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Blog / / Grieving, Compassion and Personal Responsibility on the Path to Healing
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Grieving, Compassion and Personal Responsibility on the Path to Healing
We cannot fully understand either the trauma or the recovery process without understanding empathy and its relationship with traumatization, and that relationship is complex and two-directional!

To begin with, it is of key importance to make a distinction whether traumatization develops in the formative period or in adult age. If developed during the childhood, its effect is far more toxic, and it affects us as personalities! If developed in the later stages of life, traumatization can cause a wide variety of reactions (when an event is ‘abnormal’, every reaction is normal), nevertheless they are usually less toxic and most frequently temporary. For that reason, in such, tragic circumstances, it is important to wait with the implementation of any strategic/preventive actions against violence. We should let the passions calm down, give ourselves the time and space to give a deep thought to everything that happened to us, and only then thoughtfully take some much-needed actions.

But let's return to the relationship between traumatization and our capacity for compassion. On the one hand, traumatization greatly affects our capacity for empathy. We know that the vast majority of people who abuse others have been victims of abuse themselves! In most cases, we need to be the victims of abuse ourselves, so that our capacity for empathy would be severely damaged to make us the abusers. In such circumstances, the pain that a person inflicts to others, leads to his or her relief, a feeling of power, superiority… On the other hand, only a third of people who have been victims of abuse become abusers themselves! What about these two thirds? They usually don’t become the media sensations! Some of them will live an unobtrusive, ordinary lives, but some of them will nevertheless become ‘super-empathic’. They will be sensitized to human suffering, and this will perhaps make them especially empathetic, righteous, and protective. Some of them will be even heroes! Unfortunately, the reality is even more complex and more confusing. Sometimes, under the influence of traumatization, overwhelmed by pain and compassion for the victims, we will become persecutors ourselves. And, that’s, in a way, understandable.

A traumatic experience disrupts our sense of security, our ‘map of the world’ no longer corresponds to reality (such things have not happened here, in ‘our’ world). We are overwhelmed by the experience of vulnerability, powerlessness, and lack of control over life. At the same time, we are full of pain and anger. In such circumstances, empathy towards one group can lead to aggression towards the other. Aggression and persecution become a "solution" not only to anger, but also to fear and the feeling of a lack of control (if we find the culprit and adequately sanction him, we will feel that we have regained control over our lives). At the same time, we feel a strong pressure to resolve the situation as soon as possible! No matter how understandable it may seem, such behaviour, as a rule, is unfortunately not a true solution.

It is important to recognize that we also have a society that has been getting used to violence and existential threat for decades (not to mention ‘transgenerational traumas’). The more violence around us, the more extreme our need for protectors and ‘superheroes’. Some theorists, for example, believe that psychopathy (cold-bloodedness, lack of empathy, disinhibition in behaviour, Machiavellian and predatory behaviour, superficial charm...) is a personality trait that we all have to some extent (only the most extreme part of the population would be called ‘psychopaths’). The question is, of course, why did such a trait persist in the population through evolution? There are indications that the more ‘dangerous’ times are, the more ‘desirable’ psychopathic behaviour is, i.e. more adaptive in society it is (I think that we have all had the opportunity to witness this in recent decades). We are looking for those who will protect us. The problem is, of course, that in such circumstances, instead of safety, we only get more threats! After such an escalation, society enters an unfavourable, but on the other hand, a stable state! A ‘vicious circle’ is created. The degree of threat that we feel in society is extreme, in such a society we need ‘strong protectors’, and it is they who are essentially adorned with psychopathic traits, and they deepen the degree of threat that is felt in society! Maybe that's what happened to us? Perhaps this is precisely the dynamic core of social pathology? The question is then what needs to happen to get this kind of society out of a state of unfavourable, toxic balance and start the healing process? Are two recent tragedies something that will change us all? It seems that some energy has been released and a spirit of togetherness and solidarity has emerged.

Perhaps the right question is – what needs to happen for us to continue living after a traumatic experience? After a trauma, the world becomes a terrible place! After a trauma inflicted by a person (and a child in particular), other people become scary too! Finally, after a trauma, our mind (our inner space, our memories) becomes a scary place too (and it is perhaps the most important thing for understanding of trauma and the toxic effect of traumatization on us). Our memories become too painful (when we remember the trauma, we have a feeling that it is happening again). We become trapped in a vicious cycle of running away from memories and their intrusions. In such circumstances, instead of words, we turn to actions - either we run away, or we attack! And there is the risk of further re-traumatization!

What needs to be done to overcome the traumatization? We need to let the pain be with us, to let such experience to engulf us and to endure the contact with them, until they become something that we can think about (think while feeling at the same time). We need to reach the point at which those experiences become a part of our past, something that has happened to us (rather than something that is happening to us now, when we think about it). In order to be able to do it, we must not be alone in this, we need to have someone we trust enough to ‘plunge into’ painful memories with us together (and let's remember that in these experiences we lose trust both in people and relationships). We need to grieve for all that has been lost. And it's not just lives (though it’s certainly the most painful and obvious loss). Besides the lives, it is also an image of the world as a safe place and what is perhaps the most difficult, it is an image of ourselves (us) as a sinless person (society)! I mean accepting personal responsibility, imperfection, and sinfulness. It is clear that the perpetrator is responsible for the act, everything else is a substitution of theses. But all the rest of us, all of us are responsible, at least to some extent, for the context in which the act happened (sometimes by direct action, and sometimes by the lack of action, by passive observation of violence and suffering). If we as a society want to move forward, pursuing a better path after the tragedy, I believe that it is necessary for everyone to accept part of the responsibility for the entire context in which the tragedy occurred – and this involves empathy, grieving and questioning one's own behaviour (as opposed to denying painful experiences, running away from them, or taking over the role of a persecutor-avenger).

I believe that, during this period, we all had the opportunity to witness also such, bright examples of dealing with trauma – especially by those who have been experiencing the most difficult time in this situation.
AUTHOR
Vladimir Borovnica
psychologist