Nancy Braus, a retired independent bookseller, is a longtime activist.
GUILFORD-The very first time I attempted to see a therapist for my feelings of sadness and dread, about 30 or 40 years ago, I was focused on the environmental destruction — the extinctions, poisoning the land, single-use garbage, and so much more — being wreaked upon the Earth by unfettered industrial capitalism.
I still can see the face of this very smart woman, who told me that she was similarly distressed about the future, as she was living in the same world as I was. She had no real suggestions except to do what I already was doing: focusing on my family, my activism, and my fulfilling work at the bookstore, and getting outdoors.
I have attempted therapy two other times, and the results were similar.
From my perspective, it appears that therapists are looking for pathology in how we relate to others, how we see ourselves, how to face a personal crisis, or how we act — these are areas where they can offer needed help.
I was told by a new young therapist as recently as six months ago that she really had nothing to offer me, even in the face of my anger and rage at the sadistic madman and his minions at the helm of the government.
And I have felt the sword of depression hanging over my head, as have so many, during the past 15 months of the deranged reign of the Mad King.
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It came as a weird relief to find a term for what has been plaguing me for these many years, and it is possible that somehow I am the only person who had missed hearing about moral injury, a condition that can often be confused with depression.
As Jo Livingstone describes it in The Guardian, where she interviewed psychologist Michael Valdovinos, who coined the term, “to experience moral injury is to be forced to act in ways or to witness actions that contradict your most deeply held convictions.”
This term has been most commonly used to help soldiers who must live with their actions that often go against deeply held beliefs. It can also describe the emotional turmoil in people like slaughterhouse workers and social workers who are forced to make decisions that will cause someone pain.
But the term is now being applied to those of us who are “forced to […] witness actions that contradict your most deeply held convictions,” just as we see one sociopath after another appointed by the grand poobah of narcissistic sociopaths. That so many of us are witnessing actions and words that violate our deep and abiding sense of right and wrong is a daily occurrence.
Moral injury explains why I, and millions of others, even some Trump acolytes, have been so horrified by his latest threat, vomited out with no irony on Easter, a Christian holiday that has connotations of a celebration of fertility and rebirth:
“Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the F——in’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell – just watch! Praise be to Allah.”
Between the threat to destroy a civilian population and the vile language (unredacted in Trump’s original), most of our moral codes are affronted. It takes a special kind of cruelty to watch a sick man living in the lap of luxury, using our tax dollars to fund his golf-fueled lifestyle, threatening to take everything away from everyone, adults and children alike, in Iran left standing. And meaning it.
“What I’m noticing, and I think a lot of clinical colleagues have, is that overwhelmingly their practices are getting filled with older folks coming to treatment for moral distress,” Valdovinos, the author of a new book, Moral Injuries: When Good Conscience Suffers in a World of Hurt, told The Guardian.
“They have a longer memory of how things used to work,” he continued. “Many grew up believing in certain norms about institutions, leadership, and basic behavior. When those expectations are repeatedly violated, it can feel deeply destabilizing.
“Not just frustrating, but like something fundamental has broken. It feels like a betrayal, and that is a pathway to moral injury.”
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For some of us, our hopes, dreams, and morals have always been challenged by the American empire and the harsh economic system — even before Trump and the Heritage Foundation began pushing to eliminate any remnants of a socially and environmentally responsible government.
We must understand that our sadness and rage is not depression, nor is it a personal failing or weakness. It is a healthy response to a very toxic situation.
May that insight give us the strength to work collectively to fix what is broken, to right the moral compass so that compassion and peace are honored, and to ensure that war, concentration camps, and cruelty are forever where they belong — morally and permanently banished from acceptable norms.
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