{"id":2999,"date":"2025-03-15T13:22:12","date_gmt":"2025-03-15T20:22:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/andiekbyrd.org\/?p=2999"},"modified":"2025-03-15T13:23:50","modified_gmt":"2025-03-15T20:23:50","slug":"owner-of-a-broken-heart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/andiekbyrd.org\/owner-of-a-broken-heart\/","title":{"rendered":"Owner of a broken heart"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"768\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/andiekbyrd.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Moral-injury-768x1024.jpg\" alt=\"My photo of a memorial in Coffeewalk Cemetery: dawn light is the backdrop for a statue of a seated woman with her chin on her hand, looking down in sadness.\" class=\"wp-image-3000\" srcset=\"https:\/\/andiekbyrd.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Moral-injury-768x1024.jpg 768w, https:\/\/andiekbyrd.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Moral-injury-225x300.jpg 225w, https:\/\/andiekbyrd.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Moral-injury-1152x1536.jpg 1152w, https:\/\/andiekbyrd.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Moral-injury-1536x2048.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/andiekbyrd.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Moral-injury-1000x1333.jpg 1000w, https:\/\/andiekbyrd.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Moral-injury-230x307.jpg 230w, https:\/\/andiekbyrd.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Moral-injury-350x467.jpg 350w, https:\/\/andiekbyrd.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Moral-injury-480x640.jpg 480w, https:\/\/andiekbyrd.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Moral-injury-scaled.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cTo be alive right now is to have a moral injury.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That phrase keeps coming up for me on coffeewalks lately. Looping in my brain. Or maybe it&#8217;s my heart&#8230; or my soul, if such a thing exists?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I think the phrase is mine, but the concept isn\u2019t. Moral injury is the idea that we can be harmed &#8211; not physically, but in real and serious ways &#8211; by doing, failing to do, or witnessing acts that go against our deepest beliefs about what\u2019s right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It\u2019s that \u201cwitnessing\u201d element that haunts me now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;Moral injury is a specific trauma that arises when people face situations that deeply violate their conscience or threaten their core values&#8230;. [it] tends to turn up when you have a vision of the world as fundamentally fair and good and something you\u2019ve done or witnessed destroys that vision,&#8221; says <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.scientificamerican.com\/article\/moral-injury-is-an-invisible-epidemic-that-affects-millions\/\">a 2022 article in Scientific American<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Yeah. Who here is feeling agonized by watching our leaders trample what we believed were our nation&#8217;s core ethics? Show of hands, please. Mmkay, that\u2019s about what I figured. Hands down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There are a couple of tools for assessing this in a more scientifically validated way than my little poll. Of course I\u2019m not here to diagnose any of us with my nonexistent medical credentials, and I don\u2019t mean to pathologize us as victims. Just saying, you might wanna check out the <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ptsd.va.gov\/professional\/assessment\/documents\/NCPTSD_MIDS.pdf\">Moral Injury and Distress Scale<\/a> (MIDS) and the <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.mirecc.va.gov\/visn17\/docs\/MIOS.pdf\">Moral Injury Outcomes Scale<\/a> (MIOS).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">MIOS asks us to rate statements including &#8220;I have lost faith in humanity,&#8221; &#8220;I lost trust in others,&#8221; and &#8220;People don&#8217;t deserve second chances.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">MIDS resonates with me even more, with prompts like these: &#8220;Because of what I did, failed to do, or witnessed that went against my morals and values\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>I feel helpless.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>My life feels like it has less purpose.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>I am worried that bad things will happen to me or my loved ones.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>I feel betrayed by leaders or institutions.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>I think about how I should have been able to do more.&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That last one, though. Wow, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A friend recently said, &#8220;The news these days isn&#8217;t just breaking. It&#8217;s heart-breaking.&#8221; As we watch in constant horror, feeling helpless and scared, we naturally wonder what we woulda-coulda-shoulda done, and what we can possibly do now. Those are very reasonable questions, to some extent; but they&#8217;re also added pain we don&#8217;t need to carry, in the sense that individual action will always be an insufficient remedy for institutional injustice. That&#8217;s why we need collective action, communities, movements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Still, that sense of personal culpability is part of the problem with treating moral injury: &#8220;For people with moral injury who\u2019ve experienced wrenching events that upend their entire value system, ethical distress is genuine, not the product of distorted thinking,&#8221; says that same <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.scientificamerican.com\/article\/moral-injury-is-an-invisible-epidemic-that-affects-millions\/\">article<\/a>. &#8220;If people with moral injury simply try to retrain their thoughts, they may be left unsatisfied and unhealed.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">One of the recommended strategies for healing a moral injury is to offer amends in some personally meaningful way. It strikes me that I already tried to do that, without recognizing it as such: <a href=\"https:\/\/andiekbyrd.org\/never-say-goodbye\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">I wrote a few weeks ago<\/a> about the wide range of organizations and movements that I&#8217;ll be supporting with monthly $10 gifts so that every time I see something terrible in the news, I&#8217;ll know I&#8217;m trying to make it better in some small way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So, did that action help heal me?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Meh. I&#8217;m glad to see the charges come through on my credit card every month. But mostly, nope. I&#8217;ve still got a bad case of what the article calls &#8220;ethical vertigo.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Which makes sense, because the injury is ongoing. How can we heal when our so-called leaders are still gleefully twisting the knife deeper into the wound?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But. For generations, there have been people who fought to make our country more true to its supposed core values. They knew &#8211; and they know today &#8211; that we can&#8217;t simply wait for the pain to end before we tend our wounds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This is not a new struggle. It is and will be a long one. Part of my own ongoing healing is finding words for the hurt. And offering them to you, for whatever solace they may provide. I wanted to name this as moral injury so we know: we&#8217;re not alone in this pain. It&#8217;s real and it matters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">On that note &#8211; if you&#8217;d like to make sure we stay in touch, you can sign up on substack to get a notification whenever I publish one of these posts: <a href=\"https:\/\/onwardswithandie.substack.com\/\">onwardswithandie.substack.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Onwards, my friends. Always, together. \u2764\ufe0f<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>P.S. &#8211; I want to give respect and gratitude to James Baldwin, whose powerful and truthful phrasing my brain is probably borrowing: \u201cTo be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time.\u201d And to Malcolm X for addressing why we can&#8217;t heal when we&#8217;re still being hurt: &#8220;I will never say that progress is being made. If you stick a knife in my back nine inches and pull it out six inches, there&#8217;s no progress.&#8221; <\/em>\ud83d\udda4<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cTo be alive right now is to have a moral injury.\u201d That phrase keeps coming up for me on coffeewalks lately. Looping in my brain. Or maybe it&#8217;s my heart&#8230; or my soul, if such a thing exists? I think the phrase is mine, but the concept isn\u2019t. Moral injury is the idea that we [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":639,"featured_media":3000,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2999","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-racial-social-justice"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/andiekbyrd.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2999","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/andiekbyrd.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/andiekbyrd.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andiekbyrd.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/639"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andiekbyrd.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2999"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/andiekbyrd.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2999\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3004,"href":"https:\/\/andiekbyrd.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2999\/revisions\/3004"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andiekbyrd.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3000"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/andiekbyrd.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2999"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andiekbyrd.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2999"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andiekbyrd.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2999"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}