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

[mids2019]

I keep reading details in the Daily Mail and I know journalists have been given a video of the atrocities but it is absolutely harrowing. I understand large broadcasters can not go into detail as the events were to shocking for a general audience and in reality I think even written descriptions are worse than any thing I have read or watched.

Has anyone felt some outlet to express disgust is helpful (as some sort of therapy)?

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 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!

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

Totally agree

I would be the same.

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

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.

@ssd this

No. Because I know what triggers me I only watch as much news as I can handle. I have ZERO power in this situation.

I also have my own issues like a disabled child so my energy is better redirected on his immediate problems with education and health which I can change 100% his outcome is fully within my power. There are many millions of others in my case, England, worrying about the news with possibly time to march or protest or whatever I don't have the capacity. I don't feel bad putting my MH first as I'm fully certain plenty of others are very very concerned and doing things within their power. Me switching off changes nothing. We all have our hills to die on. Mine is SEND. Someone is BLM, someone else is LGBT etc. We do what can for our hill. But you can't die on every hill. I care, don't get me wrong. But I can not torture myself with Syria, Ukraine, Gaza, Israel etc etc etc or I would have a stroke. News is bad for my MH. I make sure I am aware. But I don't need to know how a child was blown into mince meat to care more. I know that child died. It makes me sad. I don't need to see their dead body, crying dad, blood soaked shroud, wailing siblings to feel that better. I feel it deeply just knowing they died. I don't need gore to make it real. It's already real to me. I know what a missile does to body. I don't need to see it to understand it. I can see it in my head. In fact the more you see bodies under 1 metre lined up in street I'm sure it gets less shocking. The more you watch the news, the more standard those scenes are. No. I'm not going there. Humans are evil. They get pleasure in horrific events. So it ever was and will be. New year new war. Every year. For life. How do you fully absorb every death in every war? You can never fully grasp the utter horror until you speak to someone who there. I wish I didn't even know what I do as it is. I lost faith in humanity a long long time ago

Same here OP.

Reading about the father happy that his 7 year old daughter was killed immediately in the Hamas attack.
Rather than the much worse alternative of her being taken hostage and tortured, and repeatedly gang raped.

It is horrific.
And the proclamation that they will keep repeating the October 7 style attacks till they get all the Jews.

And yet I live in a foreign land where all posters of hostages, even of the 4 year olds, are torn to shreds.

To think that people around me are so blasé about the atrocities.

You never see this kind of cruelty, are you kidding me?? You obviously see what you want to see then

Because she knows people in Israel ffs.

Presumably from your comments, you care more about people in Gaza than you do it those in Israel. Why do you think that's ok but it's not ok for her?

Stop adding to it.

People are hurting you don’t need to make it worse.

I really haven't. But you acknowledge it is cruel, I guess.

I am so very sorry for your loss. I can't even begin to imagine what your friend must be going through.
I pray for a better world for all of our children

I think this thread is getting slightly derailed. No one set of innocent lives is more important than the other and the whole thing is truly abhorrent. I think the point is, some of the deaths that are coming out from the Hamas attack are truly terrifying and beyond most peoples comprehension. Before this, I genuinely thought it impossible that someone could burn a small baby alive in an oven however full of hate they were.

I imagine some people's closest connection to the Middle East on here is visiting a Lebanese restaurant in Doncaster.

And yet they belittle people's actual lived experience. Don't let that get in your way of a bit of keyboard warrioring though.

With all due respect: the "baby being baked in an oven" story is probably a hoax. See here (Israeli source; use Twitter/X auto-translation feature if you cannot read Hebrew):

https://twitter.com/FakeReporter/status/1718913377827795133?t=8h-fGyr9y5-eoXzaxF2Qog&s=19

Nobody is being done any favours here by people spreading so-called atrocity propaganda!

@HeidiInTheBigCity to be fair it's all over the media Today and just in TikTok posts etc. First Responder's giving statements.

It's a bit like the 'beheaded babies' stories. Children and adults have been found minus heads (I can't even believe I am typing that) but without being there or someone confessing it's impossible to confirm why they are headless.

Sorry I don't know how to edit. I meant not just on TikTok.

Of course it is all over social media ... as is a whole bunch of other stuff ranging from "benign and plausible" to "absurd and dangerous".

Check the source I have linked: it cites not only where it has so far traced the origin of the story back to as well as fact checking activities conducted so far but also - most importantly, in terms of their credibility - a call for anyone with credible and better information to come forward and correct them.

That is why I wrote the story was "probably" a hoax.

But "all over social media" as such is, quite frankly, not a measure of plausibility! The "great reset" is all over social media. "Flat earth" has more traction on SM than anywhere else. "Pizzagate", ... etc.! That would be because all of them are completely absurd and therefore unable to gain serious traction outside of spaces where anyone can post anything (except, at best, as the subject of academic investigation of a sociological phenomenon).

Sorry didn’t mean to spread misinformation if it’s not true, apologies. Although equally soul destroying for any family killed if it be via a bomb or a gun to the head. Both equally tragic. There’s no denying it’s far harder to understand the mindset of a grown man parading a dead woman on the back of a truck and laughing or a child killed at point blank range in their car seat than it is a man sat behind a computer pressing a button even if the outcome is the same.