM on May 29, 2024 [11 favorites]
“ Anyone who's interested in making change in the world, also has to learn how to take care of herself, himself, theirselves. ” - Angela Davis
posted by RobinofFrocksley at 5:46 AM on May 29, 2024 [8 favorites]
posted by RobinofFrocksley at 5:46 AM on May 29, 2024 [8 favorites]
Remember - the privilege is in having the choice of whether to literally witness the violence or not, regardless of the choice you make. You know what’s happening, at this point you believe it whether you see the images or not. If you really want to use your privilege wisely, save your emotional and physical energy for the activism, where you can potentially make an actual difference.
posted by Lamb_Chop at 5:46 AM on May 29, 2024 [1 favorite]
posted by Lamb_Chop at 5:46 AM on May 29, 2024 [1 favorite]
If you're an activist, then you actively work to motivate others to take action. Nobody can take action if they're so completely devastated by constantly being confronted with the worst that humanity can do that they can think of nothing else.
Negative information and experiences that affect our emotions are much, much more prominent in our thinking, much more memorable, much more likely to be recalled, and much more emotionally affecting over time than positive information and experiences (see: the entire basis of behavioral economics).
My point is this: if you find this kind of input keeps you from functioning proactively, _your audience does too_. That you cannot handle this constant influx of awfulness is a clue that neither can most other people. It's a _clue_. You should use this information to make yourself *more effective as an agent of change*.
Bearing witness is a compelling idea, but maybe a subset of us can bear witness to each bit of suffering. It's not normal, we're not capable, to each bear witness to the suffering of thousands of other people. A hundred, maybe. A proportional slice that would match the proportion of a normal-sized community vs. the entire world.
More importantly, though, is this: if people _feel_ that there is no hope, that there is no work they can do that will make things better, then they _cannot_ do the very challenging work that is needed to make things better. They will not be able to be calm, and patient, and optimistic enough -- in the face of the frustrations in their immediate environment, their skeptical neighbors, their random oppressive family members, the humor and stories all around us that focus on negative human impulses because that is what has the most impact on audiences -- they can't do what needs to be done.
So, yes, turn away. You've learned what you need to learn about how bad things can be, how awful humans can be. Somewhere in you is whatever kindness you were fed early in your life -- you wouldn't be an activist if you had cynicism ingrained in you like I did -- and that is what people like me need, but won't accept if it's shown to us without being contextualized with all the bad we know in our bones is a constant in our civilization.
So, I'm not asking you to write sunny broadway musicals or yet another essay about how noble your dog is.
But what I am getting at is this: there are a lot of people succeeding, enduring, discovering new ways to win against this horrible downward force that is constantly pulling us down. It's a robust force, but the forces in us that propel us in the other direction are not just equally strong, they're stronger. But they are harder to perceive, harder to remember, and usually not funny enough to make it into network sitcoms or award-winning podcasts or Pulitzer-recognized journalism.
Ask someone to tell you what they've heard that's depressing, and you'll get an effortless and long list. Ask someone to tell you what we can do about it, what works, and you'll get nothing, usually.
And none of us can do those things, support those things, talk about them, or even find something *to* talk about other than cruelty and destruction and, honestly, our personal pain at the apparent futility of trying -- none of us can hoist our minds out of this miasma of despair if we don't have *something* else to visualize, to echo, to build on.
That something else is something that is just as worthwhile as bearing witness to suffering. It is also much, much rarer and desperately needed.
Turn your face to the people who are succeeding, who are continuing to try, who are doing good in the world. Don't just look at them; look at the good they have done, and bear witness to that. Repeat that, collect it in your mind and have it ready for every occasion.
When you repeat it, when you imagine new ways to do the work of making things better and talk about them, be prepared to be dismissed in the moment. When people are upset, they don't want to hear that it's not that hopeless. Yes, they need to feel heard, they need to know that you know that yes, it really _is_ that bad -- but there isn't time enough for you to experience and echo their grief and anger as much as they'll want you to. There isn't enough time for you to stay in that emotional space with them, because so few people are doing the hard work of making things better.
I'm not giving you permission to turn away. I'm telling you that you must, because your strength is needed to help all of us turn forward and put one foot in front of the other on the long hard rewarding journey away from the darkness.
posted by amtho at 5:51 AM on May 29, 2024 [10 favorites]
Negative information and experiences that affect our emotions are much, much more prominent in our thinking, much more memorable, much more likely to be recalled, and much more emotionally affecting over time than positive information and experiences (see: the entire basis of behavioral economics).
My point is this: if you find this kind of input keeps you from functioning proactively, _your audience does too_. That you cannot handle this constant influx of awfulness is a clue that neither can most other people. It's a _clue_. You should use this information to make yourself *more effective as an agent of change*.
Bearing witness is a compelling idea, but maybe a subset of us can bear witness to each bit of suffering. It's not normal, we're not capable, to each bear witness to the suffering of thousands of other people. A hundred, maybe. A proportional slice that would match the proportion of a normal-sized community vs. the entire world.
More importantly, though, is this: if people _feel_ that there is no hope, that there is no work they can do that will make things better, then they _cannot_ do the very challenging work that is needed to make things better. They will not be able to be calm, and patient, and optimistic enough -- in the face of the frustrations in their immediate environment, their skeptical neighbors, their random oppressive family members, the humor and stories all around us that focus on negative human impulses because that is what has the most impact on audiences -- they can't do what needs to be done.
So, yes, turn away. You've learned what you need to learn about how bad things can be, how awful humans can be. Somewhere in you is whatever kindness you were fed early in your life -- you wouldn't be an activist if you had cynicism ingrained in you like I did -- and that is what people like me need, but won't accept if it's shown to us without being contextualized with all the bad we know in our bones is a constant in our civilization.
So, I'm not asking you to write sunny broadway musicals or yet another essay about how noble your dog is.
But what I am getting at is this: there are a lot of people succeeding, enduring, discovering new ways to win against this horrible downward force that is constantly pulling us down. It's a robust force, but the forces in us that propel us in the other direction are not just equally strong, they're stronger. But they are harder to perceive, harder to remember, and usually not funny enough to make it into network sitcoms or award-winning podcasts or Pulitzer-recognized journalism.
Ask someone to tell you what they've heard that's depressing, and you'll get an effortless and long list. Ask someone to tell you what we can do about it, what works, and you'll get nothing, usually.
And none of us can do those things, support those things, talk about them, or even find something *to* talk about other than cruelty and destruction and, honestly, our personal pain at the apparent futility of trying -- none of us can hoist our minds out of this miasma of despair if we don't have *something* else to visualize, to echo, to build on.
That something else is something that is just as worthwhile as bearing witness to suffering. It is also much, much rarer and desperately needed.
Turn your face to the people who are succeeding, who are continuing to try, who are doing good in the world. Don't just look at them; look at the good they have done, and bear witness to that. Repeat that, collect it in your mind and have it ready for every occasion.
When you repeat it, when you imagine new ways to do the work of making things better and talk about them, be prepared to be dismissed in the moment. When people are upset, they don't want to hear that it's not that hopeless. Yes, they need to feel heard, they need to know that you know that yes, it really _is_ that bad -- but there isn't time enough for you to experience and echo their grief and anger as much as they'll want you to. There isn't enough time for you to stay in that emotional space with them, because so few people are doing the hard work of making things better.
I'm not giving you permission to turn away. I'm telling you that you must, because your strength is needed to help all of us turn forward and put one foot in front of the other on the long hard rewarding journey away from the darkness.
posted by amtho at 5:51 AM on May 29, 2024 [10 favorites]
The point of looking is to spur you into action. You’re taking action.
posted by nouvelle-personne at 6:18 AM on May 29, 2024 [4 favorites]
posted by nouvelle-personne at 6:18 AM on May 29, 2024 [4 favorites]
To which I would add: witnessing is an action, but for you it is the least important available action. You are already taking more important actions, and witnessing appears to be an actual demotivator for those -- so stop witnessing so you can keep on with the more important stuff.
posted by humbug at 6:27 AM on May 29, 2024 [3 favorites]
posted by humbug at 6:27 AM on May 29, 2024 [3 favorites]
Friend, I honor your desire to be in solidarity and your clearly deep moral commitment to honoring those who are most vulnerable. I applaud your commitment to this cause. But I gently suggest some inquiry into this paragraph: But looking away feels immoral—especially when we've been asked to bear witness by some of the victims' families; when sometimes the only action victims can take is to share detail of what is occurring in Palestine; and I want to be in solidarity with the Palestinian people. Turning away from this type of request feels callous and doesn't align with my politics.
With respect I ask, is "bearing witness" in the form of watching atrocities in real-time on social media, doing anything material to aid Palestinians? Is viewing these images saving any Palestinian lives, or challenging the US or Israeli war machine? Does looking at these images end apartheid? My own answer to this question, is no. In fact, looking at such images reduces my ability to provide material support - to be of real physical aid in this struggle - and it seems to be heading that way for you too.
I too am a committed activist and have spent most of my activist energy since October 7th working on Palestine solidarity efforts. I have been part of organizing protests, I have attended direct-actions, I have created a petition and spoken out at public Board meetings and am currently working on several overlapping divestment campaigns. But I have looked at almost zero photos or videos from this war, and have no plans to do so. The few I have seen - mostly arial shots showing the massive bombing campaign that has essentially leveled Gaza, although containing few pictures of human bodies - have been almost too much to bear. I can't imagine looking at the stream of pictures of real people dying and suffering that I know are flooding social media and news sites. I in fact have a rule for myself - I never read about horrifying facts or look at horrifying images or videos if I am already taking action about the issue these stories or images illustrate - unless doing so is a needed intervention for me to take action. If I'm already taking action, I don't make myself see these horrors because when it comes to horrors on this level - material action matters much, much more than simply 'bearing witness'. While we all have our personal moral compass, I would suggest inquiring whether 'bearing witness' or re-posting or sharing or viewing horrors does anything of value at all.
We live in an age of symbolic activism that lacks a theory of power or change. When we take action - I suggest we should ask ourselves each time - by what mechanism will this activity move towards ending apartheid in Palestine/ending the military campaign in Palestine/limiting the impact or activities of the racist Israeli government/stopping the flow of US arms to Israel/etc. And while you have a noble goal of honoring the wishes of family members - I think it is important to ask if that is as important as ending this genocide. I would also say that if you do not have a direct connection with Palestinians in Palestine, and are instead getting your messages mediated through social media, I think its important to remind ourselves that we are not actually having a conversation with people on the ground there. There's no opportunity to say, "Would you rather I watch this video, or that I instead spend that same time taking a walk, if knowing that walk gave me energy to show up and protest when Kamala Harris comes to town?" or whatever just giving an example. Just as we know that social media distorts our perceptions on lots of other issues, we should remember that our relationship with social media can distort our decision making around this.
Bless you for being a truly sensitive and loving person who is committed to being part of ending this atrocity. My advice is to consider shifting your activities away from looking at images or horror. Take time every day to take a break, be outside, look at nurturing images, share joy with your child, and use that energy to fight for real, material change.
posted by latkes at 6:31 AM on May 29, 2024 [45 favorites]
With respect I ask, is "bearing witness" in the form of watching atrocities in real-time on social media, doing anything material to aid Palestinians? Is viewing these images saving any Palestinian lives, or challenging the US or Israeli war machine? Does looking at these images end apartheid? My own answer to this question, is no. In fact, looking at such images reduces my ability to provide material support - to be of real physical aid in this struggle - and it seems to be heading that way for you too.
I too am a committed activist and have spent most of my activist energy since October 7th working on Palestine solidarity efforts. I have been part of organizing protests, I have attended direct-actions, I have created a petition and spoken out at public Board meetings and am currently working on several overlapping divestment campaigns. But I have looked at almost zero photos or videos from this war, and have no plans to do so. The few I have seen - mostly arial shots showing the massive bombing campaign that has essentially leveled Gaza, although containing few pictures of human bodies - have been almost too much to bear. I can't imagine looking at the stream of pictures of real people dying and suffering that I know are flooding social media and news sites. I in fact have a rule for myself - I never read about horrifying facts or look at horrifying images or videos if I am already taking action about the issue these stories or images illustrate - unless doing so is a needed intervention for me to take action. If I'm already taking action, I don't make myself see these horrors because when it comes to horrors on this level - material action matters much, much more than simply 'bearing witness'. While we all have our personal moral compass, I would suggest inquiring whether 'bearing witness' or re-posting or sharing or viewing horrors does anything of value at all.
We live in an age of symbolic activism that lacks a theory of power or change. When we take action - I suggest we should ask ourselves each time - by what mechanism will this activity move towards ending apartheid in Palestine/ending the military campaign in Palestine/limiting the impact or activities of the racist Israeli government/stopping the flow of US arms to Israel/etc. And while you have a noble goal of honoring the wishes of family members - I think it is important to ask if that is as important as ending this genocide. I would also say that if you do not have a direct connection with Palestinians in Palestine, and are instead getting your messages mediated through social media, I think its important to remind ourselves that we are not actually having a conversation with people on the ground there. There's no opportunity to say, "Would you rather I watch this video, or that I instead spend that same time taking a walk, if knowing that walk gave me energy to show up and protest when Kamala Harris comes to town?" or whatever just giving an example. Just as we know that social media distorts our perceptions on lots of other issues, we should remember that our relationship with social media can distort our decision making around this.
Bless you for being a truly sensitive and loving person who is committed to being part of ending this atrocity. My advice is to consider shifting your activities away from looking at images or horror. Take time every day to take a break, be outside, look at nurturing images, share joy with your child, and use that energy to fight for real, material change.
posted by latkes at 6:31 AM on May 29, 2024 [45 favorites]
There's lots of good advice here. In addition, I think that social media lends itself to a type of moralizing that feels natural, is not useful and is particularly difficult for a particular kind of pro-social, high self-doubt person.
"Don't look away" sounds great, sure, in the abstract or on a poster, but it really boils down to "at least several times a day, you should see extremely graphic photos of dismembered children and if you don't, you're failing your moral duty". How does that even make sense?
I'm personally not seeing a lot of "make sure you look at all these photos" from people in Palestine; what I'm seeing a lot of is "Palestinians need your actions more than your pity or guilt".
Unlike in many radical situations, I think that people are using this type of slogan/thinking sincerely and out of legitimate fear and distress rather than as a way to beat up other people. But it isn't really any more effective than tumblr culture stuff was in 2012 or so, because "accept that you are a bad person if you don't actively seek out the most distressing experiences you have available every day" doesn't really keep the focus on the issue. If the issue becomes "did you really take in these atrocity images" rather than "what can you do today", it's not getting anything any forwarder.
I think there's broader stuff about the attention economy and exactly what kinds of attention are helpful and what kinds are pointless, ennervating or counterproductive. In the age of social media, people assume all attention is good and all lack of attention is bad, but I think that part of the reason for all these images, telegram, etc is precisely to create a sense of despair and horror. I think that a lot of these things are being done and broadcast in part as an attack on the world in general, in the hope that if we're horrified and grieved enough we'll collapse. The IDF wants to look like monsters in the hope that we'll give up out of spiritual sickness and despair.
And I grant you that it's hard not to be spiritually sick and in despair, regardless. But I don't think that it's a virtue to be sick and in despair. If it happens, it happens, but it's not a marker of doing things right.
posted by Frowner at 6:45 AM on May 29, 2024 [17 favorites]
"Don't look away" sounds great, sure, in the abstract or on a poster, but it really boils down to "at least several times a day, you should see extremely graphic photos of dismembered children and if you don't, you're failing your moral duty". How does that even make sense?
I'm personally not seeing a lot of "make sure you look at all these photos" from people in Palestine; what I'm seeing a lot of is "Palestinians need your actions more than your pity or guilt".
Unlike in many radical situations, I think that people are using this type of slogan/thinking sincerely and out of legitimate fear and distress rather than as a way to beat up other people. But it isn't really any more effective than tumblr culture stuff was in 2012 or so, because "accept that you are a bad person if you don't actively seek out the most distressing experiences you have available every day" doesn't really keep the focus on the issue. If the issue becomes "did you really take in these atrocity images" rather than "what can you do today", it's not getting anything any forwarder.
I think there's broader stuff about the attention economy and exactly what kinds of attention are helpful and what kinds are pointless, ennervating or counterproductive. In the age of social media, people assume all attention is good and all lack of attention is bad, but I think that part of the reason for all these images, telegram, etc is precisely to create a sense of despair and horror. I think that a lot of these things are being done and broadcast in part as an attack on the world in general, in the hope that if we're horrified and grieved enough we'll collapse. The IDF wants to look like monsters in the hope that we'll give up out of spiritual sickness and despair.
And I grant you that it's hard not to be spiritually sick and in despair, regardless. But I don't think that it's a virtue to be sick and in despair. If it happens, it happens, but it's not a marker of doing things right.
posted by Frowner at 6:45 AM on May 29, 2024 [17 favorites]
This is a classic example of why it is so important to put on your own oxygen mask first. When you're on that plane and the cabin loses pressure and you see your child gasping for breath, you feel an immediate urgency to do something for them. But it's important to put on your own mask first. That's the only way to ensure that you will be able to help your child put on theirs.
Solidarity doesn't require that you experience the injuries of the people you are trying to help. Quite the opposite. You need to be healthy and strong to be able to serve.
posted by Winnie the Proust at 6:46 AM on May 29, 2024 [3 favorites]
Solidarity doesn't require that you experience the injuries of the people you are trying to help. Quite the opposite. You need to be healthy and strong to be able to serve.
posted by Winnie the Proust at 6:46 AM on May 29, 2024 [3 favorites]
I spent a lot of time doing activism and hearing horrendous stories. The difference was I could do something either first or second hand to help and change in those situations. Hearing those stories so I could record them as accounts, advocacy or as research mattered because I could do something active. With Palestine - unless your friends and family are Palestinian and need to have people to talk to about this, or you are able to do something relatively active from what you witness second-hand, then it's not helpful. Passive witnessing doesn't help, but harms by draining the resources you have to keep helping.
In practical terms - you can quiet block on most social media or add extensions to browsers to block images from loading. You can keep your social media e.g. on your desktop but have a second 'family & kittens" account that you use on your phone so you can limit the time doomscrolling. I see the top-line news referenced by friends who are watching the news for professional reasons, so I know about major events. I also found putting in time to learn about Palestine's history and culture was helpful, like - they are a living culture so knowing and appreciating the food, the artwork, the crafts, the different historical periods, the writers, the music - all that matters too. And then everytime I do hear something awful, I donate to PCRF and sit with the despair for a little bit before bundling it away.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 6:49 AM on May 29, 2024 [6 favorites]
In practical terms - you can quiet block on most social media or add extensions to browsers to block images from loading. You can keep your social media e.g. on your desktop but have a second 'family & kittens" account that you use on your phone so you can limit the time doomscrolling. I see the top-line news referenced by friends who are watching the news for professional reasons, so I know about major events. I also found putting in time to learn about Palestine's history and culture was helpful, like - they are a living culture so knowing and appreciating the food, the artwork, the crafts, the different historical periods, the writers, the music - all that matters too. And then everytime I do hear something awful, I donate to PCRF and sit with the despair for a little bit before bundling it away.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 6:49 AM on May 29, 2024 [6 favorites]
Giving yourself PTSD - which is absolutely exactly what you are doing, you are experiencing PTSD symptoms and this is the predictable outcome of making yourself view traumatic things you can't affect - is the opposite of effective activism. It feels like doing something because it is doing something - it is hurting you. Which helps no one.
A thing you could do that would be effective activism would be to stop deliberately traumatizing yourself and start encouraging your fellow activists to do the same. Far from making you more effective, the PTSD is going to make you less empathetic, less stable, and less able to do the necessary work of outreach, political action, and solidarity. (Not posting, which is not praxis.)
Here is a good thread on the issue. Please take care of yourself - and if you can get professional mental health support, do so - and please choose something other than martyrdom.
posted by restless_nomad at 6:56 AM on May 29, 2024 [18 favorites]
A thing you could do that would be effective activism would be to stop deliberately traumatizing yourself and start encouraging your fellow activists to do the same. Far from making you more effective, the PTSD is going to make you less empathetic, less stable, and less able to do the necessary work of outreach, political action, and solidarity. (Not posting, which is not praxis.)
Here is a good thread on the issue. Please take care of yourself - and if you can get professional mental health support, do so - and please choose something other than martyrdom.
posted by restless_nomad at 6:56 AM on May 29, 2024 [18 favorites]
I recommend the book Let This Radicalize You - it has many stories and tips for maintaining your endurance and mental health as an organizer/activist. link
posted by ohneat at 7:20 AM on May 29, 2024 [3 favorites]
posted by ohneat at 7:20 AM on May 29, 2024 [3 favorites]
In order of increasing speculativeness:
1) What you wrote is overflowing with guilt, so ask yourself what is insufficient about the many other things you've already been doing - going to protests, organizing other actions, advocating to politcians, donating your time and money - to live in accordance with your values? What is it about your psychical self-flagellation that makes it so necessary for expiating the guilt?
2) Perhaps the suffering you inflict on yourself this way is entirely the point, but unconsciously so. In which case, you'll have to live with the long-term consequences of doing so, which consequences other commenters have already gone into above. Or you could face the consequences of stopping the self-flagellation and try to understand what is so fearsome and punishing about doing so. Or you could try both.
3) What is happening here will inevitably be inflected your own racial identifications/social positions and will make a big difference in how it works. The material driving this thing you're doing will be very different if you are White vs if you are not, if you are Muslim vs if not, etc. In any case, there is an opening to applying an intersectional lens to understanding what is driving you to this.
4) There is no way to not make this about you, because this part that you've brought here already is about you. And that is fine. You are a human being too and also entitled to be vulnerable and imperfect and not-omnipotent like the rest of us.
posted by obliterati at 7:37 AM on May 29, 2024
1) What you wrote is overflowing with guilt, so ask yourself what is insufficient about the many other things you've already been doing - going to protests, organizing other actions, advocating to politcians, donating your time and money - to live in accordance with your values? What is it about your psychical self-flagellation that makes it so necessary for expiating the guilt?
2) Perhaps the suffering you inflict on yourself this way is entirely the point, but unconsciously so. In which case, you'll have to live with the long-term consequences of doing so, which consequences other commenters have already gone into above. Or you could face the consequences of stopping the self-flagellation and try to understand what is so fearsome and punishing about doing so. Or you could try both.
3) What is happening here will inevitably be inflected your own racial identifications/social positions and will make a big difference in how it works. The material driving this thing you're doing will be very different if you are White vs if you are not, if you are Muslim vs if not, etc. In any case, there is an opening to applying an intersectional lens to understanding what is driving you to this.
4) There is no way to not make this about you, because this part that you've brought here already is about you. And that is fine. You are a human being too and also entitled to be vulnerable and imperfect and not-omnipotent like the rest of us.
posted by obliterati at 7:37 AM on May 29, 2024
People have already given you excellent advice - I'll just briefly add a practical suggestion - continue to read the news of what's happening, but avoid images and especially videos. The written text is horrific enough.
posted by coffeecat at 7:37 AM on May 29, 2024 [2 favorites]
posted by coffeecat at 7:37 AM on May 29, 2024 [2 favorites]
A question occured to me: are you taking action within a group or community of activists or organizers? Looking at these images is an isolating and isolated experience. The antidote to this isolation, and also the most impactful way to organize, is with others. Consider if you haven't already embedding yourself with a group that has a specific campaign or project you can be one part of. If there isn't an obvious group to plug into, perhaps starting Parents for Palestine or a campaign with coworkers to get your employer to divest might be a parthway to connection and something of an antidote.
posted by latkes at 7:51 AM on May 29, 2024 [1 favorite]
posted by latkes at 7:51 AM on May 29, 2024 [1 favorite]
This is a very nuts and bolts approach to try and disable images so you can still read and "witness" and respond but without the images or video.
Example for Google Chrome on desktop, other browsers may work differently
Setup a profile and use it to log in to your social media/news/activism accounts.
Go to settings (three dots to the right of address bar)
search "images" in the settings page
scroll down and click on "site settings"
scroll down and click on "images"
You can turn off images for all sites, or just a list to exclude, or a list to include.
Not all sites will work, and some functionality will be broken.
delete or limit the use of these same apps on a phone or other device that does not have image control
posted by sol at 8:29 AM on May 29, 2024 [3 favorites]
Example for Google Chrome on desktop, other browsers may work differently
Setup a profile and use it to log in to your social media/news/activism accounts.
Go to settings (three dots to the right of address bar)
search "images" in the settings page
scroll down and click on "site settings"
scroll down and click on "images"
You can turn off images for all sites, or just a list to exclude, or a list to include.
Not all sites will work, and some functionality will be broken.
delete or limit the use of these same apps on a phone or other device that does not have image control
posted by sol at 8:29 AM on May 29, 2024 [3 favorites]
so it feels impossible (and on some level immoral) to stop viewing these images
Different people have different tolerances for what they can take. It is okay for you to be more sensitive to these images than your peers. You don’t need to be a martyr unless you want to be.
—-
(I personally bottomed out watching a beggar with no legs crawl along a crowded sidewalk in Bangkok. It’s twenty years later and the image remains fresh in my mind, and his suffering is still very real. I don’t feel I’ve done him a disservice by not going to gawk at him every day.)
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 8:32 AM on May 29, 2024
Different people have different tolerances for what they can take. It is okay for you to be more sensitive to these images than your peers. You don’t need to be a martyr unless you want to be.
—-
(I personally bottomed out watching a beggar with no legs crawl along a crowded sidewalk in Bangkok. It’s twenty years later and the image remains fresh in my mind, and his suffering is still very real. I don’t feel I’ve done him a disservice by not going to gawk at him every day.)
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 8:32 AM on May 29, 2024
Great advice here, much of which I will be digging into myself. One thing I'd add is that archivists who work with traumatic materials have written at length about secondary trauma with when working with traumatic records. You might find some of their perspectives on this issue helpful. I used to work in a southern archive, and at one point had to step aside from working with Civil War diaries because the work started to manifest itself into vivid nightmares. Even textual documents can have lasting effects. Take care of yourself so you can be in the work for the long haul.
posted by mostly vowels at 9:13 AM on May 29, 2024 [5 favorites]
posted by mostly vowels at 9:13 AM on May 29, 2024 [5 favorites]
I ve stopped watching any news, current events, or even puff pieces and human interest ones.. I'm done. In my 70s and this has been going on forever. We cannot do anything to stop wars. The war machine is bigger than us. It will still be going on long after we are gone..I find solace in prayer and reading Christian texts, ancient and modern
posted by Czjewel at 9:44 AM on May 29, 2024 [2 favorites]
posted by Czjewel at 9:44 AM on May 29, 2024 [2 favorites]
I’m going to come at this from a slightly different perspective.
So both I and someone close to me were photographed and recorded as a part of being abused as kids. In my case, I’m reasonably sure that the images were destroyed. In hers, she was contacted by the FBI because her images were distributed over the Internet. At the time I talked to her about it, it was really disturbing to her that these images were available at all, and I feel the same. I like other have a need for a) my own experience to be witnessed and b) for action to be taken. But I do not need pictures of my suffering online.
It’s true that video and photographic evidence has created change. It’s true that social media allows us to connect in particular moments with people. This has led to, I think, a mythologizing around that as having value. My belief is that in a 24/7 news and social media environment the constant imagery is more porn than power. I know that’s a brutal statement. But I believe it’s desensitizing people (not you). I have actively banned these images from my home, not because I refuse to bear witness. But because I don’t believe it is actually bearing witness - it’s a way of feeding the public enough to keep them feeling involved.
If you want to explore this issue, I would highly recommend that at some point you explore the experience Phan Thi Kim Phuc “the napalm girl.” There’s no doubt the image of her had an impact on the use of napalm and war. But it came at a cost.
There are so many ways and opportunities to raise awareness and funds and help at many stages. I happened to run into a kid in my martial arts program who started last year not speaking any English, funded for her classes by a local group, from Ukraine. She was laughing with a friend. The group that paid for a year of classes for her connected her to an experience that maybe helps her thrive. There’s no fanfare, no images of her (although obviously there is awareness and media coverage.) to me, that’s where the bearing witness also resides. You don’t need to watch the war coverage.
posted by warriorqueen at 9:57 AM on May 29, 2024 [13 favorites]
So both I and someone close to me were photographed and recorded as a part of being abused as kids. In my case, I’m reasonably sure that the images were destroyed. In hers, she was contacted by the FBI because her images were distributed over the Internet. At the time I talked to her about it, it was really disturbing to her that these images were available at all, and I feel the same. I like other have a need for a) my own experience to be witnessed and b) for action to be taken. But I do not need pictures of my suffering online.
It’s true that video and photographic evidence has created change. It’s true that social media allows us to connect in particular moments with people. This has led to, I think, a mythologizing around that as having value. My belief is that in a 24/7 news and social media environment the constant imagery is more porn than power. I know that’s a brutal statement. But I believe it’s desensitizing people (not you). I have actively banned these images from my home, not because I refuse to bear witness. But because I don’t believe it is actually bearing witness - it’s a way of feeding the public enough to keep them feeling involved.
If you want to explore this issue, I would highly recommend that at some point you explore the experience Phan Thi Kim Phuc “the napalm girl.” There’s no doubt the image of her had an impact on the use of napalm and war. But it came at a cost.
There are so many ways and opportunities to raise awareness and funds and help at many stages. I happened to run into a kid in my martial arts program who started last year not speaking any English, funded for her classes by a local group, from Ukraine. She was laughing with a friend. The group that paid for a year of classes for her connected her to an experience that maybe helps her thrive. There’s no fanfare, no images of her (although obviously there is awareness and media coverage.) to me, that’s where the bearing witness also resides. You don’t need to watch the war coverage.
posted by warriorqueen at 9:57 AM on May 29, 2024 [13 favorites]
I am doing political action work too -- I make it a policy to not view these images for my mental health and we don't have a culture of forcing ourselves to look at these images in the movements I'm in. These images are supposed to be activating for everyone else who isn't doing the work, if you are already doing the work then I don't find it as important and probably even harmful. All the tips above are great, so I am just affirming it.
posted by yueliang at 10:28 AM on May 29, 2024
posted by yueliang at 10:28 AM on May 29, 2024
You are likely familiar with adrienne maree brown. Have you read her book, Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good?
How do we make social justice the most pleasurable human experience? How can we awaken within ourselves desires that make it impossible to settle for anything less than a fulfilling life? Author and editor adrienne maree brown finds the answer in something she calls “pleasure activism,” a politics of healing and happiness that explodes the dour myth that changing the world is just another form of work. Drawing on the black feminist tradition, she challenges us to rethink the ground rules of activism.
Feeling the way you do right now doesn't help you or any movement. What happens if you think of activism as a life long endeavor? If you had a job that made you feel this way, you'd quit. It's also not sustainable as something you do outside of work. It's especially not sustainable as someone who is also a caregiver.
I'm going to guess that what brown is saying sounds so far outside your current experiences as to seem almost absurd. As a first step, I am going to suggest one of two paths:
1) Take a break from the social media where you are seeing these images. Just delete it from your phone and don't engage with it at all.
2) Or, if this account is also an important organizing space, then ask a friend (that's important!) to go through and unfollow/mute the accounts posting that content. And mute stories of others whose share a lot of that content. You should not do this yourself.
You are not failing the movement if you don't look at horrific photos of suffering. I know that seems contrary to the moment, but you have to stop exposing yourself to things that are hurting you.
posted by bluedaisy at 10:30 AM on May 29, 2024 [2 favorites]
How do we make social justice the most pleasurable human experience? How can we awaken within ourselves desires that make it impossible to settle for anything less than a fulfilling life? Author and editor adrienne maree brown finds the answer in something she calls “pleasure activism,” a politics of healing and happiness that explodes the dour myth that changing the world is just another form of work. Drawing on the black feminist tradition, she challenges us to rethink the ground rules of activism.
Feeling the way you do right now doesn't help you or any movement. What happens if you think of activism as a life long endeavor? If you had a job that made you feel this way, you'd quit. It's also not sustainable as something you do outside of work. It's especially not sustainable as someone who is also a caregiver.
I'm going to guess that what brown is saying sounds so far outside your current experiences as to seem almost absurd. As a first step, I am going to suggest one of two paths:
1) Take a break from the social media where you are seeing these images. Just delete it from your phone and don't engage with it at all.
2) Or, if this account is also an important organizing space, then ask a friend (that's important!) to go through and unfollow/mute the accounts posting that content. And mute stories of others whose share a lot of that content. You should not do this yourself.
You are not failing the movement if you don't look at horrific photos of suffering. I know that seems contrary to the moment, but you have to stop exposing yourself to things that are hurting you.
posted by bluedaisy at 10:30 AM on May 29, 2024 [2 favorites]
There is so much powerful, helpful and kind insight here.
I think that the feeling of powerlessness and helplessness in a moment like this is actually more difficult to sit with (for some) than the feelings of horror, revulsion and terror that the images being shared can create in a person. I think it creates a horrible, paralyzing shame loop. It looks like:
step1 seeing graphic, terrible images that shock and devastate (FACT)
step2 realization of terrible injustice and power imbalance in a system that you are part of (FACT)
step3 reeling with disgust and horror (FEELING)
step4 sense of total powerlessness, uncertainty, fear and guilt/shame]] (FEELING)
step5 contemplate ???doing something to help??? (ACTION)
step6 share graphic, terrible images that shock and devastate... (ACTION)
gotostep1
I also think that there are horrible, opportunistic, evil people who will use a moment like this to their own ends. I think about the disgust and horror I felt reading this morning that US Bombs were likely the ones that fell on that camp in Rafah, and I feel sick knowing that my taxes and very existence were used to help pay for them. I feel sick knowing that as a jewish person from a family that was obliterated by the holocaust, that some would use my name and genetic trauma to justify these atrocities. And knowing that these two things are true, that my very existence can be used by these horrible people in positions of power, I recognize that they will happily use my own fears, passions, and emotions against me however they can. If I am sick knowing that my existence as a human being can be used to do harm to others, I would be even sicker to know that my well-meaning but powerfully motivated by fear and rage emotions were being used as such as well.
I remain very committed to staying informed but also very committed to caring for my own mental health and my community - EVERYONE in it, including myself. I am not ignorant to what's occurring but I am also unwilling to be emotionally goaded into potentially doing harm.
This moment reminds me a lot of the George Floyd protests in 2020. I lived right next to CHOP, the protest in Seattle where they drove the cops out of town. I was VERY (and am very!) in line with the cause, and when I wasn't breaking down from the sorrow of seeing my dear friends hurting, scared and sick to death from police violence, the stress and anxiety about the pandemic, and dealing with the very real PTSD that was activated by constant helicopters, screaming, explosions, fighting, and being tear-gassed in my home, I was doing everything I could to be part of the movement. It never felt enough.
I remember one afternoon, lying on my floor in my apartment, having a terrible panic/anxiety attack brought on by being tear gassed that morning, and trying to calm myself down, when a man standing in the street just under my window started screaming up into my building that white silence was violence, and that if we were inside at that moment, we were complicit. I was curled up in the fetal position trying to calm my nervous system and I felt like there was no escape. That man was white too, and I realized that this was how he had decided to cope with the feelings of powerlessness and hopelessness. I had compassion for him. And I recognized that he did not know me, my story, he could not see me at all, had no idea about me at all. He was just standing on the corner screaming because it was all he could think to do.
I am telling this story not for sympathy, but because I think it's important to recognize that when we are motivated to take action at a time like this, we can actually do real harm to others. And if we don't try to stay ahead of our emotions taking over, we can be totally and completely destroyed and unable to take real action. I realized on the floor of my apartment that day that as I was feeling like there was a man outside that hated me and thought I was a bad person - as bad as a policeman who would kill a man in broad daylight with witnesses because of the color of his skin - didn't know I existed at all. He was just shouting into the void. I was choosing to take it on and make it about myself. In some ways I am grateful for that moment because it made me focus on what was actually important to me and helped me focus the action that I took.
It might help you to think of a way to sharpen your commitment to direct action. Maybe consider instead of saying:
"I'm an activist in my leftist community and deeply committed to direct action"
Consider something more like:
"I'm a human being who is committed to fighting injustice. I am deeply committed to effective action in support of [specific outcome]."
Then ask yourself -- this thing that feels bad and is making me sick -- is it working? Is it helpful? Do I need to steel myself and keep going because I know that it is worth it? Or should I try something else?
posted by pazazygeek at 10:31 AM on May 29, 2024 [17 favorites]
I think that the feeling of powerlessness and helplessness in a moment like this is actually more difficult to sit with (for some) than the feelings of horror, revulsion and terror that the images being shared can create in a person. I think it creates a horrible, paralyzing shame loop. It looks like:
step1 seeing graphic, terrible images that shock and devastate (FACT)
step2 realization of terrible injustice and power imbalance in a system that you are part of (FACT)
step3 reeling with disgust and horror (FEELING)
step4 sense of total powerlessness, uncertainty, fear and guilt/shame]] (FEELING)
step5 contemplate ???doing something to help??? (ACTION)
step6 share graphic, terrible images that shock and devastate... (ACTION)
gotostep1
I also think that there are horrible, opportunistic, evil people who will use a moment like this to their own ends. I think about the disgust and horror I felt reading this morning that US Bombs were likely the ones that fell on that camp in Rafah, and I feel sick knowing that my taxes and very existence were used to help pay for them. I feel sick knowing that as a jewish person from a family that was obliterated by the holocaust, that some would use my name and genetic trauma to justify these atrocities. And knowing that these two things are true, that my very existence can be used by these horrible people in positions of power, I recognize that they will happily use my own fears, passions, and emotions against me however they can. If I am sick knowing that my existence as a human being can be used to do harm to others, I would be even sicker to know that my well-meaning but powerfully motivated by fear and rage emotions were being used as such as well.
I remain very committed to staying informed but also very committed to caring for my own mental health and my community - EVERYONE in it, including myself. I am not ignorant to what's occurring but I am also unwilling to be emotionally goaded into potentially doing harm.
This moment reminds me a lot of the George Floyd protests in 2020. I lived right next to CHOP, the protest in Seattle where they drove the cops out of town. I was VERY (and am very!) in line with the cause, and when I wasn't breaking down from the sorrow of seeing my dear friends hurting, scared and sick to death from police violence, the stress and anxiety about the pandemic, and dealing with the very real PTSD that was activated by constant helicopters, screaming, explosions, fighting, and being tear-gassed in my home, I was doing everything I could to be part of the movement. It never felt enough.
I remember one afternoon, lying on my floor in my apartment, having a terrible panic/anxiety attack brought on by being tear gassed that morning, and trying to calm myself down, when a man standing in the street just under my window started screaming up into my building that white silence was violence, and that if we were inside at that moment, we were complicit. I was curled up in the fetal position trying to calm my nervous system and I felt like there was no escape. That man was white too, and I realized that this was how he had decided to cope with the feelings of powerlessness and hopelessness. I had compassion for him. And I recognized that he did not know me, my story, he could not see me at all, had no idea about me at all. He was just standing on the corner screaming because it was all he could think to do.
I am telling this story not for sympathy, but because I think it's important to recognize that when we are motivated to take action at a time like this, we can actually do real harm to others. And if we don't try to stay ahead of our emotions taking over, we can be totally and completely destroyed and unable to take real action. I realized on the floor of my apartment that day that as I was feeling like there was a man outside that hated me and thought I was a bad person - as bad as a policeman who would kill a man in broad daylight with witnesses because of the color of his skin - didn't know I existed at all. He was just shouting into the void. I was choosing to take it on and make it about myself. In some ways I am grateful for that moment because it made me focus on what was actually important to me and helped me focus the action that I took.
It might help you to think of a way to sharpen your commitment to direct action. Maybe consider instead of saying:
"I'm an activist in my leftist community and deeply committed to direct action"
Consider something more like:
"I'm a human being who is committed to fighting injustice. I am deeply committed to effective action in support of [specific outcome]."
Then ask yourself -- this thing that feels bad and is making me sick -- is it working? Is it helpful? Do I need to steel myself and keep going because I know that it is worth it? Or should I try something else?
posted by pazazygeek at 10:31 AM on May 29, 2024 [17 favorites]
There's an aphorism: You don't have to set yourself on fire to keep someone else warm, but that's basically what you're doing. And you're too far away for Palestinians to even see the flames.
Don't look at the pictures. It's not doing anyone any good, you or your group, to make yourself ill and unable to do the useful work you are doing.
Bless you.
posted by Enid Lareg at 10:33 AM on May 29, 2024 [2 favorites]
Don't look at the pictures. It's not doing anyone any good, you or your group, to make yourself ill and unable to do the useful work you are doing.
Bless you.
posted by Enid Lareg at 10:33 AM on May 29, 2024 [2 favorites]
Following up on pazazygeek's excellent comment, I also wanted to mention that there might have been more opportunities for directly relevant mutual aid and organizing in 2020 with the George Floyd protests. Activists used that time to learn about history of policing and police violence in their local communities. There were a lot of mutual aid activities and events and organizing systems created. The current moment is about something happening much further away, which is perhaps why there's more pressure to watch video and see images. I think some of what you are struggling against is some hopelessness and a lack of control.
So, is there something you can focus on locally? I suspect this need, for local action, is what we've seen on college campuses. I would try to find something where you do exert influence and control, even if it's a few steps away from the bigger picture scenario.
posted by bluedaisy at 11:05 AM on May 29, 2024 [1 favorite]
So, is there something you can focus on locally? I suspect this need, for local action, is what we've seen on college campuses. I would try to find something where you do exert influence and control, even if it's a few steps away from the bigger picture scenario.
posted by bluedaisy at 11:05 AM on May 29, 2024 [1 favorite]
People always do this thing where they're like "YOU DON'T GET TO LOG OFF. YOU DON'T GET TO LOOK AWAY FROM THIS" like you can purge the sin of privilege by wearing the hair shirt of witness even if that puts you in a position where you're too tired to do anything real
- nora reed
posted by churl at 11:54 AM on May 29, 2024 [5 favorites]
- nora reed
posted by churl at 11:54 AM on May 29, 2024 [5 favorites]
If I may gently suggest, bearing witness does not and has never meant destroying your soul and your mind by looking at endless images of violence. Bearing witness means testimony, témoignage, asserting that something is true.
Mainlining gore and trauma doesn’t actually help anyone, and it will give you PTSD. That will change how you act and relate to people, and you won’t even realize you’re doing it, and it won’t help anyone in the occupied territories.
I promise you, you can step away from the imagery and still find ways to help folks.
posted by mountainherder at 12:03 PM on May 29, 2024 [2 favorites]
Mainlining gore and trauma doesn’t actually help anyone, and it will give you PTSD. That will change how you act and relate to people, and you won’t even realize you’re doing it, and it won’t help anyone in the occupied territories.
I promise you, you can step away from the imagery and still find ways to help folks.
posted by mountainherder at 12:03 PM on May 29, 2024 [2 favorites]
Others have said it far more eloquently, but: Exposing yourself to these images to the point that you're losing your mental health and ability to function is counterproductive to whatever extent it reduces your ability to help (which I think is not uncommon). For people who want to help others, it is important to pay attention to how they can retain their ability to help -- you hear this in lifeguard courses, search and rescue books, preflight advice about oxygen masks, dealing with electrical situations, etc., and I think it's true here too. Please don't feel guilty about taking care of yourself. Wishing you the best.
posted by slidell at 12:07 PM on May 29, 2024
posted by slidell at 12:07 PM on May 29, 2024
I'm barely functioning at this point, and I'm tipping towards emotional crisis.
You're not eating or sleeping? You're having traumatic flashbacks? You're not tipping towards emotional crisis, you are in emotional crisis. I beg you to take this seriously and make an appointment to see a mental health professional as soon as you can. If you can't do it for yourself, do it for your child, who might be witnessing more of your crisis than you realise. Your kid needs you. Not your activism, they need you.
I say this with, I promise, love and sympathy: this is no longer an act of service. You are self-harming. Continuing to expose yourself to these images is an act of emotional and mental harm.
I'll go further than the above and say you need to take a full break from this activism if you can, as soon as you can. You need to dedicate yourself to pulling yourself back from the brink, otherwise you will not be able to help anyone.
posted by fight or flight at 12:09 PM on May 29, 2024 [19 favorites]
You're not eating or sleeping? You're having traumatic flashbacks? You're not tipping towards emotional crisis, you are in emotional crisis. I beg you to take this seriously and make an appointment to see a mental health professional as soon as you can. If you can't do it for yourself, do it for your child, who might be witnessing more of your crisis than you realise. Your kid needs you. Not your activism, they need you.
I say this with, I promise, love and sympathy: this is no longer an act of service. You are self-harming. Continuing to expose yourself to these images is an act of emotional and mental harm.
I'll go further than the above and say you need to take a full break from this activism if you can, as soon as you can. You need to dedicate yourself to pulling yourself back from the brink, otherwise you will not be able to help anyone.
posted by fight or flight at 12:09 PM on May 29, 2024 [19 favorites]
This is absolutely self-harm. Please stop looking at these images. You are rendering yourself less able to do work for these people because you're traumatizing yourself.
Think about what you would want if these images were of you. Would you want countless strangers, people who care about you and want the best for you and your family, giving themselves nightmares and burning themselves out looking at the worst moments of your life or your horrific corpse? Of course not. This is the opposite of honoring the wishes and the pain of these people.
posted by potrzebie at 4:47 PM on May 29, 2024
Think about what you would want if these images were of you. Would you want countless strangers, people who care about you and want the best for you and your family, giving themselves nightmares and burning themselves out looking at the worst moments of your life or your horrific corpse? Of course not. This is the opposite of honoring the wishes and the pain of these people.
posted by potrzebie at 4:47 PM on May 29, 2024
I don’t see the point of forcing yourself to look at these images.
I really question the premise that doing so makes you a more moral or virtuous person, or a better ally, or somehow in solidarity with the victims. It doesn’t, any more than looking at car crash photos means that I stand with victims of drunk driving.
“Bearing witness” doesn’t mean literally viewing every single horrific image on your newsfeed; it means recognising what’s happening and getting up and doing something about it.
Like donating, protesting, writing letters — which you already are!
I think that many of us with a deep interest in social justice go through this feeling of burn-out, because there are so many bad things going on in the world, and we forget to balance it with the good. Many of us then start to recognise that we need to draw boundaries or build a little emotional distance, while continuing to take action.
What you are feeling is common, and you will get through it. You are enough, OK? You’re already doing so much. Be kind and respectful to yourself.
posted by primavera_f at 5:08 PM on May 29, 2024 [3 favorites]
I really question the premise that doing so makes you a more moral or virtuous person, or a better ally, or somehow in solidarity with the victims. It doesn’t, any more than looking at car crash photos means that I stand with victims of drunk driving.
“Bearing witness” doesn’t mean literally viewing every single horrific image on your newsfeed; it means recognising what’s happening and getting up and doing something about it.
Like donating, protesting, writing letters — which you already are!
I think that many of us with a deep interest in social justice go through this feeling of burn-out, because there are so many bad things going on in the world, and we forget to balance it with the good. Many of us then start to recognise that we need to draw boundaries or build a little emotional distance, while continuing to take action.
What you are feeling is common, and you will get through it. You are enough, OK? You’re already doing so much. Be kind and respectful to yourself.
posted by primavera_f at 5:08 PM on May 29, 2024 [3 favorites]
I have a short story to tell.
When my mother fell and became a quadropedic, I would wake up in the middle of the night and scratch my nose and suddenly be wide awake and horrified that my mother couldn't do that. What torture that must be!
I don't think I slept the first few months after her accident. And then a friend said to me:
Suffering because others are suffering is not very useful.
And suddenly I could focus on the important work that needed to be done.
My friend, thank you for focusing on the work that needs to be done.
posted by Arctostaphylos at 5:42 PM on May 29, 2024 [3 favorites]
When my mother fell and became a quadropedic, I would wake up in the middle of the night and scratch my nose and suddenly be wide awake and horrified that my mother couldn't do that. What torture that must be!
I don't think I slept the first few months after her accident. And then a friend said to me:
Suffering because others are suffering is not very useful.
And suddenly I could focus on the important work that needed to be done.
My friend, thank you for focusing on the work that needs to be done.
posted by Arctostaphylos at 5:42 PM on May 29, 2024 [3 favorites]
I'm just repeating what lots of other people have already said above, but I think it's important so here goes: you know what is going on, you don't need to keep looking at the pictures. What is important is taking action that contributes to slowing down and hopefully eventually stopping the killing machine. You can't act effectively if you're traumatized or exhausted. It sounds like you might need to step away from this entirely to protect your mental health; if so, you should do that. If you are able to return to activism eventually, do whatever you need to do to limit your exposure to these image. Thank you for caring and for acting.
posted by mydonkeybenjamin at 2:07 AM on May 30, 2024 [1 favorite]
posted by mydonkeybenjamin at 2:07 AM on May 30, 2024 [1 favorite]
If you were a terrible person, who did zero activism and never went to protests or organized or did any of the things you list, if you were asking just for you and not so you can be a better ally, it would still be okay not to do this. That would not be selfish. It would not be immoral. That would not hurt suffering people (of which you are currently one) or wake up people who actually are terrible. It's not only okay to look after yourself as many have said so you can then have fuel for the fight or come back stronger and give more of yourself or whatever, it's okay to do it because you're a human being who deserves comfort and peace. I believe you when you say you know "taking a break" is okay but should you choose to, bowing out entirely is also fine. There's every excuse in the world about how privilege or complicity or the complexities of morality or that doing enough means it is impossible to Just Stop, but that is a trap your mind is setting for you. And if you are not careful, I speak from hard experience, that trap becomes increasingly difficult to escape.
posted by colorblock sock at 6:04 AM on May 30, 2024 [1 favorite]
posted by colorblock sock at 6:04 AM on May 30, 2024 [1 favorite]
Like everyone else said: this has become a form of self-harm for you and you need to stop and take care of yourself.
That said, here's a guide to minimizing the harm done by viewing traumatic images, from a veteran Trust and Safety worker.
I'll summarize here, but more detail and additional links are available in the link, which I highly recommend reading.
1. The first major theme is to avoid developing vigilance. If you encounter traumatic imagery when you're not expecting it, you'll train your nervous system to stay alert because it might pop up at any time. That's really bad for your mental health.
Strong boundaries are important. If you're seeing it on social media, make a second account for engaging with traumatic content. Block all relevant keywords from your primary account so that you will *only* see it by logging out of your primary account and logging into your secondary account. When you're done for the day, go for a walk or perform some other ritual that helps you reset, reinforcing the fact that you're done and won't be seeing any more for a while.
You can also minimize surprises from individual videos by scrubbing through the thumbnails of the entire video before actually watching it, so you know what to expect.
One last thing practiced by Trust and Safety moderators: If you're dealing with multiple different categories of traumatic content, then you want to engage with only one category of content at a time. For moderators an example would be images of violence versus CSAM images. This may not apply to your situation, but the idea is that maintaining consistency in the type of what you're seeing minimizes surprises and helps avoid vigilance.
2. The second major theme is that you want to approach the content intellectually but not viscerally. There are a lot of techniques you can use for this, and all of them combined is ideal:
- Don't watch video in full screen. Watch video in a window that's as small as possible for you to still make out whatever details are important for you to make out.
- Keep the audio muted. Sound is very visceral, and harder to employ distancing techniques with.
- Flip images and video upside-down. Browser plugins are available to do this for images, and if you're on a phone you can just flip the whole device.
- Invert the colors of your screen. That's an option available in your system's accessibility settings. It'll look really weird, which is the point.
The combination of these things means that you can still figure out what's happening in an image or video, but you do have to *figure it out*. You won't immediately process what you're looking at, which means that it can partially bypass the lower parts of your brain that are responsible for threat handling and lower the amount of trauma you take on.
Also, you mentioned that some imagery is hitting closer to home for you than others, because you are the parent of a child. If you continue to engage with traumatic content from Gaza, doing what you can to avoid any child-related content would be an additional technique to help you maintain emotional distance and personal safety. Whatever your goals are for engaging with traumatic imagery, let someone else handle that specific slice.
3. The third major theme is to help yourself recover. That means taking frequent scheduled breaks while you're viewing traumatic content, and an additional unscheduled break anytime you see something particularly upsetting.
It also means, and this is 100% real and serious, that you should play 15-20 minutes of Tetris every night. If you don't like Tetris, you can try similar fast-paced puzzle games like bejeweled, but the research has been done for Tetris. We don't know exactly why it works, but 15-20 minutes of Tetris after traumatic content is consistently helpful in reducing the long term impact. Closer to the time when you see the traumatic content is better, but within 24 hours still shows an effect in studies.
It seems to affect the way that your brain moves imagery into long-term memory, and might be similar to the way that EMDR works (which is also poorly understood). Get Tetris on your phone, and play it every day that you engage with traumatic content.
Recovery also means talking to a therapist. Unfortunately, you've already harmed yourself pretty badly. If you're engaging with traumatic imagery then this would be a good idea even if you were starting fresh because it's a predictable outcome of working with that type of content.
Ultimately, I hope that you don't need most of this advice because you're able to take the consensus of the thread and step away. If you're not able to step away, then you should implement as many of these suggestions as you can bring yourself to do. Read the link for more details, and think about how best to implement not just the specifics but also the underlying principles. Avoid surprises, build emotional distance, and give yourself the time, space, and tools you need to recover.
posted by vibratory manner of working at 11:47 AM on May 30, 2024 [3 favorites]
That said, here's a guide to minimizing the harm done by viewing traumatic images, from a veteran Trust and Safety worker.
I'll summarize here, but more detail and additional links are available in the link, which I highly recommend reading.
1. The first major theme is to avoid developing vigilance. If you encounter traumatic imagery when you're not expecting it, you'll train your nervous system to stay alert because it might pop up at any time. That's really bad for your mental health.
Strong boundaries are important. If you're seeing it on social media, make a second account for engaging with traumatic content. Block all relevant keywords from your primary account so that you will *only* see it by logging out of your primary account and logging into your secondary account. When you're done for the day, go for a walk or perform some other ritual that helps you reset, reinforcing the fact that you're done and won't be seeing any more for a while.
You can also minimize surprises from individual videos by scrubbing through the thumbnails of the entire video before actually watching it, so you know what to expect.
One last thing practiced by Trust and Safety moderators: If you're dealing with multiple different categories of traumatic content, then you want to engage with only one category of content at a time. For moderators an example would be images of violence versus CSAM images. This may not apply to your situation, but the idea is that maintaining consistency in the type of what you're seeing minimizes surprises and helps avoid vigilance.
2. The second major theme is that you want to approach the content intellectually but not viscerally. There are a lot of techniques you can use for this, and all of them combined is ideal:
- Don't watch video in full screen. Watch video in a window that's as small as possible for you to still make out whatever details are important for you to make out.
- Keep the audio muted. Sound is very visceral, and harder to employ distancing techniques with.
- Flip images and video upside-down. Browser plugins are available to do this for images, and if you're on a phone you can just flip the whole device.
- Invert the colors of your screen. That's an option available in your system's accessibility settings. It'll look really weird, which is the point.
The combination of these things means that you can still figure out what's happening in an image or video, but you do have to *figure it out*. You won't immediately process what you're looking at, which means that it can partially bypass the lower parts of your brain that are responsible for threat handling and lower the amount of trauma you take on.
Also, you mentioned that some imagery is hitting closer to home for you than others, because you are the parent of a child. If you continue to engage with traumatic content from Gaza, doing what you can to avoid any child-related content would be an additional technique to help you maintain emotional distance and personal safety. Whatever your goals are for engaging with traumatic imagery, let someone else handle that specific slice.
3. The third major theme is to help yourself recover. That means taking frequent scheduled breaks while you're viewing traumatic content, and an additional unscheduled break anytime you see something particularly upsetting.
It also means, and this is 100% real and serious, that you should play 15-20 minutes of Tetris every night. If you don't like Tetris, you can try similar fast-paced puzzle games like bejeweled, but the research has been done for Tetris. We don't know exactly why it works, but 15-20 minutes of Tetris after traumatic content is consistently helpful in reducing the long term impact. Closer to the time when you see the traumatic content is better, but within 24 hours still shows an effect in studies.
It seems to affect the way that your brain moves imagery into long-term memory, and might be similar to the way that EMDR works (which is also poorly understood). Get Tetris on your phone, and play it every day that you engage with traumatic content.
Recovery also means talking to a therapist. Unfortunately, you've already harmed yourself pretty badly. If you're engaging with traumatic imagery then this would be a good idea even if you were starting fresh because it's a predictable outcome of working with that type of content.
Ultimately, I hope that you don't need most of this advice because you're able to take the consensus of the thread and step away. If you're not able to step away, then you should implement as many of these suggestions as you can bring yourself to do. Read the link for more details, and think about how best to implement not just the specifics but also the underlying principles. Avoid surprises, build emotional distance, and give yourself the time, space, and tools you need to recover.
posted by vibratory manner of working at 11:47 AM on May 30, 2024 [3 favorites]
Sorry friend, you are processing a lot. I hope that you can find a solid path forward that enables you and work to continue.
I work in the disaster response space and cut my teeth working help the community after Hurricane Katrina. I learned the hard way that there was always more to do and that I could not do it all. Accepting that I was one part of a larger response was difficult. I ran my tank empty and had nothing left to give and had to shut down for a while. I learned about self-care. Practicing self-care was/is challenging. In the end was it better to endure a scaled down version of help or not provide help at all? I chose the former. I had to be more conscious in my decisions and time allotment. It felt selfish to me but I *had* to do it if I wanted to continue serving.
There was no litmus test regarding what I had to do. I wanted to help but I was able to do what I thought I could do for as long as I needed to. It took a while to accept this. I say this because it seems that you want to keep engaging with your work but "just can't" keep doing the type of work you have been. I personally think that is just fine. Securing your health in order to endure is a solid choice. I wanted you to hear that. There are things to be done that will allow you to keep engaging. It is a moral choice to want to endure so that others may live.
Finally, talk to people. I'm glad you are reaching out here. But, people around you care that you are doing ok. They want you to be healthy and well. When we talk to other people they can offer kindness and compassion and potentially, assist in finding a path forward. One that you feel good about taking. We are never alone although it feels like it sometimes. Let other people help you. You deserve it.
Be well.
posted by zerobyproxy at 12:08 PM on May 30, 2024 [1 favorite]
I work in the disaster response space and cut my teeth working help the community after Hurricane Katrina. I learned the hard way that there was always more to do and that I could not do it all. Accepting that I was one part of a larger response was difficult. I ran my tank empty and had nothing left to give and had to shut down for a while. I learned about self-care. Practicing self-care was/is challenging. In the end was it better to endure a scaled down version of help or not provide help at all? I chose the former. I had to be more conscious in my decisions and time allotment. It felt selfish to me but I *had* to do it if I wanted to continue serving.
There was no litmus test regarding what I had to do. I wanted to help but I was able to do what I thought I could do for as long as I needed to. It took a while to accept this. I say this because it seems that you want to keep engaging with your work but "just can't" keep doing the type of work you have been. I personally think that is just fine. Securing your health in order to endure is a solid choice. I wanted you to hear that. There are things to be done that will allow you to keep engaging. It is a moral choice to want to endure so that others may live.
Finally, talk to people. I'm glad you are reaching out here. But, people around you care that you are doing ok. They want you to be healthy and well. When we talk to other people they can offer kindness and compassion and potentially, assist in finding a path forward. One that you feel good about taking. We are never alone although it feels like it sometimes. Let other people help you. You deserve it.
Be well.
posted by zerobyproxy at 12:08 PM on May 30, 2024 [1 favorite]
it is not a moral duty to view atrocities
posted by Sebmojo at 6:24 PM on May 30, 2024 [4 favorites]
posted by Sebmojo at 6:24 PM on May 30, 2024 [4 favorites]
Others have been kind. I am going to be blunt.
Traumatizing yourself is going to do sweet fuck-all to help the people of Palestine. 'Bearing witness' is all well and good, but now you've gone and made yourself useless for the actual work. You know what's happening. You don't need to do some kind of bullshit atrocity tourism to prove the depth of your allyship. In fact, I doubt the people of Palestine want you to wallow in their pain, either.
Above and beyond all that, you cannot pour from an empty, broken cup. Activism is not a 24/7 endeavour. Everyone needs time to rest and recharge or they'll burn themselves out.
posted by Tamanna at 2:39 PM on June 14, 2024 [1 favorite]
Traumatizing yourself is going to do sweet fuck-all to help the people of Palestine. 'Bearing witness' is all well and good, but now you've gone and made yourself useless for the actual work. You know what's happening. You don't need to do some kind of bullshit atrocity tourism to prove the depth of your allyship. In fact, I doubt the people of Palestine want you to wallow in their pain, either.
Above and beyond all that, you cannot pour from an empty, broken cup. Activism is not a 24/7 endeavour. Everyone needs time to rest and recharge or they'll burn themselves out.
posted by Tamanna at 2:39 PM on June 14, 2024 [1 favorite]
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I get everything you're saying about it feeling like a moral duty to witness these atrocities. I also get what you're saying about feeling bad to have the privilege to turn off. But your responsibility to be a good activist/ally relies on your being able to function and I feel like that justifies shutting down for a day or two to reboot. Sadly, very very sadly, things won't have changed in a day or two.
I really hear you. I was barely able to sleep for large parts of January and February and my sleep is still shitty and punctuated with nightmares about explosions and dismemberment.
I think we can witness without destroying ourselves, and given your commitment to activism and direct action I think you need to frame some much-needed care of yourself as your way of serving the cause better. Some level of cognitive dissonance is needed if we're to function. It's so fucking terrible, all of it.
posted by unicorn chaser at 5:17 AM on May 29, 2024 [14 favorites]