My girlfriend turned on the TV this morning and all the news channels were commemorating the seventh 9/11 anniversary. All well and good, except that many of them were replaying footage from the event with the original images and commentary.
I cannot convey how fucking stupid that is.
Many Americans, not just those in New York City, were deeply traumatized by the planes crashing into the the towers and the subsequent collapse of the towers, not to mention the images and reports of people jumping to their deaths. Most of the people who suffered trauma from that event never received therapy to deal with the post-traumatic stress disorder that resulted.
Each year, on 9/11, those people are re-traumatized by the images and reports on their televisions. One of the downsides of PTSD is that those suffering from it will actually willingly watch the reports, not knowing that they are recreating the original trauma in their brains. In essence, they are keeping those memories intact and hard-wired in the neural circuits.
There is no good reason to televise those images each year. Doing so simply re-injures those who were hardest hit emotionally by the original event.
It's callous and manipulative for the media to keep doing this.
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2 comments:
I agree. I hate seeing those images. They make me feel physically sick.
I think I'll skip the news tonight.
i agree. what's the point? it's like celebrating the death anniversary of a loved one by replaying the heinous crime over and over. it just adds to the paranoia factor even more.
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