Is anyone's mental health affected by simply reading about the horrors of October 7th

Bombing is imperfect 🤪. Palestinian’s have been targeted for years - Israel is accused of being an apartheid state by UN envoys and leading human rights organizations. I honestly don’t see the difference - especially as the rhetoric from the current Israeli government is just shocking. Both Hamas and the current Israeli government are brutal.

I expect our government to make good trade deals with the interest of their country at heart. I don’t expect them kill innocent civilians “in our interest”

the strength in Hamas lies in ideas and hate and you can’t bomb those to pieces. In fact the violence and horror in Gaza will only create a generation with black hate in their hearts for Israel - a hate which will be supported by sympathisers in the region. Nothing good will come of it for neither Israel’s or Palestinian’s.

I never see this kind of cruelty from anyone but your 'side' on here. You don't have to, you know? People are traumatised.

I haven’t slept properly, it’s part of my life 24/7. I have family in Israel, friends and family with kids in the IDF and friends who live in the south of Israel. I’ve also seen video of a friend having to shelter where she could in Israel as the sirens go off.

i am beyond horrified with what Hamas did. They killed 1400 people in the most horrific barbaric way. I also feel desperately sorry for the Gazans who have bend so let down and with the lack of humanitarian aid being let through and the fact it has taken weeks to open the rafa crossing

in also petrified for the state of anti semitism here and the horrifying things my kids and friends are seeing and worrying that if England isn’t safe for Jews and the same is happening over the rest of the western world, and it is, and Israel our safe space isn’t safe then where is safe?

and nobody tell me I’m wrong and that anti semitism isn’t rife here. It is and I have never in my life ever felt it before. I can’t even begin to go into the depths no dents I awRe have happened since October 7th

I would be the same.

Totally agree

Yup and has said as much on pretty much every thread for the last 3 weeks

I sort of get this, actually, and I, for one, would not expect you to feel otherwise!

As stated before, I was married to a Palestinian man for more than a decade, and I remain in regular touch and have even visited my ex-in-laws, especially my BILs and one of XHs cousins, whom I consider a close friend.

As also previously stated somewhere on another thread, I accidentally ended up living through an IDF invasion when travelling to meet my future in-laws for the first time.

Not only was this terrifying, but also: I was deeply traumatised and, as a result, just deeply hated, yes, literally HATED Israelis for a while after this! The way they appeared to be at that time, I just saw them as murderous monsters who would invade towns and villages with their tanks, with their guns, to terrorise and kill innocent people!

... and then, several things happened. I could write some sort of a navel-gazing memoir on the subject of "how a lot of reading, the courage of Israeli activists, and an accident of employment history taught me to actually really quite appreciate Israelis in general and love some as true friends - while continuing to vehemently oppose the political aims of their successive governments". Maybe I will after I retire or something. Probably I will not - the world really does not need yet another "important matters and me, me, me!" book!

But, long story short: I get why you feel this way and - having been there, albeit on the "other" side: in some sense, I think this is valid! You are shocked, and traumatised and you love your family!

Just try to maybe ... eventually ... make sure this does not lead you towards de-humanising a whole people! Maybe learn, hopefully meet, some of them.

It does not have to be today!

I have found the subsequent lack of compassion and victim blaming especially here on MN really difficult to process. I’m devastated really by the antisemitism. I hadn’t previously understood how much Jew hatred there really is. Shocking and disturbing.

I read it. I know exactly what she said. She cares more about the Jewish casualties than the Gazan ones. End of.

Yes it was

@ssd see below.

@sss ' my friend lost his twin son and daughter'
Did you not even bother to read what she has said? I don't even want to repeat the rest.

I'm so sorry. It's like a nightmare.

PurpleChrayne

I am so very sorry. It must be hell for your friend.

It’s not racist for an Israeli to care more about an Israeli than a Palestinian. It’s human nature to care more about the people closest to you. In the same way I expect my government to care more about its own people than those of other countries. We elect and pay them to put our interests first.

And I completely hear you about the brutality OP. What Hamas did displays a level of callousness and cruelty that is unfathomable to me. There is a clear difference between citizens dying by accident because bombing is imperfect and citizens being deliberately targeted: tortured and murdered. I find it strange that the moral distinction is not obvious to a lot of people.

Its not people she knows, she talks about caring more about the Jewish casualties than the gazan casualties.

@Totalblindnessofthesoul you are being ridiculous they are people she knows. Of course she is going to care more.
Virtue signalling at its worst....
It's not racist it's real life.

I think it’s normal horror rather than a mental health issue. I couldn’t look at any photos. It’s horrific what humans beings can do to each other. The ongoing hostage situation is just so heartbreaking.

I can’t look at the Gaza photos either - I feel irrationally guilty that so many people are being killed with the help of British arms. Obviously the situation of the people in Gaza right now is absolute hellish. I force myself to read articles about these things as I think it’s important to point out the failings of our own government here.

Me
I expect you not to. I'm not alone.

Unless some lives are more important than others then every death is an equal tragedy.

The suffering of a Palestinian child is just as important as an Israeli child. To care about one not then the other is disgustingly racist.

It is always heartwarming when one human recognises the starvation, death by dehydration and loss of limbs and loss of lives i of over 3000 children as a genuine grievance. It gives you hope for humanity.

I haven't slept properly since October 7.

My husband is Israeli so we've been hearing a lot of what happened from the Israeli news, and from friends - not from the Daily Mail.

I feel constantly sick about the atrocities. I will be going about my day - looking after the children, cooking, or working - and it will suddenly come into my head. It's compounded by the absolute OBSESSION the world seems to have with it, over and above any of the other humanitarian crises that are happening at the same time. The anti-Semitism.

We are only a couple of generations out from the Holocaust. The very idea of babies being taken from their mothers, children dying without their parents there, families separated - it's encoded into our DNA as Jews. This has rattled us beyond explanation.

My friend lost his twin son and daughter who were living on Kibbutz Be'eri with his ex-wife. The son was found murdered immediately; his daughter was not among the known hostages, and he is waiting on DNA evidence from the pile of charred bodies they found. She is very likely among them.

Of course I care more about the Jewish casualties than the Gazan ones. How could I not? How dare anyone expect me to?

Exactly.

Almost any other response is better than making a news report all about yourself. You see it with reports about kiddies getting killed here in the UK as well. All the talk about hugging your own children tightly and how much sobbing people are doing.

its Possible to acknowledge unimaginable and utter horror for all those directly caught up in this, in both Israel and Gaza AND recognise the toll hearing about depravity and horror takes on oneself. The two aren’t mutually exclusive but actually inextricably connected and it’s part of what makes us human.

I think it would be weird if you weren’t mentally affected.

It’s horrific to me how many men there were prepared to roll their sleeves up and do the most unspeakable depraved acts to women and children (rape torture murder) who were strangers to them. Tens of men prepared to do this. We are not different to them. I find myself looking at men and wondering what they would be capable of in different circumstances.