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Feeling sick and teary-eyed reading this raw story from @OliviaMesser. Every sentence punched.
About a month ago, after a year submersed in trauma and tension, my brain finally broke. My whole body went numb. I couldn't eat or sleep or feel. https://studyhall.xyz/the-reporters-are-not-okay-extremely-not-okay/
About a month ago, after a year submersed in trauma and tension, my brain finally broke. My whole body went numb. I couldn't eat or sleep or feel. https://studyhall.xyz/the-reporters-are-not-okay-extremely-not-okay/
I took time off to rest and recover (and build some porch furniture, see attached, I am proud). But as I've talked about with many friends and colleagues, a few days or a long weekend or even a whole week after all we've seen in the last year just doesn't feel sufficient.
I'm not sure how we pull ourselves out of this trauma marathon, but Olivia outlines so well in this story the ways in which the journalism industry can use this as an opportunity to do better by ourselves and our sources regarding mental health and trauma awareness.
And the point she made about the work newsroom unions are doing to raise awareness about mental health is critical. Some of the most important work @PostGuild has done in the last year was foster a community space to talk about and advocate for free therapy.
Talking about this is scary and hard, because we're taught to be tough and hardened and to compartmentalize. I'm grateful for a new generation of journalists who are brave enough to stop pretending we are unaffected by the work, or that feeling deeply makes us weak.
And I'm grateful to @OliviaMesser for writing sentences like this:
"I was finally numb enough to care more about curbing the onslaught of new physiological and mental fire alarms going off in my body than my fear of failure."
"I was finally numb enough to care more about curbing the onslaught of new physiological and mental fire alarms going off in my body than my fear of failure."
