A Therapist’s Statement on Collective Grief and Trauma
Lately, everything just feels heavy. When mass shootings, political violence, economic uncertainty, and divisive rhetoric keep stacking up, it is normal to feel wrung out, angry, scared, numb, or all of the above all at the same time. It is the ache that comes from living through events that touch whole communities and shape the backdrop of daily life. Grief that does not end when you close your eyes at night because the conditions are still there when you wake up.
Collective grief is not only about death. It is also the loss of safety, the loss of predictability, the loss of basic trust that people will care for one another in public spaces. When political identities harden into teams, and religious or ideological lines split families and friend groups, there is another layer of grief. People miss who they once were together. They miss the ease of conversation, the shared laughter that did not require walking on eggshells, and that longing is real.
For many, the body is the first place that carries this weight. You may find that your shoulders are tense, sleep may become inconsistent, your jaw might tighten scrolling social media. Some feel flooded with emotion and then feel nothing the next day. Neither is a failure. Your nervous system tries to protect you by shifting between alertness and shut down when the world keeps sending danger cues. Your body is not broken for responding to an overwhelming environment. It is doing the best it can with too much to process.
There is also grief for futures we imagined. Parents, teachers, health care workers, leaders, organizers, and everyday neighbors carry quiet heartbreak for young people in their lives. The question “what are we handing them” sits in the background of grocery runs and soccer games. That question does not have a quick answer.
Some losses are ambiguous or disenfranchised. You might grieve a community you left because it harmed you, and still grieve the songs, the rhythms, the potlucks, the holidays. You might grieve a hometown that feels unfamiliar now. You might grieve the version of yourself who did not have to scan a room for exits, or the version who was sure that hard work would be enough. These losses can be hard to explain to people who want clean narratives. They are still losses and they still count.
The news cycle adds to the strain. When events pile up, attention can feel like triage. You care, you want to pay respect, you also have bills to pay, food to cook, kids to pick up, a body that still needs rest. It can feel impossible to hold the pain of so many communities at once. If you notice guilt about not doing or feeling “enough,” that guilt itself is part of grief. It often shows up when we are trying to measure care with a ruler that does not fit human limits.
Many people are also grieving the sense of shared reality. When misinformation and heated commentary flood our feeds, when leaders use language that sorts people into deserving and undeserving, it can shake the ground under your feet. It is disorienting to watch public conversations flatten human beings into categories. If your chest tightens when you hear “those people,” that tension is your body protecting you by recognizing this kind of dehumanizing rhetoric as potentially dangerous. It is a sign that your values are intact, even if the discourse around you feels unsafe.
For those who have histories of trauma, religious harm, or life in high demand groups, current events can echo old dynamics. The pressure to comply, the threat of punishment for dissent, the split of good people and bad people, the constant vigilance, the promise that one perfect solution will fix everything if only you submit. When the present rhymes with the past, the alarm inside can get louder. This is not backsliding. It is a well learned response waking up in a familiar pattern.
Collective grief also lives in community spaces. You might notice more irritability on neighborhood forums, more suspicion at school meetings, more silence in group chats, more abrupt goodbyes. Sometimes that is grief moving through a room without a name tag. It can look like short tempers, sudden tears, or a joke that lands wrong because the person telling it is trying not to cry. It can look like people distancing themselves for a while because they do not have words yet. These are not moral failures. They are signs that we are saturated.
If you feel small moments of joy or relief, especially after a painful headline or the passing of a divisive figure, that can be part of grief too. Feeling lighter does not erase harm, and it does not make you a bad person. Humans have complicated nervous systems and complex relationships to power and trauma. Mixed emotions are not a problem to solve. They are proof that your inner life is alive and telling the truth about your experience.
There is often pressure to pivot quickly from grief to action plans. I am not offering that here. There are times when what helps most is simply to say, this hurts. To say, a lot has happened, and it keeps happening, and my body knows it. To say, some days I have words and some days I do not. To say, my body and mind have limits, and my limits are not defects. Validation is not passivity. It is a way of staying honest when the world is loud with prescriptions.
This moment is heavy. That is not drama. It is an accurate description. If your body is tired, if your emotions are hard to map, if your mind wants both closeness and distance, those are all understandable responses to prolonged strain. You do not need to package this into a lesson. You do not need to prove that you learned something today. You are allowed to be exactly where you are.
Collective grief is real. It changes how days feel. It changes how communities move. It changes what our mouths can say and what our bodies can bear. Saying that out loud is part of telling the truth about this season. If it helps to have these words, keep them close. If it does not, set them down. Either way, your experience belongs.
Reach out if you are looking for a safe space to reflect, grieve, or cope.
Disclaimer:
⚠️ The content on this blog is intended for informational and educational purposes ONLY and should NOT be considered a substitute for personal professional mental health care, diagnosis, or treatment. Reading these posts does not establish a therapeutic relationship.
If you are currently in crisis, experiencing thoughts of harming yourself or others, or are in need of immediate support, please call 911 or contact a crisis line such as the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 (U.S.) or access your local emergency services.
These blog posts are written to explore topics like trauma, religious deconstruction, cults, identity development, and mental wellness in a thoughtful and compassionate way. They may (or may not) resonate deeply, especially for those healing from complex trauma, but they are NOT meant to replace individualized therapy or medical care.
