Los Angeles is a place that feels physically and emotionally broken these days. For tens of thousands of displaced people, normalcy is almost impossible. Others continue with little visible changes in their daily lives.
However, that doesn't mean there isn't a fierce internal struggle.
How do you make sense of the fact that a significant portion of our city is destroyed, destroyed, heartbroken, and a significant majority untouched?
It's a chaotic and paralyzing time that is, above all, unfair. Smoke and ash are in the air, and so is survivor's guilt, which many don't know how to process or grieve.
“It feels like everything you say is wrong,” says Shannon Hunt, 54. Her central Altadena home is still standing when the neighbors are gone. An art teacher, her school, the Aveson School of Leaders, is gone.
“Every time I cry, every time I feel broken, I think I don't deserve it because someone else has it worse,” Hunt says. “That's stupid, intellectually. I understand it's not right, but how do you feel, because these people don't have baby pictures, they don't have Christmas ornaments, and they're people I love. How can I complain?”
Experts warn that survivor's guilt can be the new normal for many. As I left my place for the past two weeks I realized that only one thought had plagued my mind: I don't deserve this. I tried to go to places I frequented for comfort, but comfort and happiness, frankly, felt inappropriate at this moment.
It really shows that you have a lot of empathy. Most of us don't want to express our pain when others have suffered more because we don't want them to feel bad. So if we experience survivor's guilt it says something about us. It says that we care more about people.
— Chris Tickner, co-owner of Pasadena's California Integrative Therapy
“You hit the nail on the head there,” says Mary-Frances O'Connor, grief researcher and author of “The Grieving Brain: The Surprising Science of Love and Loss.” “Survivor's guilt is, in many ways, 'I don't deserve this. I don't deserve to be saved.'
O'Connor presents the concept of “distorted assumptions”. “It's something we use a lot in loss and trauma research,” O'Connor says, and deals with our everyday beliefs — how life, the world, and people in general operate.
“Events like loss and trauma break down those assumptions,” O'Connor says. “It's not that we never develop new ways of thinking about the world, asking, 'What do I deserve?' It takes time to resolve questions like Los Angeles, a process that requires us to pause and consider questions that we haven't done before.
Acknowledge what you feel
Chris Tickner and Andrea-Marie Stark, romantic and professional partners, operate Pasadena's California Integrative Therapy. They're also Altadena residents, Tickner says, though their home survived and everything around it was destroyed. As therapists, they now find themselves in a different position, trying to project their grief and survivor's guilt onto their clients.
The first step, Tickner says, is to normalize it.
“It shows that you actually have more empathy,” Tickner says. “Most of us don't want to express our pain when others have suffered a lot because we don't want them to feel bad. So if we feel survivor's guilt it says something about us. It says that we care more about people, so we're willing to be stoic and not reveal ourselves.
To begin processing survivor's guilt, experts say, helps us acknowledge and overcome our instincts to not only be vulnerable, but to create a class system of suffering. The first step to take is to better understand what is going on.
The LA wildfires are an unfathomable disaster, and survivor's guilt is expected, whether you're heavily damaged or relatively unscathed. All of us, above all, They feel the loss Our communities and our city will be irrevocably changed forever. Our desire is to be more peaceful. A friend warned me against writing this story.
says Jessica Leader, a licensed marriage and family therapist at Root to Rice Therapy in LA. “I don't think burying our heads in the sand and saying, 'Focus on me,' is the right approach.”
The reality is that there is always so much sadness. I don't think burying our heads in the sand is the right approach.
– Jessica Leader, licensed marriage and family therapist, LA's Root to Rise Therapy
For one thing, it's isolating. “Every person, no matter what they've been through, has started their session saying, 'I'm so lucky.' I have no right to complain,” says the leader. Now the collective experience — survivor's guilt permeates every conversation we have. This is normal. But that too is stalled.”
Turn your attention outward
Diana Winston, director of mindfulness education at the UCLA Mindful Awareness Research Center, says survivor guilt is a “galaxy of emotions” — “frustration, hopelessness, guilt, shame.” The longer we sit with them, especially shame, the more reticent we can be to discuss them. Winston recommends a simple mindfulness technique called the Rain Method, which stands for “Recognize, Allow, Investigate, and Nurture.”
In a way, think of it as a beginner's guide to meditation. “I think people, without a memory background, can do a little bit of work with RAIN,” says Winston. “This is what I feel, and it is right to have this feeling. It makes my stomach clench and I can breathe and feel a little better. Anyone with a little self-awareness can do it.
Take a moment to focus on the last aspect, “nurturing.” “A lot of people feel guilt, fear and panic, and what we can do is turn our attention to others,” says Winston. “It helps people not get lost in their own reactivity.”
An exercise like RAIN helps us express and share our emotions, which is integral. Don't bottle them up. Either it can lead us to a nihilistic place of feeling like nothing matters, or it can accelerate our grief to the point where it becomes part of our identity. Thinking about things, the leader says, can trigger a resistance to giving up and feeling guilty if we don't live in our memories every day.
O'Connor says to think about what grief researchers refer to as the “dual process model.”
“When we grieve, there is loss and recovery to deal with,” O'Connor says. “Recovery is helping and helping our neighbors. We need a moment to drink and cry and talk to someone who hugs us. The key to mental health is to be able to go back and forth between building and remembering. The most resilient people are able to do both.
Take a small step towards comfort
It is also important to acknowledge what we can do in the moment.
“There should be a caveat,” Tickner says. “It's very difficult to practice mindfulness now.”
Hunt says friends have suggested she take some time to herself. It is not possible. “A friend said, 'I have a pass for a spa day. Maybe you can take it and relax.' I said, 'That's great, but I can't do that.'
Restoration means reaching out and helping our neighbors. We need a moment to drink and cry and talk to someone who hugs us.
– Mary-Frances O'Connor, grief researcher and author
In such cases, Stark, of California Integrative Therapy, makes it simple. “Talking to friends, talking about how you're feeling, writing it down, making art, listening to music,” Stark says. And then, of course, get out and be part of the community. Volunteering can be especially comforting.
If friends offer help, accept it.
“We're staying at a friend's house right now,” Stark says, “and their neighbors come over and say, 'We made too much pasta. Want some?' I started to say, 'No, I can't take it.' Then I said, 'It's just pasta.' So I said yes, and they came up with a beautiful ziti, which was warm and beautiful, but it made me feel so good.
“So please, say yes to anything people offer you,” Stark says.
Say yes, write, make music, volunteer if you can — easy tips, Stark says, but with long-term health benefits.
“Every time you do these exercises, you open up a new neural pattern in your brain that expands your self, your potential, and that wonderful word called 'resistance'.”