Navigating Secondary Trauma

Grace Johnson
Mar 23
4 min read

Have you ever heard about a tragedy and found yourself frozen, having anxiety spirals, intrusive thoughts, or trouble sleeping? This emotional exhaustion, irritability, withdrawal, trouble concentrating, difficulty making decisions, and hypervigilance could be your nervous system treating the violence and chaos you are hearing about (or in some cases seeing) daily as a direct threat.

A person sits curled up, shadowed by dark figures. A phone with a notification is nearby. Text: "Is your feed bringing you down?"

How does secondary trauma happen?

In your nervous system, stress hormones surge through your system. This causes your body to go into survival mode and your prefrontal cortex to go offline.

Are you feeling guilty because you feel like you don’t have any way to help fix the horrors you are witnessing? Are you feeling overloaded, and is it hard to complete a task in front of you or stay focused? This is completely natural. Your body thinks you are in danger and is amping up certain systems to keep you alert. This is something that happens to nurses, first responders, therapists, and social workers all the time in their fields.

What you are seeing, may it be images of gun violence, natural disasters, or war, is traumatic. Witnessing events like these can still affect you physically and emotionally, even if you are far away.

What to do when you experience secondary trauma?

The first step is realizing you or your family are experiencing secondary trauma.

“I feel this way, and I am experiencing this. I need to help myself regulate.”

It is important to know what is going on in the world, but good information hygiene can help. We have a 24/7, 365-day news cycle. The news will always be there. You are brave to tune in; however, you need to set limits for yourself.

What are ways you can take in the news without doomscrolling? This can be a recipe for nervous system activation!

Consider strategies like setting a timer for how long you will check your phone, or setting a limit on how many minutes per day you spend on certain apps or on your phone in general. It can be hard to not pick up our phones when we first get up or before we go to bed, however these small steps can go a long way. Whatever you choose to help yourself regulate is good.

Regulation is key

Do you feel your body being activated, and or notice where you feel it in your body? Is it in your head, chest, or stomach? Do you notice thoughts shifting or feel yourself going faster or slowing down entirely? Try breathing exercises, movement like stretching or dancing, a weighted blanket, a hug, a mint or sour candy, or cold water on your face.

These sound basic, but you’d be surprised how much simple stimulus, grounding, and coregulation can do when you are caught up in being overwhelmed.

Regulating in the workplace

In regard to work, it may be more difficult to practice regulation techniques given certain constraints of the workplace or your position. However, when working through burnout, it can be helpful to practice prioritizing your energy for the most essential tasks at hand.

For example, if your workplace holds a regular co-worker happy hour after work, it might be beneficial to save non-essential work activities for times when you have more capacity, to avoid overextending. It can be helpful to take even that little extra time back for yourself to ground and process the events of the day.

Be realistic to avoid burnout

It is important to have realistic expectations of yourself and others.

There are a lot of things that are not okay happening in the world, and it may feel difficult to have your workplace and society asking you to keep marching on. One can also easily get wrapped up in self-blame and expend energy on perfectionism.

It is difficult to witness videos online of people being hurt or killed that remind us of our own families and communities. It is difficult to hear the stories of people who were teachers, nurses, mothers, and fathers who have been harmed.

If this is something that shuts you down or gets you dysregulated, then you are someone who cares.

It is your task to regulate, survive, and help your family and neighbors. Think, “How can I honor what I am feeling and give myself the space to complete essential tasks?”

This might mean establishing emotional and time boundaries, or postponing obligations.

If you aren’t regulated, it will be hard to perform as you need to.

Work on regulation and then mobilize and hold space as you can.

Disclaimer: The information provided on this blog is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended as medical or mental health advice. Accessing this content does not establish a therapist-patient relationship with Your Path Counseling Center.