Goddamn it, I'm tired of the public traumamongering

The BBQ Pit
1

Yesterday when the news broke, I was the one telling my co-workers about it, reading the news sites, checking every breaking news bit.

I do care. I pray (agnostic as I am) for the wounded and the survivors. I wonder where this will lead. Last night during our gaming session, during which not a single word was said about the events of the day, I even pulled out my iPad to check on the news.

But goddamnitsomuch, I am sick to death of the public traumamongering. The weeping and gnashing of teeth, the public rending of clothing to show how horrific it all is. You know what? Life is fucking horrifying if you think about it. The Universe isn’t fair. Bad shit happens every moment of every day and good people get horribly horribly shat upon by life. People aren’t angels, we’re terrifying beasts of fear, anger, ignorance and cruelty.

For CNN, Fox, et al, I get it. it’s their bread and butter. They make money off tragedy. It sells.

But then my wake-to-radio comes on this morning, and while I’m laying there in a state of fluid consciousness, my mind trying to adapt to this strange thing called ‘awake’, the two hosts of the morning show are doing their clothes-rending trauma bit, and it pissed me off royally before I was even completely conscious.

“I don’t know how I can even do the traffic reports this morning”

“all we can do is endure”

OH FUCK YOU. GO HOME.

Call in sick if you’re so distraught that you can’t read traffic and weather reports. NO ONE is being helped by this kind of crap while they’re preparing for or driving to work. (And I actually wondered how many seriously depressed people were driven over the edge by it first thing in the morning.)

I’ll be home tonight, checking the news again as I have all day. My clothes will be unrent, my sack-cloth unpurchased, my ashes unburned.

2

People in general may be mad about it, upset, but life goes on. Public figures, or those who like to think they are public figures, like that radio guy you mentioned, are deathly afraid that unless they show enough explicit and repeated grief about the event, they will be accused of callousness and their popularity will drop. There are more people out there who would think “he laughed about something the day after - he has no heart, I don’t like him anymore” than there are people like you who are turned off by overblown displays of grief.

3

I just had this conversation with my old man last night. I am with you.
I’m torn, just a little, though. It must be traumatizing if you were there, lost someone, or lost limbs. I hurt for those people, but quietly and philosophically. I can’t imagine what kind of person would be the one to wail at the wall when they have no tie whatsoever.
I’m starting to get aittle bit angry at the Sandy Hook people. The 26th mile thing was a ?bit much, but OK, that’s what we do for victims of tragedy. Dragging your grief all over TV, constantly crying and pleading with anyone to listen to THEIR grief because its so very much more important than anything else is…well, its a hard thing to respect. There’s 7 billion other ants on this hill, a disturbing number of which get incinerated by the great magnifying glass of fate on a daily basis, your personal grief notwithstanding.
People react to trauma in different ways, and I am loathe to say they’re wrong, but I’d like to see more introspection and less extended meltdowns.
Am I really that much of an asshole?

4

Jeez, even Obama was excoriated by the usual suspects for not saying the magic word “terrorism” fast enough.

In the future, presidents will have to cry on cue, and promise to “kill all the terrists” within 30 seconds of an attack.

5

You realize this thread would get a lot more replies–but most people are too broken up over your … your … oh, I just can’t go on. :frowning:

6

I’m going to remember and use that first line.
The answer to your question is: No.

7

I leave a lot of leeway for the various ways people work through actual grief and bereavement. If you lose a family member in some tragedy and you want to spend the next year talking about it on any TV show that’ll have you, that’s your call. May it work for you.

But I get deeply squicked out by people who feel the need to make a huge show of their grief and trauma when nothing’s actually happened to them or anyone they know. My husband is Facebook friends with this guy - we’re not really friends, just know him from around - and every time anything bad happens in the whole world, he launches himself onto Facebook as fast as he can to make sure everyone knows how upset he is. Random celebrity dies? This guy needs to make sure you know how deeply he’s mourning. Horrible event like these bombs? This guy needs to make sure you know he’s in in tears.

Yes, everyone does get upset by events that don’t affect us directly. It’s empathy, and the world would be fucked without it. But when you take a tragic event that doesn’t affect you directly, and you reframe that event as being all about your reaction, it actually shows a lack of empathy for the people who *are *in fact affected.

Meltdowns are valued in our culture. Showing emotion, whether it’s authentic or not, whether it’s warranted or not, is valued: it shows that you’re a sensitive!! special!! person deserving of attention and admiration and special treatment.

8

Are you in Atlanta*? Because I’d swear one of the local newsfolks said this as I turned on the tv for weather/traffic this morning. My reaction was almost identical to yours.
*you don’t actually need to answer that. I’m sure it happened in other places as well.

9

They are the go to face of tragedy to advance gun control, so naturally they are going to get as much exposure as possible. I’m not angry at them, somebody else is making the calls to trot those families out at every public event.

I can see the wheels turning already, "Big event, boss. We need some exposure, you want to get the Sandy Hook families up here? "

“No, let’s see if we can get some of those Boston Marathon survivors up here in wheel chairs, that’ll make a better photo-op, Sandy Hook is old news”.

Those are the assholes.

10

Last night on the news - I think it was CNN but I was flipping channels - there was a talking head expert worrying about the effect of all of the unmitigated gore and repeated showings of the explosions and how it might serve to traumatize the more sensitive among us (esp children).
While he was talking, the station was, you guessed it, showing a loop of the explosions, wounded, blood in the street, etc.
So I quit watching.

11

And frankly, though I hate to use the cliche, this is exactly what the terrorists want. Whoever is behind this, they WANT it to affect everyone. They want to see and hear people talking about it nonstop. It’s just like feeding the trolls here. We’re feeding right into what they want.

12

You should take a look on this guy then: Carlos Arredondo (Carlos Arredondo). He’s had a hell of bad luck in his life, but still managed to come out a hero. Some people rise to the occasion. Or what the Chinese are saying about you:

China Daily

There are always good and life affirming stories to come out of all catastrophes.

13

When I read that Carlos lost *two *sons (one to the Iraq war, the other to suicide), I cried all night, then built a shrine to his cowboy hat in my linen closet. By which I mean, I really wish I could hug the guy and buy him a drink. He seems like a pretty fucking awesome dude.

Thanks for linking those stories. Warm fuzzies!

14

I know a person who is keeping a list of names of those people who have lost limbs in the bombing. When asked “isn’t that morbid?”, I was retorted with “yeah, like you haven’t done similar!”

Uh… no, I haven’t.

15

I endorse this thread 100%. I’m considering posting something similar on Facebook.

16

So your friend is the red herring in a police procedural — the one whose apartment the cops find covered in photos of the victims, but it turns out he’s merely a total weirdo?

17

Until they find someone’s foot in his freezer.

18

Unless your friend is an ambulance chasing lawyer or a prosthetic salesman, that list is very, very weird. Unless you are an ambulance chasing lawyer or a prosthetic salesman, the retort is even weirder.

19

I endorse this thread as well.

But I recommend you resist the urge to post this to Facebook. It won’t make you very popular, I suspect.

20

Good advice. I went through a very, very similar thought process to the one I expect you did when you read my post and decided against it. There are quite a few people on my FB page (in-laws, friends who are first responders and the like) who would be too busy being angry to read it.