To feel so devastated by tragedies involving children

[StolenCookie]

I’m feeling really devastated and broken by the recent story of the poor little boy in the news. I burst into tears when I read the headline, and can’t stop imagining his last days, his confusion, how he was found cuddling his dad’s leg. I have tears in my eyes writing this!

Does anyone else struggle in the same way? I was doing some child safeguarding training the other day and the story of Baby P came up and I couldn’t stop myself from reading more about the details and feeling so disturbed that these things happen to babies and children. I even researched where his grave is to see if it would be possible for me to visit it (I’m not going to! It was just an impulse).

I’m a normal, functioning person in real life, I promise! I work with vulnerable children and have a 17 month old boy. I think having my own baby has made this all worse for me but when I read about these dreadful events I find it hard not to fall apart knowing some children are just born to suffer.

I’ve been in therapy for years so sadly that won’t make a difference to me. I would really just like to know if anyone else gets as deeply affected as I do? I feel so so sad.

You know nothing about what the OP or the rest of us are or aren't doing to support children and families. No need for this kind of posts, right up there with the "virtue signaling" accusations.

Hence why I said ‘very often’ not definitely

I realise this may sound extremely goady (and that’s honestly not my intention) but with your background and expertise do you feel like this is a rational and ‘normal’ response?

Some people feel more empathy than others.

I don’t think my response is typical, which is why I asked the question I guess.

Thank you for your very honest reply - I work with very, very vulnerable families and also have young children and often have similar conversations with colleagues on this very subject

The murder of James Bulger took place a few years before I had my first DC and I remember skim reading the news reports feeling quite horrified but then got on with what I was doing not thinking anymore about it but after I had my own DC, stuff like this would affect me for days, especially that particular case as I read what happened properly a few years later and had a few incidents of DC disappearing from view in a shop/when out and would be absolutely panic stricken because of it.

Sarah Payne was another one that sticks out as DD was a similar age. Baby P and Mikaeel Kular were the ones I cried over.

I think it’s perfectly natural to be affected by stuff like this. I also am another one that now feels that I have to read what happened to the child as a kind of respect to them, that we should know what they had to suffer and that they existed. Difficult to put into words really.

OP, I understand completely. I dont know what's "normal" to feel but I haven't been the same since reading about one of the poor children mentioned on here. It really broke me and I'm still struggling. There were other children in the news for similar reasons, also horrendous but none affected me anywhere near.

I have kept away from the news since then anyway as I can't stomach anything, not even headlines sometimes. I try to know "roughly" what's going on in the world, usually just let my partner fill me in.

I don't get affected like this. Any death is sad, regardless of how old the deceased is.

My observation is that people talk of their devastation but nobody seems to express sadness for those left behind. Arthur has a DM but I've never read anything along the lines of 'His poor mother must be heartbroken'. Star Hobson has a dad but nobody seems to sympathise with him. The deceased are at peace whilst those left behind will probably never know true peace again.

I remember having a similar reaction to the April Jones disappearance/murder. I was disproportionally devastated about it and could hardly concentrate on anything else whilst they were looking for her. I can only put it down to my DD being of a similar age.

Empathy is not making it about oneself and one’s own feelings and reactions.

(Again not the OP but I’ve seen it a lot on social media. )

I felt awful and very upset about Baby P. My DS was about 18months at the time. He's now 18. I don't find the stories quite so over-whelmingly upsetting now, although they are truly awful situations. I think hormones do play a part when you have really small DCs and have an impact on your emotions. I think it's probably programmed into us for very good reason- we're communal, social mammals who look out for the young and vulnerable. You're a highly evolved human!

I'm the same. Found them so difficult when my dc were the same age but find them easier to manage now. However, mine are now 18 and 23, so they are independent, driving, go to work and are at university, but I found it difficult when those young lads were found in their car after going missing before Christmas. That really upset me and made me cry. Again because I had children of similar age.

The whole point of empathy is that someone else's experience affects you. We are supposed to be moved by the suffering of others, or else we'd all be stepping over people who have collapsed in the street or telling our colleagues that they have got fat over the holidays.

Children being hurt should evoke a visceral, disturbed and horrified reaction. It should be, at least on some level, upsetting. Most normal people with small children are acutely aware of how innocent, sweet, helpless and worthy of love they are. It should hit home, hard.

Op, I've been like this all my life. My little brother was the same age as James Bulger when that terrible tragedy happened. I remember crying and crying as I read the details in the paper. Through the years, there have been a saddening amount of cases which broke me.

Now I have my own kids and the cycle continues. I followed the court cases of both Arthur and Star (they were around the same time). I remember feeling like I had to hear about it because their abusers deserved to be exposed for the true extent of their crimes. Those kids deserved justice and I wanted to be witness to it, for their sake. Sometimes when I'm tucking my own kids in at night, I think about those children and somehow feel like I can channel that compassion for them into my own kids and hug then more tightly, speak more softly to them or tell them how much I love them. I try, subconsciously, to bring them into my own parenting. It just helps me make sense of it.

Perhaps because if their parents were more involved it would never have happened. Arthur’s mum was in jail for murdering someone, why would you do that especially if you had a child?

@Darkdiamond what a brilliantly expressed post. Empathy is key. There was an incident of horrific abuse and torture some time ago that still haunts me now. It can just pop into my head when I'm having a perfectly alright day and I have to work really hard to reset my brain back to normal function. I think I'll always remember what I read and hold a thought in my heart for that poor person for the rest of my life. It also really resonates with me what you said about the affect it has on your own parenting and at least being the best mum/ dad you can be to your own kids kind of helps somehow. It even works for me with animals. I currently live in a country where animal welfare is not a priority and I've seen some horrible sights. Me knowing how much love and care and snuggles my own little doggie gets makes it a bit easier to deal with somehow. ( sorry I went on a tangent there. But I'm trying to explain my way of dealing with distressing things.)

@Darkdiamond That's an excellent post. I react similarly too and completely understand your point about feeling like you have to bear witness

OP I feel the same way. It's extremely upsetting. I can't even post much about it but hearing things like this stay with you.

Same on all of these. I followed Arthur's trial via a Birmingham paper because I was scared his bastard father was going to get off but I have never watched that video. I have a 5 year old DS.

Prior to having a child, animal abuse cases upset me the most.

It doesn't affect me in this way. I don't cry, I just feel frustrated that the system let them (yet another one to add to the list pp's have listed) down. The police has reported itself to the watchdog. I fear that won't do much. And the social workers failings. That too won't change. Sad.

And did Star's dad do anything at the time? I think the grandparents circulated her photo (with the giant bruise) on SM and he'd probably seen it. Either way, he was obviously not involved in his daughter's life, else he'd have taken immediate steps.
Arthur's mum was in jail for killing someone. She was a violent drug addict, so I can only imagine the type of life he had with her too.

@Oblomov23 What ‘failings’ do you mean? I have read the reported details of this case but I’m struggling to see how this social worker failed in her duties?

I don't get affected like this. Any death is sad, regardless of how old the deceased is.

There is something about a child, so young and trusting, with so much potential ahead of them, so dependent on their caregivers and so lacking in maturity that makes cases with children particularly heartbreaking. By nature, children are more easily frightened and haven't developed any kind of resilience to make sense of a terrible situation. The cases that are the most heartbreaking are those where the death was preceeded by a period of abuse, in which the child was helpless due to the very nature of their young years. The ultimate power imbalance.

Little children are scared of loud noises that we, as adults, know are caused by the bin lorry, or strange shapes on the wall which we know are just caused by odd shadows. The abuse and murder of a child is driven by an evil which relies on the vulnerability of a child. We are hardwired to want to protect these little ones, or should be. Their maltreatment leaves a sense of horror that reflects the hellish experience, and ultimate demise, of those young children. It just gets me in a different way to anything else.

Other things do get me, by the way, but the thought of anything happening to children leaves me disgusted and distraught on another level.

@RobertaFirmino I disagree entirely with the notion that any death is sad. You can't possibly equate the death of an elderly person who goes gently in their sleep after having lived a full and happy life, to the death of, for example, the 2 young students last year who were so grotesquely murdered just at the time when they were entering adulthood, or the teens, children and toddlers who are killed by the people who are meant to live them the most. To me there is no comparison at all.

*love