Back in August of 2005 while in Beijing, China studying acupuncture, I remember flipping on the television in the hotel room while my roommate Heidi showered. I put on CCTV News, which was the government controlled news channel. A brief story about a hurricane in New Orleans showed people sitting on rooftops of houses surrounded by water waving banners asking for help.
As Heidi came out of the bathroom, I pointed to the television. “It can’t possibly be that bad,” I assumed, thinking the news in China would not be accurate or perhaps skewed.
“Yeah,” Heidi replied. “I don’t think that’s right.”
We knew a hurricane had hit the gulf coast, but distracted by acupuncture classes and sightseeing, our entire group of around twenty acupuncture students were completely oblivious to what was happening. It wasn’t until a few days later when a few of us went to a computer lab to catch up on email that we ran into a friend we’d made who was from New Mexico and here for acupuncture education as well.
“Make sure you read the article in The New York Times,” he urged. “It’s really tragic what’s been happening in the aftermath of the hurricane.”
Each of us went to that website first. Immediately we realized this was real….that Americans were feeling neglected and forgotten, that women were handing over their babies to those who came to rescue everyone but were widely outnumbered by those who needed help, that people were dying in the Superdome, that people were abandoning their pets in order to evacuate and that out of desperation for food and water people feared crime would spread to neighboring states.
Reading this story alone was traumatizing.
After that experience, I cut back on the amount of news I watched and read. Up to that point, I was a news junkie. Every morning as I got ready and had my breakfast, the news would be on. If I was near a computer, I’d check the news. At 6:30pm, I’d watch the evening news. I liked being that informed.
But reading that one rather graphic story alone, which perhaps felt more impactful given I was immersed in an entirely different culture soaking up a lot of interesting experiences, taught me a lesson — there is a delicate balance between being informed and allowing the news to affect my psyche.
It seems like the last few weeks the news has been nothing but traumatic. For the brief fifteen minutes I typically spend on watching the news, I’m finding myself covering my eyes as reporters warn that what they’re about to show is graphic. There’s more and more days where I don’t turn on the news or look at a news website. Between videos of people being shot to what happened in Nice, France yesterday, it seems like the traumas of our world get the attention, and I wonder how much that trauma feeds into the mindset and actions of those who choose to watch and read about them.
It was sad enough to learn that a box truck intentionally barreled through a crowded who had just finished watching fireworks in honor of Bastille Day. I’m not sure it was necessary to hear the reporter this morning on one of the major network morning shows reveal that there were strollers and a baby doll strewn about the carnage….and yes, even including that detail in this article makes me cringe at the idea that I may even be contributing against the point I’m trying to make.
I am aware that there’s a lot of work to be done in our country and around the world, but being aware of every grisly detail of every tragedy that the news seems to focus on more and more lately is not worth my energy. I am committed to remaining calm, healthy, focused and positive because people depend on me for their health care. As someone who used to suffer significantly from PTSD, doing anything else would prevent me from contributing to the world in the most positive way that I can.
I doubt that I am alone, so I ask you this…. Is what you’re receiving from exposing yourself to a lot of these news stories contributing to your best self or dragging you down? Are you becoming a better person by watching these stories? Can you spend that time doing something more valuable for yourself and your community? If so, DO THAT.
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