To ask you to help me get over something horrific I heard on the radio, I can’t stop thinking about it

[TeaCoffeeCakeGinWine]

One evening last week, I was listening to a programme on Radio 4. It featured a forensic pathologist who was talking about death. I joined it halfway through and it all seemed fairly innocuous and interesting enough listening while I was pottering in the kitchen.

Without warning, the woman started talking about some work she did out in Eastern Europe around 30 years ago, following a massacre involving women and children. She went into quite some detail about what happened and the work she had to do.

It was absolutely horrifying and I have found it incredibly upsetting in the week since. At the time I didn’t cry but the following evening I had a totally uncontrollable crying episode in front of my husband Ever since, it keeps coming into my head, very visibly. I can be fine and then suddenly there it is and I feel floored and devastated. I know it sounds like I’m being dramatic but it has affected me really badly, I can’t stop thinking about it and feel upset all the time. Please can anyone recommend any way I can work through this

I feel like this when I hear about young women being murdered due to a man's sexual desires.

Becky Watts is one I can't ever get out my head and I have shed tears over Alisha MacPhail.

My colleague cried over the boys being rescued from the cave and I couldn't help thinking, but they were rescued.

I couldn't understand how that could bring her to tears, but Alisha didn't land on her radar.

We can't fix the horrors in the world.

The best that can be asked of anyone is to make the world better than if they weren't in it. For most of us that will be in small ways, by helping others when we get the chance.

I have this with fiction too, which is ridiculous because I know it's not true.

I used to read and watch so much true crime as well as read crime fiction, but read this one book about 4 years ago with this one (fiction) scene in it and certain things still trigger it for me even now. I think that in a way it's the first time I related the fiction to the true stuff - I'm not sure what happened but I haven't read or watched anything similar since, either fiction or not fiction.

I'm frequently like this. So much so I'm on medication to help control it (which it does).

I also felt like this after the death of a 16 month old baby that made the news. When the story broke he would have been the same age as my dd2 and even looked similar.
Proper messed with my head for a while. Looking back i was vulnerable anyway, id gone through a traumatic birth and had had lost my dad when dd2 was born and i had post natal depression too so i just think i poured all my grief into mourning for this poor little boy

I’m interviewing Syrian refugee families at the moment for my dissertation, and I find some of the stories I hear very difficult to process or come to terms with. However, in all of them, there is a grace and resilience that shines through, along with astonishing bravery and when it’s tough going, I find concentrating on the overwhelming strength people can have, and the ferocity with which they will fight for their families, and that helps me to ‘unstick’ the awful and ugly parts from my thoughts xx

I was distraught the first time I read about the Romanovs. It is quite normal to feel upset but yes time will help us heal.

@Dontticklethetoad - I agree with your (wanky !) Comment about feeling other people's injustice as I seem to too!
Had a very similar thing happen to me. Heard a doctor speaking on the radio about their experiences of a war and it does haunt me. I ended up googling the doctor and writing to him to thank him for putting his life at risk to help people affected by war. He wrote a short appreciative note back and it did help me to make a connection (probably only in my head I doubt he's given my letter a second thought). It may help you to do the same?

Sorry I haven’t read all the responses.

I’m another one whose heart cracked wide open once I’d given birth- I get teary at news stories and past atrocities every few months. It still surprises me, and I hate it!

I’m otherwise an even-keeled practical person, and I know logically my emotions can’t possibly be helpful. Not to the victims, not to me. I’ve found ways to settle my mind that include donating a little money to a related cause (for you, maybe ‘medecins sans frontieres’?) and trying to think of a practical application of my new knowledge in my community. Even if it’s just promising myself to be proactive when I see an injustice at the local shops. These strategies really help me shut down those spiralling feelings of anxiety, and stopping those weird ‘flashbacks’ of imagined scenes of trauma.

Empathy is so important in our society, but it can be such a bitch in individual brains! Balance in all things is my goal.

I relate to this. As an 80,s child aids and nuclear war was very real and scary. When I had my sons I couldn’t listen to emotive things on the news or anything. BEComing a parent made me bigger hearted and more thoughtful of others. Also I realised just how precious people/relationships are by having my own children. I’m more resilient now the kids are older but the big heartedness has stayed with me. Empathic people offer very important things to society. Empathic people bring something vital to their work places and communities.

Think of empathy as a gift and not a negative quality. Not everyone is empathic and some people are particularly harsh.

Not even RL - I watched "Sophie's Choice" when my DD was only a few weeks old. THAT scene I experienced as if I were the mother - the pain was awful, and I was a weeping, sniveling mess for ages.I had gone through some terrible near-death experiences with my little asthmatic son, and had a miscarriage less than a year before, with no opportunity to grieve properly, as it was associated with my exH's being charged with a criminal offence - his lawyer/counsellor/probation officer said he should not be upset. (well, it was 36 years ago and things were different). I feel for you, OP.

Agree with pp's that trying to distract yourself may help and maybe its something underlying so that this has then tipped things emotionally. I had this after reading far too young, (12) a book about a Nurses experiences on a Cancer ward. Graphic was not the word. I was already depressed generally due to bullying, so this tipped me over the edge so to speak. I couldn't get some of her descriptions of terrible pain/suffering out of my head which caused anxiety, tearful spells etc. (still not sure why my usually rigid parents never stopped me reading stuff far too adult when I was around 10-13)

Thank you so, so much for your replies. It is very reassuring to know it is normal (!) and that I’m not the only person who has felt like this. For me, although since having kids i frequently cry at news stories, this particular one just got me, from out of nowhere.

lizzzy and caked and xippet thanks I am going to try that strategy tonight. I feel like I need a toolkit of things I can use.

I have such huge respect for people who confront these kinds of things as part of their jobs or voluntary work. Without wanting to sound too wanky (great use of that by app!), I hope that hearing what I did, in the long term, may spur me on to do some of the volunteering I have been planning but never quite getting around to!

I definitely think that for me these reactions are linked to having children. I have autism too, which doesn’t help me obsessing over upsetting details I’ve heard.

Before dc, as a teenager, I would actively seek out horror movies, stories or books of real life horrors etc. I found them fascinating.

After dc, it’s been an eye opener.

If I hear stories of the baby girls in Pakistan, how children were treated during the holocaust, basically anything where children have been hurt, I obsess over them and cry whenever I think of them.

Ultimately what stops me is that I feel selfish for doing so. They aren’t mine to grieve over, me being a drama queen isn’t helping them.

And if I’m completely honest that doesn’t always work permanently, but it seems to help put that story out of my mind long enough for me to ‘have a rest’ from it.

However, there are some I can’t seem to get rid of (I won’t go into details for anyone else who actively avoids things like that)

I cannot get rid of the rage or pain that resurfaces when I see a story where children have been sexually abused or killed.

I think part of this is that I know damn well, even though that particular child’s pain is over, that right this second many more children are being hurt and there isn’t a damn thing anyone can really do about it.

It has always happened, and it will always happen.

And I fucking hate humanity and wish we’d get smashed by an asteroid when that particularly depressive thought happens. Because that’s the only way it will definitely never happen again.

I try to see the good in people. But personal experiences have taught me that that good is often an act. Either to appear ‘good’ to other people and get their ego stroked or to cover up their own evil, in whatever form it takes.

@TeaCoffeeCakeGinWine how are you feeling today?

Hi op, thanks for asking I’m ok thanks. I’ve had a busy day with both my little ones which has helped to keep my mind busy. I have a lot to be thankful for. I mean this very honestly when I say that all the replies to my post yesterday were a great help, it has helped me put it into some perspective and given me some very practical strategies too. I really am very grateful as I was struggling and worried, so thanks all

Ah good! Keep on keeping on!

Perhaps try and channel your sadness to something positive?

Many years ago, driving out of London, i heard a story about Sadam Hussian gassing kurds and the 100s killed and how they died, i was very upset, these were children! I had to stop and i found a phone box and donated some money to the Red Cross, i then sponsored a child a few days later.

The sadness i felt then has never left me but i felt that in a tiny way, maybe i helped some others. i dont know.

Yugoslavia was truly horrific, within Europe's borders and the military powers, the UN/NATO did absolutely nothing, that is the real crime.

Hi

I experienced similar after the Baby P case(I had a child that looked similar/same age which made it feel very close to home.) I felt desperately sad and could think of nothing else for weeks.

In the end I set up a monthly donation to my local children’s centre (supports vulnerable families and children locally). The act of doing something practical and tangible seemed to break me out of the terrible negative cycle I got into.

Last Christmas I was driving to work with radio 2 on, Chris Evans and his child were on talking about foods they love at Christmas.
It was a Thursday, the kids were breaking up for Christmas holidays the next day.
A sudden thought hit me and remained with me for the next 4 weeks causing me to lose over a stone in weight.
The thought was of those kids dreading the holidays because at least at school they got a meal. Not only would they get no gifts, they would also get no food for the whole of the holidays. Parents drunk or drugged up or not interested in them or just too skint to feed them.
I couldn't eat for the huge crushing guilt I felt. I felt physically unwell when thinking about this, I cried & cried and posted almost an identical post to your op.
I have to avoid anything about child cruelty or neglect or pain or abuse as it makes me mentally ill. Literally mentally ill I can't cope at all.
Avoid avoid avoid.

Different things trigger us don’t they
For me it was Daniel Pelka
I live in a very polish area and it haunted me as it could have been a child at out school

I think the whole ‘don’t walk by’ ethos is key

We cannot , of course , prevent genocide

We can however speak up and reach out in these cases . And speak loudly

Week after week MN posters are castigated for saying something to seeing women and men slap and batter their kids

Bad thing happens when good people walk by and do nothing

@crosser62 if this helps that isn't that common. Drug users are benign neglecters rather than willfull. I'm a cp sw plenty of experience. Whilst yes there are some for whom the gap in school meals is really difficult it's not that common in direct conjunction with drug use. Some of our primaries here open on the holidays to feed the kids. The need is real.
But your post reminded me of my worst drug using parent - kids are long gone and safe and well but in those last months she was still turning up with gifts. Random items often stolen but the thought was there.

Daniel pelka deeply affected me as did Tiffany Wright another serious case review - don't google. Nothing floored me as much as Sophie Hook and I think of her very often.

I read a book a few years ago about the plight of the jews in Europe. There was an account from a survivor who told of how as a young boy in occupied Poland he was being put on a train along with many other young jewish children, bound for England, his parents had no hope of escape....

He said the sight of his parents stood watching as the train pulled out, knowing they'd never see their little boy again, the deep sadness and despair in their eyes was something that never leaves him.

I cry often when i think of that. Just one of many many sad accounts, but that one stood out.

The one that's upset me recently was the case of the teenager (learning disabled presumably) who was so severely neglected he starved to death. He wasn't much older than my two.