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The pandemic has been a period of acute trauma at many levels. More than 3 million people have died globally from COVID-19, including over 600,000 in the United States. Doctors and nurses have experienced a moral crisis, feeling that perhaps they could have done more in spite of the tremendous demands on their time and resources. Families separated from loved ones, even those in their dying moments, are dealing with their own trauma.
It is a collective trauma – one suffered by the young and old, and shared in common around the globe.
I have spent much of my academic career studying genocide, most recently the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, in which at least 800,000 minority ethnic Tutsis were killed by armed militias within just 100 days. At one level, genocide and the pandemic have little in common other than the loss of life that occurs on a terrifying scale. But they both require a process of healing and recovery after the trauma ends.
The pandemic has traumatized people to a lesser degree but may also affect many well into the future. In interviews that I have done with survivors of the genocide in Rwanda, as well as elderly Armenian survivors of the 1915 genocide in Turkey, it has been clear that their trauma lingered for decades.
Looking at such extreme cases of genocide-related trauma can shed light on the experience of loss, isolation and fear that many people have experienced during the pandemic. The healing process of genocide survivors may offer lessons for post-pandemic recovery.
Survivor trauma
The growing body of research on trauma and the pandemic suggests that these experiences parallel, even if to a reduced degree, some of the characteristics I have observed among genocide survivors. They have shown many of the classic symptoms of post-traumatic stress syndrome, or PTSD. These include flashbacks of violence; nightmares; alterations in moods and emotions, such as being unable to remember events; difficulty concentrating, irrational guilt; and diminished interest in social interaction.
Read:
https://theconversation.com/why-genocide-survivors-can-offer-a-way-to-heal-from-the-trauma-of-the-pandemic-year-159086