Survivor's guilt is a common psychological condition that a person may experience after surviving a life-threatening situation that killed others. It was common among Holocaust survivors, and is seen in airplane crash survivors, war veterans and lung-transplant recipients. It's also common for people who have lived through natural disasters like earthquakes, fires, tornadoes, and floods, when loved ones, friends or community members perished.
The typical sign of survivor’s guilt is when the mind runs in an endless loop about what the survivor could have or should have done to save others, although factually they did nothing wrong and most likely could not have done anything to save others. Different people can have different symptoms, but some clues that the person is suffering from survivor’s guilt include:
- Having flashbacks
- Being short tempered
- Having trouble sleeping
- Feeling numb, disconnected, or unable to act on anything
- Feeling unmotivated
- Having an overwhelming sense of fear
- Experiencing physical symptoms such as stomachaches and headaches
- Having suicidal thinking
Survivor’s guilt can be a normal response to loss, even though it’s not rational to feel responsible for another person’s fate when it wasn’t avoidable. In hindsight, it’s always easier to see how a person could have done something to create a different outcome, but it might or might not have worked anyway. It’s always harder to think of solutions under extreme stress or in an emergency.
Some people are more prone to this condition, especially if they already have a history of depression or low self-esteem, or already have unresolved past losses that can affect their ability to cope with even more loss. Following are some tips for coping with survivor’s guilt:
- Allowing yourself time to grieve
- Taking care of yourself physically and psychologically
- Reminding yourself of the positive aspects of living and surviving
- Making yourself of service to someone or something/helping others
- Remembering that you are not alone
- Sharing your feelings with those you trust
- Journaling your feelings
- Getting professional help
This is really interesting to me because I had only heard of PTSD. I didn't know this was a thing, but I think it makes a lot of sense. When our loves ones pass away, we always immediately jump to the thought of what we could have done better. In most cases, there wasn't anything specifically we could have done to keep that person alive. The way humans are programmed, we always want to do better and be the hero. However, we are also always going to be hard on ourselves and bring self doubt. I know that I'm guilty of these things, not just in cases of losing a loved one or experiencing a traumatizing incident, but simple situations as well. Cases like these that are experiencing survivors guilt, are definitely difficult to go through. They are also hard to handle on your own, which is why I think going straight to someone is the key. It doesn't have to be someone professional, but another loved on that you are comfortable with.
ReplyDeleteMy Great-Grandfather lost 8 siblings and both his parents in the Holocaust. I don't remember a time when I saw him that he at times would just black outing deep thought. I had been around to hear many of his stories, but I was only 7 when he had passed and could not fully understand them. I can only imagine what it would be like to lose the 10 people you were closest to and to live the rest of your life knowing that you will never see them again. He was the kind of strong stubborn many you would expect to see of someone raised with the Armenian Orthodox Jew who spent his childhood studying rabbinical works only to be forced out of his home, spend about 5 years hiding and running from Nazis and choose to go to the Soviet Union because that it where you thought you had the best chance of finding even one family member, while trying to keep a Jewish identity and be sent to prison, then to work as a painter waiting for your chance to try your luck in America, then never finding even a lick of those you love dearly. Neither i nor my family could ever know what what it was like for Dzedushka Chaim, but it could not have been easy.
ReplyDeleteThis is really interesting. I've heard of survivors guilt, but I didn't really know too much about it. It's very understandable for people to think how lucky they are and how they should have or could have been in a worse situation that ended in their own injury or worse. Survivors guilt reminds me of what if situations, which usually just causes stress. We try and imagine if we did this, a different outcome would appear. It's inevitable for people to imagine different outcomes, but the best thing for us is to try and be happy with the choices we make and forgive the ones we don't.
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