Mass Trauma: 5 Steps to Protecting Your Mental Health

We are currently suffering a global mass trauma. Even if we don’t come down with COVID 19, we live under the threat of it. Living in fear is one of the primary precursors to PTSD.  I did a little research and quickly found that primary and secondary stressors can cause significant challenges to one’s mental health. For many of us, the daily news tally of the dead and the enforced quarantine is a primary stressor. For others, add to this contracting the disease or watching a loved one struggle and perhaps die, is an even greater primary stressor.

The secondary stressors are beginning to add up. Children feel the loss of routine, friends, and the joys of life’s celebrations such as graduations, dances, and birthdays deeply. Their parents suffer as well but from more potentially life-threatening issues such as job loss and the specters of homelessness, food scarcity, and the threat of death. Adults see a bigger picture than children, and their health suffers for it.

I found these recommendations in a paper, Find it here one of whose primary contributors, Patricia Watson, Ph.D.,  is affiliated with the National Center for PTSD.  I tell you this because significant research points to these five steps as crucial to protecting both children and adults from permanent trauma. I don’t say that this is entirely avoidable, but anything that can significantly increase our resilience will help us get through what is truly a global disaster. So take these steps seriously. They may save you and your children from further harm once the COVID 19 virus is defeated.

1: Mass Trauma Recovery: Promote a Sense of Safety

Anxiety, particularly separation anxiety and event-specific anxiety, sleep disturbances, and depression, raise their ugly heads during any natural disaster, including a pandemic. So the way to promote a sense of safety is to seek out ways to reestablish normalcy. A challenge even in good times, normalcy includes declining to participate in conspiracy theories or fixating on the currently rising death rates. Typically, we spend our days getting through our to-do list and making sure the kids do their homework, eat, bathe, and get to bed.

During a mass trauma, sometimes we obsess over how dangerous the world seems. This anxiety can be mitigated by putting the danger in context. Right now, we need to wash our hands and pay attention to hygiene to be safe. By sheltering, we can greatly increase our safety from this virus. Also, focusing on things that bring us joy, from worship music to the silly cats on the internet, actually protect our cerebral cortexes from getting overloaded because of fear. Don’t believe me? Read the attached peer-reviewed article by the experts. Lastly, they recommend avoiding a constant stream of news. Our brains store that information and keeping us from focusing on any of the normal rhythms of life.

2: Mass Trauma Recovery: Promote Calming

Stress does one of two things to people. Either we move into hyper-arousal in which our emotions are in constant turmoil or we dissociate, numbing ourselves to protect ourselves from hyper-arousal. When either continues over a significant period, we then have a mental health issue. One of the most significant weapons we can deploy is broadening our range of emotions. By watching inspirational movies, engaging in positive self-talk, and focusing our attention on good things, we calm our minds and spirits. Philippians 4: 8 says, And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. Keeping our minds fixed on these things greatly enhances our peace. Otherwise, we can easily slip down the spiral of fear and doom.

3: Develop a Sense of Self- and Collective Efficacy.

We easily fall into a sense of chaos when we endure any kind of mass trauma. Consumed by a sense of helplessness against an imminent threat, we rehearse our losses and those things over which we can exert little or no control. Instead,  if I try getting a grip on those things I can do, then that sense of being trapped does not become permanently seared into my brain. I can wash my hands. I can be careful of what I come into contact with. I can sew a mask if need be. I can protect myself and my family by following the guidelines.

One of the most profound injuries a mass trauma can inflict upon people is their sense that they can take care of themselves. Our sense of safety and calm depends on our ability to take the necessary steps against harm. Focus on what you can do and teach your children to have a proactive mindset. It will go a long way towards helping both your children and yourself make it through this time successfully.

4: Promote Connectedness

The internet, for all its tendency to be a massive collection of garbage, is also a gateway to the community. Attending churches online, face-timing relatives, and holding online conferences is important. Emotional isolation is damaging. We humans far to easily slip into the delusion that we are alone. Loneliness can greatly enhance depression and anxiety. I find that concentrating on the presence of the Lord in my home enhances my well-being. Sharing silly memes with my children helps too. They live scattered across the US and Europe, so even just a daily nudge helps me feel connected to them.

5: Mass Trauma Recovery: Promote Hope

Research shows that hope, like gratitude, has a significant effect on the brain. I think the two are related. Hope is empowering and helps us see past the present difficulty. And if history is correct, nothing lasts forever, not even the plague. Promoting hopeful scenarios is crucial in protecting our hearts and minds from permanent damage. Hopelessness creates a deep rut in our neural pathways that is very difficult to heal.

God has built evidence of resurrection throughout the earth. Spring reminds us that winter doesn’t last forever, and it can’t kill the flowers. As Easter nears, we must remember that humans have risen from the ashes of war, natural disasters, and even plagues. Love still wins, if we fight for it. As a friend of mine said, There is always a third day. Jesus’ crucifixion looked final, but out of it came such a new vision of hope.

My father, just before he became a Christian, went to an Easter service where the pastor preached a three-word sermon. He is risen! It hit him hard. He realized that if Jesus did rise from the dead, it changed everything. Belief took root at that moment. For us, suffering through a season of death, we place our hope in that resurrection. Even death can’t overcome what love has done. The love God shows us, the love we share with others, that will outlast any virus.

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