under the seaJan 3, 2023
Someone finally coined it! I've been looking for this and trying to find a way to describe it for ages and never knew there's a term for it.
For anyone out there who needs this: You are not alone.❤️
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Moral Injury Is an Invisible Epidemic That Affects Millions https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/moral-injury-is-an-invisible-epidemic-that-affects-millions/
Moral Injury Is an Invisible Epidemic That Affects Millions

A specific kind of trauma results when a person’s core principles are violated during wartime or a pandemic

Scientific American
Show threadunder the seaJan 3, 2023

“Every patient that I’ve ever made a mistake on, I can tell you every bit about that. And the thought that people are so callous with a life, when I place so much value on somebody’s life—it’s a lot to carry.”“It’s really clear to us that it is all over the place,”“It’s social workers, educators, lawyers.”

“Moral injury predicted higher rates of depression and suicidal impulses.”

Show threadunder the seaJan 3, 2023
“Moral injury has different brain signatures than for PTSD alone: People with moral injury have more activity in the brain’s precuneus area, which helps to govern moral judgments, than those who only have PTSD. And after people suffer moral traumas, they display different brain glucose metabolism patterns than those who suffer direct physical threats.”
Show threadunder the seaJan 3, 2023
“PTSD-focused approaches teach clients to adapt to traumatic triggers, such as fireworks that sound like gunshots, but this exposure approach doesn’t really help them resolve deep ethical conflicts. Effective moral injury counseling is ‘more about the processing’.”
Show threadunder the seaJan 3, 2023
“These therapies stress the importance of moral reckoning. They encourage clients to accept uncomfortable truths: ‘I led that attack on Iraqi civilians’; ‘I sent that suffering patient home without treatment.’ Then, with clients’ input, counselors can help them develop strategies for making amends or pursuing closure—say, apologizing to a family whose child they injured.”
Show threadunder the seaJan 3, 2023
“Many providers are suffering what she calls ‘death by 1,000 cuts’—the constant, stultifying knowledge that they have to give people subpar care or none at all. ‘They think they suck. They think they’re inadequate,’‘No one’s putting their finger on "You don’t suck. This is moral injury you’re suffering."’” (Jessica Jones and Frank Castle would most definitely need this too)
Show threadunder the seaJan 3, 2023
“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing,” Frankl wrote, “the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” (I first knew this book from the psychology of Katniss Everdeen videos!)
Show threadunder the seaJan 3, 2023
“You’ll never not feel awful when you think about what happened,” Litz adds. “That’s going to be the new normal. The question is ‘How do you rehabilitate and live a good-enough life?’”
Show threadunder the seaJan 3, 2023
“Even so, as old hands on the front lines note, nudging the morally injured toward self-repair goes only so far. Therapy can help you move on from past choices, but unless your employer hires more staff or supplies more resources, chances are you’ll have to keep making decisions that violate your ethics, compounding your trauma. A lot of problems that cause moral injury ‘require systemic solutions on a much broader level.’”
Show threadunder the seaJan 3, 2023
“The same words that I tell them, I try to repeat to myself: You did the best that you could.” She inhales, hesitating. “And you are still a good doctor. I would still let you take care of my family.”
Show threadunder the sea
"A moral injury is an injury to an individual's moral conscience and values resulting from an act of perceived moral transgression on the part of themselves or others, which produces profound feelings of guilt or shame—and in some cases a profound sense of betrayal and anger toward colleagues, commanders, the organisation, politics, or society at large—moral disorientation, and societal alienation." (Judging by the links, I'm not the only one who thought about Jessica J)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_injury
Moral injury - Wikipedia

Jan 3, 2023 at 7:13pmWeb
Show threadunder the seaJan 3, 2023
"It is the suffering people experience when we are in high stakes situations, things go wrong, and harm results that challenges our deepest moral codes and ability to trust in others or ourselves. The harm may be something we did, something we witnessed, or something that was done to us. It results in moral emotions such as shame, guilt, self-condemnation, outrage, and sorrow." (FAQ: https://www.voa.org/moralinjury-faq)
Moral Injury FAQ | Volunteers of America

Moral Injury Frequently Asked Questions

Volunteers of America: National