Coping With Racial Trauma Means Learning a New Way to Swim
By Yolande Clark-Jackson
Surviving the impacts of ongoing racial trauma can feel like trying to swim with one hand holding a sink stone. You have to work twice as hard to keep yourself afloat, and it’s exhausting. Racial trauma sits beneath the skin of Black, Indigenous and People of Color, and it comes with an enormous weight that gets heavier each day. Because carrying the weight of generational trauma along with systematic racism and present-day racialized violence is a struggle. And struggle equals stress. And stress puts your ability to thrive in jeopardy.
Mental Health America (MHA) compares the effects of racial trauma with PTSD. According to MHA, experiences of race-based discrimination have devastating impacts on Black, Indigenous and Individuals of Color as well as our wider communities. The negative impacts of race-based discrimination are psychological, in which prolonged encounters with racism and whiteness lead to symptoms like those of post-traumatic stress disorder.
Research shows that living in a highly stressed state can be desensitizing or lead to physical health challenges, and symptoms of depression.
Types of Racial Stress
You can experience stress from direct, vicarious, or transmitted racial prejudice, discrimination, or violence.
-Direct: You experience stress as a result of being the target of racial prejudice, discrimination, or violence.
-Vicarious: You experience stress if someone close to you, your community or another community of color is a target of racial violence or discrimination.
-Transmitted: You are experiencing stress from a racial event targeted at your community that triggers generational trauma stored in your DNA.
Living in Survival Mode
Living in survival mode is one way the mind and body push forward despite the stress and pain you may be experiencing. The mind and body are so interconnected that either the mind reacts to protect the body, or the body reacts to protect the mind. In most cases, these survival responses have harmful side effects. Two common survival responses are weathering and self-armoring.
Weathering is the constant stress caused from working to continuously cope with racism. And this stress is detrimental to your health. It leads to biological aging, heart disease, stroke, diabetes and even some cancers.
Self-Armoring are adaptive strategies to protect oneself against potential discrimination and systematic racism by monitoring and modifying behavior. These strategies can become an automatic way to respond to stress instead which has its own side effects when the body is perpetually preparing for flights or fights. Pain results in the muscles that are absorbing the stress response.
According to Crisis Journal, self-armoring is a reactive strategy that can result in muscle armoring or hyper-vigilance. The body is perpetually preparing for flight, preparing to fight, or stuck in freeze. There’s often pain when the muscles are constantly tensed and overworked and body imbalances, fibromyalgia, and breathing problems.
Processing is Power
Instead of burying the stress and grief of racial trauma, working through these negative feelings can be a way to lessen the weight of the burden. There are also actionable things you can do to help you through the process of coping with the impact of systematic racism and racial violence.
1. Put words to your feelings by journaling or speaking with a therapist or someone you can trust
2. Pay attention to your body and allow yourself rest
3. Prioritize your support system and stay close to the people and communities who make you feel safe
4. Do something that makes you feel empowered, like volunteering or donating to causes that are actively making change
5. Engage on social media with caution to avoid re-triggering you stress response
Reach Out for Support
Getting professional support from a culturally affirming therapist can help you move from feeling like you’re sinking to teaching you a few new ways to swim. Reach out to a Ibisanmi Relational Health therapist. IRH therapists are trained and skilled professionals who can help you develop the tools to cope. Book a free 15-minute consultation here.
And, be sure to follow IG at @ibisanmi.relational for mental health check ins, tips, and inspirational posts.
