Understanding Racial Grief and Trauma
As I begin to share in this blog post, I find myself having a physical and emotional reaction. This is a personal and vulnerable experience that myself, and many other people of color know unfortunately all too well. Whenever I read about racism on social media, hear a news story about another racist hate crime happening, or reflect on my own personal experiences of being discriminated against – I feel my stomach drop, I get nauseous, my heart races, my breath becomes constricted, and my mind gets foggy. This is the trauma that lives in my body starting to activate, kicking in to protect me from a danger it is too familiar with.
As I write, my thoughts start moving quicker and quicker, and self-doubt climbs in. Is it okay for me to bring up this topic of race? Does anyone want to hear what I have to say about this, or will I just make people uncomfortable? Maybe I should just stay silent to avoid causing any trouble. Then, I start to feel a fire stirring in my belly, a warmth radiating and energizing me. It calls out to me to use my voice to name this experience, even if it shakes things up, even if it causes discomfort. There is a part of me that is just so tired of being quiet. There is another part of me that is angry and sad about what I know is a real and pervasive issue for racialized communities, and yet there are often not enough spaces people can feel safe to discuss this in without having to worry about the risks or repercussions for speaking their truth.
As an anti-oppressive, anti-racist and trauma-informed therapist – I want those who have felt underrepresented in their experiences and identities to feel like someone sees them and hears them. I know that those who have been minoritized have been historically silenced, we have often not had our stories heard, or our stories have been told through a white perspective. I believe we can find healing in reclaiming our voices and telling our stories. With my community in my mind and heart, I want to spread awareness about this. We need to talk about the devastating and traumatic impacts of racism on our communities of colour.
Growing up as a second-generation Indian-Canadian, and a child of Punjabi immigrants, I often felt caught between two very different worlds. What does it mean to be born and raised in the West but having Eastern cultural values in your family? I often felt a clash between not feeling Canadian enough, and not feeling Indian enough. From an early age, I got messages from the world around me that I was different and that I did not fit in. I did not see any people who looked like me in the television shows that were popular amongst my peers. I did not see any teachers or leaders who looked like me in my schools. I grew up in the aftermath of the devastating events of 9/11, finding it confusing and challenging to understand why there were news stories of people who looked like my parents and grandparents being discriminated against, harmed, accused of terrorism, or treated differently. I was scared for what this meant for my family and people who looked like me, but I also did not have any knowledge or tools to understand what was happening.
Flashing forward to May 2020, when the news of the murder of George Floyd broke headlines, I found myself feeling sad and terrified as I watched the horror unfold in front of my eyes, in each article that I read or post that I saw. I was more tired than I had ever been before, finding it hard to get out of bed or off the couch, a heaviness in me that I could not shake. I found it sickening to be exposed to violent media coverage around this content, it especially hitting hard and heavy knowing that the things that are happening to people like George Floyd, happen to black and brown people because of our skin colour and race. Although I did not know him personally, it really seemed like I was grieving him as if I was grieving a family member. I felt a deep sense of injustice, the world did not seem fair. I started to go back through the timeline of my life and piece together experiences that never really sat right with me before, but I had been taught were normal or not to be questioned. I started to recognize the ways that I have struggled as a brown person, draw connections to examples of white supremacy that I had seen in my life, and reflect on internalized racism that was socialized in me. This added to my disturbance, and I started to have trauma symptoms such as nightmares and hypervigilance. What I am describing that I was going through can be referred to as racial trauma and racial grief.
Racial Trauma
According to Mental Health America (2021), racial trauma can be defined as the mental and emotional injury that is caused by encounters with systemic racism, individual racism, racial bias, ethnic discrimination, racist abuse and/or hate crimes. This form of trauma can be caused by direct or experiences with racism, and through indirect exposure to racism. For example, if someone witnesses a family member or a loved one being harmed by racism, they may be deeply impacted by the incident as well, as if it had happened to themselves. This can lead to vicarious traumatization that can have a similar profound impact as being directly targeted by the racist situation. This explains the ways I was feeling in response to the media coverage about George Floyd. For a person of colour, dealing with the psychological, emotional or mental toll of not only hearing about these issues or experiencing them, but also figuring out if we want to respond to it or do anything about it, can end up causing an exhausting drain on our time and energy. This can be referred to as racial battle fatigue.
Race-Based Post Traumatic Stress
Racial trauma and racial battle fatigue can be deeply stored in our bodies and the stress can lead to a variety of health issues. BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and People of Colour) folks often have numerous experiences of racism over the course of our lifetime; therefore, this is multiple and often chronic trauma becoming embedded in our beings, leading to continuous states of our nervous systems being activated, being on high alert much of the time, modifying our behavior to try to protect ourselves, and often not feeling truly safe. Therefore, this can increase our disturbance to the point of developing race-based post-traumatic stress.
According to Carter (2006), this can be described as a set of symptoms comparable to PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder), that specifically develop as a result of exposure to encounters with racism, racial discrimination, racial injustice, or micro-aggressions. For someone to have race-based post-traumatic stress, there needs to be symptoms of intrusion, avoidance and/or arousal present that can be exhibited emotionally, physiologically, cognitively, or behaviorally. This is not often recognized as part of a PTSD diagnosis, as the diagnostic manual for mental health disorders, the DSM-5, does not identify the mental health impacts of racism. There might be some debate amongst clinicians about the severity or subjectivity of racist-based injuries, working to discount people’s experiences. It is therefore crucial for medical and therapeutic professionals to develop an awareness around this, so that this stress and emotional injury due to racism can be properly affirmed and addressed in the services that we access. The bottom line is that racism takes a toll on mental and physical health, and therefore racism contributes to a mass public health crisis in our society. Those of us impacted by racism deserve to heal and to have access to medical and mental health care that addresses the unique experiences and impacts of being a person of colour in our world today.
Racial Grief
There are many losses that racialized folks can face. Experiencing racism can lead to a loss of safety, trust, identity, confidence, power, control, relationship with ourselves or relationships with others. Racialized people might also experience additional unique losses, such as immigration, loss of culture or language, loss of faith, religion, or spirituality, intergenerational trauma, colonization, and more.
Racial grief is a completely normal and natural reaction to losses associated with experiencing racism. Racial grief can also be the conflicting feelings caused by the end of or change in a familiar pattern of behavior. When I first experienced racism directed towards me in a past workplace of mine, I felt many conflicting feelings caused by the end of feeling safe and included in my place of work. Because I (along with many BIPOC folks) was not taught that I am allowed to grieve racism, I did not actually have the tools that I needed to heal my broken heart from my loss.
Ideas for Healing Racial Grief and Trauma
Let yourself feel your feelings – All of your emotions are allowed to be here as you are on your healing journey. It is okay to feel sadness, anger, rage, disappointment, fear, shame, guilt, shock, rejection, or any other feelings you may have. It can be helpful to find what works for you to hold space for these feelings and move through them in the ways that you need. Perhaps that could be through journaling, drawing, listening to music, dancing, exercising, or other outlets.
Practice self compassion – It can be really healing to learn how to go easier and gentler on yourself. You deserve to extend the same grace, care and kindness to yourself that you would give to a close friend or loved one. Practice noticing and challenging critical self talk and replacing it with more supportive affirmations. Some examples could be “I am doing the best I can right now” or “I can learn to accept myself as I am.” You can choose phrases that feel meaningful and authentic to you, which will be different for every person.
Lean into hope – Racial grief and trauma can cause feelings of hopelessness. It can be important in these moments to find anchors of hope to hold onto, even if it feels small. Hope shows us the possibilities that we can have for the future. It helps us to keep going even when we are hurting, and things feel challenging. It can help us to free ourselves from being defined by our current circumstances, and to feel empowered that we can grow, change and heal. Whether it is hearing stories of resiliency and strength within your family or community, reading inspiring news about people helping each other, or appreciating a warm summer day – find what instills hope in you.
Turn to your support network – You do not have to suffer alone, and you deserve support as you go through this. Talk to a friend, family member or colleague, go to your local cultural centre and connect with your community members, go to your place of worship or spirituality, find an online forum or support group for people of colour, or any other connections that feel safe to you. Community care can be helpful for validating and uplifting each other through this collective experience.
Find an anti-racist, culturally informed therapist – If you feel like you need to talk to a mental health professional about your racial grief and trauma, find someone who you feel comfortable with. You can look at their profiles online to determine if their values align with anti-racism and culturally safe practices. You can always email them any questions that you have or schedule a free phone consultation with them to ask them what kind of knowledge, experience, training or perspectives that they have in this area. You can choose a BIPOC-identified therapist if that feels safer for you. Know that you are allowed to decide who the right mental health support is for you because this is your healing journey.
Limit social media or news consumption – If it is causing you more distress to read continuous news stories or posts about racism, just know that it is totally okay to decide what you can and cannot consume. You are allowed to take breaks or spend less time “doom scrolling” and more time nourishing yourself.
Set boundaries – Figure out if there are any other limits that you might need to set with yourself or with others in order to support you during this time of healing, and what some small steps you might want to take to put it into action. Boundaries can be some of the most supportive ways we can find peace, empowerment, autonomy, choice and healthy control in our lives. It is okay to say no to what does not serve you, and often knowing what our “no’s” are can be healing for trauma.
Utilize cultural and spiritual practices for healing – Spend time connecting with your culture/spirituality/faith so that you can feel a sense of meaning and purpose during this time. So many of us have healing practices embedded in the traditional knowledge systems that we were raised in, that may be outside of Westernized ideas of what self-care is. Maybe eating your cultural foods or spending time in ceremony can be what you need right now.
Connect with generational and ancestral wisdom – Many of us BIPOC folks have family members or ancestors who have been through hardships such as slavery, colonization, or residential schools. While there is intergenerational trauma in our lineages, there also is great wisdom and survival in our ancestries as well. If it feels nourishing and comforting for you, you may want to find practices that support you connecting with your ancestors or Elders. Tapping into knowledge and stories that have been passed down through the generations can make people feel connected to something bigger than themselves. Often, we carry within us an inner wisdom that we can lean into through this.
Connect with nature – Spending time in relationship with the land can be very special and healing in many cultures. If nature gives you a sense of peace and connection, spend more time going for walks and soaking in the natural beauty that you are surrounded by.
These are just some ideas that people might find supportive, and I also want to invite you to explore what works for you. My hope is that this blog post can be a starting place to make you feel like your experiences are real, your feelings are valid, and that you are not alone in this. Your racial grief and trauma is not your fault. You are important, and you deserve to be accepted and cared for exactly as you are. BIPOC mental health is important and we deserve to be well.
Resources
Carter, R.T. (2006). Race-Based Traumatic Stress. Psychiatric Times, 23(14).
Mental Health America. (2022). Racial Trauma. https://www.mhanational.org/racial-trauma
The Conversation. (2018). Grief is a direct impact of racism: Eight ways to support yourself. https://theconversation.com/grief-is-a-direct-impact-of-racism-eight-ways-to-support-yourself-91750
Blog Written by Reena Samra
Reena is a Registered Social Worker, Certified Grief Recovery Specialist® and EMDR Clinician.
Reena holds a Bachelor's degree in Social Work and a Master's degree in Clinical Social Work with a Trauma-Informed Practice Specialization from the University of Calgary. She has eight years of experience working with a diverse range of trauma survivors. She works from a trauma-informed, intersectional feminist, anti-oppressive, social justice-oriented and anti-racist framework, striving to decolonize mental health.
Having experienced many complex traumas and losses in her life, including her mother having a stroke in 2021 that took away her health and abilities, The Grief Recovery Method provided her with tools to process her painful life experiences and heal her broken heart.
Reena values building authentic, kind and trusting therapeutic relationships.
To learn more about Reena or to work with her click here.