Another mass shooting flashes across the TV screen while you eat your English muffin slathered in non-salted butter.
And… you keep eating the delicious breakfast muffin.
You might even post a “Heavy heart” Tweet followed by a hashtag of the city impacted.
Months or years ago, your reaction was likely totally different. Some people even reported vomiting upon first exposure to violent news such as a mass shooting. Maybe this was you. But now, you have no problem continuing to eat your English muffin.
And you’re completely normal for doing so. Here’s why.
You Employ the Back-Burner
The reason you can keep eating your English muffin while watching horrible news is that you’ve been impacted by a widespread desensitization to mass violence.
This doesn’t mean you no longer possess a warm and loving heart. What this means is that your brain is helping you to unconsciously adapt to your new environment. An environment filled with violence. Even violence on the TV constitutes… violence.
You no longer react with a sick stomach. Rather, your stress stimulus levels out to a more sustainable level. In short, you simply don’t have the ability to have such an intense physical and emotional reaction every time. So you find a way to accept it and cope.
According to psychology, this usually means accepting the situation, then pushing it to the back-burner of your mind.
You Expect What You Shouldn’t
This desensitization to mass violence can even flow more deeply than simply pushing the event to the back-burner of your mind. Taking your coping mechanism a step further, your mind even starts to expect mass violence.
After all, it keeps happening. Why not just expect it, right?
No, you don’t want to see it. Of course, you don’t! But, although expecting mass violence might normalize it, not being shocked by it also helps you to keep living your daily life trauma-free.
If you didn’t resolve to have the mindset of expecting it, each incident would supply a new level of trauma to your life.
You Keep Playing the Broken Record
Like mentioned before, mass violence keeps happening over and over. It’s like a broken vinyl record or CD stuck on the player. Not only does it keep skipping or repeating the same parts, but you sort of get used to it. You might even be comfortable with it.
More than anything, you keep using the CD or record playing. How can you not listen to the song? Or, in terms of mass violence, how can you stop living, traveling, or watching the news?
This is simply another way the desensitization to mass violence has impacted you. You see it time and time again. And the more you see it the less traumatic or frustrating it becomes.
You Rely on the Element of Exposure
In addition to interrupting your breakfast routine, the desensitization to mass violence has also infiltrated your date nights and Netflix binging.
In short, you’re getting exposed to violence in many different ways.
It doesn’t take experiencing violence first hand to become used to it. Although you’re not actually physically harmed by the violence, your brain still has to find a way to adapt to what you’re seeing.
It seems farfetched that the movie 300 or the series Sons of Anarchy has primed you to better accept the mass violence-filled morning news. But, that’s exactly how your brain functions.
Why Your Reaction Is Perfectly Normal
The desensitization to mass violence is like the jagged pills of life becoming easier to swallow. Mass violence still wounds our hearts, but it no longer stops our world from spinning on its axis like it did upon initial exposure.
This is how you carry on and that’s okay. And further still, it’s perfectly normal.
If you’re having trouble accepting the barrage of mass violence, please contact me. Together we can sort through any complex or conflicting feelings you might be experiencing so that you can reclaim your calm.
