Dealing with Our Collective Trauma

“Are you okay?” a co-worker asks me. I nod as I move on to a case at work. But what I want to say is: No, of course I’m not okay. I’m scared and shocked and so full of grief for what is happening that I have no words.

“Is your family in Israel okay?” a friend asks me at the gym. I manage a half smile and thank her for asking as I start my run. But what I want to say is: My family is devastated. My brothers and sisters in Israel are suffering as we speak. They are injured. They are dying. They are being held hostage. They are sending their sons into battlefields from which they don’t know if they will ever return.

As I sprint, my tears mix with my sweat as I try to outrun the pain. I look up at the sky and cry silently. Please, please help us. I go to work. Shop for groceries. Take care of my children. I try not to watch the news, but it is everywhere. I’m picking up pizza one night when the TV screen in the pizza shop airs a horrifying headline. I try to look away but it’s too late. I have seen the words. And as I clutch the pizza boxes, I fight the tears that arise. I am not going to cry in a pizza shop, I tell myself as I pay. But the cashier has noticed even as I furiously swipe at my eyes with a napkin. She looks at me and then up at the screen, and I see that there are tears in her eyes too.

We are not okay. We are devastated. We are angry. We are frustrated. We are scared. We are grieving. We may be going through the motions of normal life – eating, working, exercising, trying to help – but the collective trauma that we are undergoing is tragic on a scale that we cannot even begin to process yet.

The first step in dealing with this intense trauma is first accepting how you feel. You need to allow yourself to feel all of the hard, uncomfortable feelings that you are feeling and to know that it is normal to feel that way. Here are some important symptoms of traumatic stress and how to cope with them.

1. Disruption of sleep. You may have a hard time falling or staying asleep. You may have a difficult time blocking out images you may have seen on the news or worries about the future. Do not try to force yourself back to sleep since this often just increases your anxiety. Do try to have a warm drink and read something distracting in a room with calm lights. Resist using any devices; they will make it harder to fall back asleep.
2. Feeling numb. You may feel shock and disbelief and have difficulty accepting what is happening. This leads you to become disconnected to your feelings and numb to the reality that is unfolding around you. Remind yourself that there is no right or wrong way to feel when you are facing trauma. Don’t criticize or ignore your feelings. Allow them to be, however painful or uncomfortable they are.
3. Unexplained aches or pains and changes in appetite. Everyone reacts to trauma differently. You may feel nauseous and unable to eat. Or you may feel like you can’t stop eating. It is common to feel unexplained pain in your body like headaches or even backaches. To cope with this, you need to be as consistent as possible with an exercise routine even if this means just taking a walk outside. Sticking to a structured eating and sleeping routine helps tremendously as well. The consistency of a routine provides you with a sense of security and certainty when the events around you are chaotic. This is even more crucial with children who need consistent routines at this time to feel a sense of safety and reassurance in their homes.

4. Obsessively reliving the traumatic events. Viewing horrific images or even repeatedly replaying the sequence of events in your mind can overwhelm your nervous system and make it impossible to think clearly. Engage in activities that distract you and occupy your mind. Watch a movie, play with your children or read so that you are not using all of your energy to think about the trauma. This is also the time to put any major life decisions on hold; you don’t need the added stress of making important decisions until you have regained your emotional balance.

Coping with this massive, collective trauma will take time. This is the acute stage of the trauma in which we are all experiencing some kind of traumatic stress. It will take months or even years for us to process these events. But traumatic stress does not necessarily become post-traumatic stress if we recognize it and use strategies to cope with our feelings.

Be patient with yourself. This is not the time to set ambitious goals or beat yourself up about not being more productive or efficient. This is also a time when you can allow yourself to cry when you need to. As I had to remind myself in the pizza store, it would be crazy not to cry at the news that was on the screen.

My daughter and son-in-law are living in Israel. After speaking to my daughter every day I am filled with so much pride for her and for our people. She tells me how she stood on line for hours with thousands of people to donate blood. She tells me how she went with her husband to visit a nursing home. She tells me about the packages she is sending and organizing for our nephew’s IDF unit. She tells me about her learning partners and the minyan she went to that morning.

And I think about all the prayer gatherings of Jews around the world, of the thousands of packages being sent to our soldiers, of the dozens of flights of Jews flying back to Israel to fight and to help. I am so proud to be part of a nation like this. People who, even in the midst of the most horrifying trauma, can stand up and connect with each other in such uplifting ways.

One of the most harmful effects of trauma can be isolation; when you experience trauma, you usually shut yourself off from others. We are blessed that collectively, we are working so hard to connect and to help each other.

It takes everything inside of me not to cry when I’m on the phone with my daughter who has been inside shelters all by herself with air raid sirens blaring through Jerusalem. If she isn’t crying, I can hold it together too. But after the call, I let the tears flow and I plead to the Almighty to hear our prayers and help.

We are not okay, but we will get through this together. May God save us and comfort all of us.