You are not crazy. This is trauma. Here's a skill to help

Let's lean on the decades of research in how to support traumatized brains to help us in these unprecedented times

So I want to give a name to our experience: “living under authoritarianism” is a form of complex trauma. I don’t know any studies where it’s explicitly been given that name, but I think we need to. Not to scare you, but rather because if we name it as trauma, we actually open a huge portal of helpful information: decades of research have been done on how to help brains that have been exposed to trauma - like the skill I will introduce you to today. You are not crazy, you are not alone, and wonderful humans have specifically studied how to support people going through trauma.

People can certainly argue whether the experience of the constant assault of helplessness and hopelessness many of us experience under an authoritarian government seeking to break our spirits constitutes a medical definition of trauma, specifically complex trauma (which is continued exposure to a traumatic stressor over time versus a singular traumatic incident). First of all, I think there’s a strong case that it does. Second of all, I don’t know that arguing the truth or false of a label is as important as understanding that if we understand it as a traumatic stressor, we can bring in the decades of work on how brains helpfully cope with trauma to support us. You can say to yourself:

“I’m not crazy and I’m not a bad person because I have trouble engaging the news. Of course I do, it’s traumatic. AND there are decades of research here to help my brain right now. Even throughout the day, as my brain brings my attention over and over to the catastrophe happening in my country, I will remember to ask it to take a little breaks in the flowers growing up through a sidewalk or the hug of a close friend, not because I am “not paying attention to the news“ because I am following the orders of trauma professionals to understand how to engage this. Taking breaks and feeling joy or happiness is not escaping or, it is a skill. I am implementing a skill that helps the brain.“

And this is actually a recognized trauma skill: it’s called “titration.“

Titration allows us to approach something overwhelming gently, by consciously allowing ourselves to engage the stressor (like the news), but also consciously giving our brains built in breaks. And knowing that doing that isn’t “avoiding our responsibility” but being smart, compassionate citizens who understand we need to protect ourselves to not burn out.

How do you practice this skill?

Titration asks us to gently notice the traumatic stressor, then gently asks our brain to shift toward something positive or neutral. So you might gently allow yourself to read a headline, nonjudgmentally notice how quickly you go into overwhelm (which is the exact point of the people generating those news stories), and then allow yourself to gently shift your attention toward something positive or neutral. Maybe it’s going over to pet your puppy dog and feel the warmth of her fur and the roughness of her tongue as she gives you kisses. Maybe it’s something neutral like noticing a tree outside your window and the way the sunlight hits the leaves. It’s allowing yourself to rest the brain. To give it a break.

And maybe that’s the best you can do that day. One headline, then shift to something positive or neutral.

Once you’ve done that, the next step in titration is to dip back-and-forth. So reading a headline, letting yourself then notice something neutral like the sensation in your hands, checking out another headline, noticing something positive like some beautiful flowers you bought at a farmers market, taking in another headline.

The key here is your agency: you are in control. Rather than getting consumed and lost in doomscrolling, or rather than just total avoidance, you’re giving yourself permission to do something hard, take a break with something beautiful, do something hard, take a break with something neutral, and giving yourself permission to stop whenever you need to.

There is no “right or wrong“ when you are engaging something traumatic. There is no “I have to read four articles today or I’m a bad citizen.“ There is only what makes you feel empowered and that you are in charge of how you engage this.

Titration gives you permission, indeed asks you on purpose to take breaks and let your brain rest and things that are either neutral or positive along with being brave and taking in something hard. It is compassionate and kind and gentle. That decades of research back this up. You are being a smart, informed citizen who gives herself permission to engage traumatic stressors in a way that protects the brain so you do not get stuck in overwhelm or collapse - both of which the authoritarians are trying to cause.

Lastly, remember you are not alone. We never do hard things alone, we always do them as a team. You are on a team of millions of people going through the same thing and we support each other.

If you have a friend or neighbor who is overwhelmed by the news, Let them know that they’re not crazy, this is legitimately traumatic, and there are skills to help. Let them know that taking breaks to smile at a baby or drink a delicious cup of coffee is an actual trauma skill.

Understanding that we’re not doing something wrong, our brain is just reacting as it evolved to react to an ongoing threat, can help us grab the right tools to address it - and not shame ourselves for having a totally normal response to an abnormal situation.

I see you. I know this is unbearable. This is trauma. Let’s open the toolbox of how we support brains in trauma to support ourselves.