Many of us are familiar with Elizabeth Kübler-Ross’ five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance—a call to move forward in life while welcoming the different waves of grief that come and go.
In today’s world, these waves have grown stronger because of the rise of losses and reasons behind them, which reside outside the confines of inevitable mortality and natural death. We are up against a relentless recurrence and severity of death in the context of violence, systemic oppression, and White cisheteronormative patriarchy. Before we can even metabolize the grief from one brutality, there comes another. Here, we explore the experience of collective grief, where the final stage of acceptance does not seem appropriate when we are up against violent and unacceptable conditions.
First, it is important we understand the nature of collective grief, which can be understood through the lens of vicarious trauma or secondary traumatic stress. Dr. Leia Saltzman at Tulane University School of Social Work describes collective trauma as “an event, or series of events, that shatters the experience of safety for a group, or groups, of people. … These events are different from other forms of traumatic events because of their collective nature. That is, these events are a shared experience that alter the narrative and psyche of a group or community.” Moreover, with the heightened global access to social media, individuals and groups who are not directly involved in these traumatic experiences are still impacted by the violence simply by witnessing. This is called vicarious or secondary trauma. Studies have shown that this indirect exposure to dangerous and even fatal events can cause post-traumatic stress disorder in individuals.
It is beneficial to address the concept of oscillation, or the back-and-forth movement, in processing the grief. Because of how finite our human bodies are, it is not sustainable for us to be exposed to pain or stay in it for long periods of time or in high frequency. In oscillation, we stay present enough with the grief to confront, reflect, and talk about it, but not to the point where we are too overwhelmed or overcome by it that it debilitates us or causes physiological ailments, inflammation, or extreme discomfort. Similarly, we ought to avoid overstaying on the other side of the spectrum of desensitization or disconnection from the collective trauma, leaving us apathetic or numb to our collective responsibility to look after one another and disrupt systems and cycles of violence.
Here, we consider the reality of our bodies. It can be humbling to confront our limitations as human beings, and yet there is so much potential for what we can do together once we are aware of our capacities and limitations. I bring this up because whenever we directly or indirectly experience something very traumatic, we involuntarily dissociate or depart from our bodies and from the present moment. This is a resilient way our nervous systems try to cope and survive devastating situations. There is a spectrum, or a window, from which we navigate safety, and our bodies are intelligently and intuitively aware of this spectrum without us even knowing about it consciously. With that, we pay attention to what our bodies communicate and to trust them, which takes some time and practice. So when we feel like we are about to check out of our bodies, we can notice and consider asking: Do I still feel safe? What is causing me not to feel safe, and how can I return to safety?
To read more of Gabes Torres' article, please click here.
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