Grief, Anguish, and Healing After the Atlanta Spa Murders

This talk was prepared for a presentation yesterday to the American Psychiatric Association. A video version is below, as well as another video speaking to the moment more spontaneously. Also see the slide below regarding "Comfort, Growth and Overwhelm Zones" — if you are overwhelmed right now, please listen to your body and practice whatever TLC, self-affirmation and nurture you need to come back to comfort and safety and then gently push out into growth again. See also the resilience resources in references.

I was asked by the APA to do a panel discussion on Asian American issues just two weeks ago, after it had initially been rejected, presumably because of the more limited scope of the annual meeting this year. I had originally proposed an in-person discussion event for Asian American psychiatrists to just process and connect in small groups everything that had happened in the last year regarding COVID, anti-Asian hate, and Black Lives Matter.

Just six days after this discussion was reinstated, the mass murder at the Atlanta spas took place. So today is just one agonizing week since that horrific event where eight people, six of them Asian American women, were slaughtered. This is on top of the five Asian American homicides in recent months, and 4000 verbal and physical assaults on Asian Americans in the last year, predominantly Asian American women and elders.

I wanted to first read the names of the 13 recently deceased.

Source: Image by Ravi Chandra

Source: Image by Ravi Chandra

Judith Herman wrote in Trauma and Recovery: “Not until the women’s liberation movement of the 1970s was it recognized that the most common post-traumatic disorders are those not of men in war but of women in civilian life.”

So Asian American women have been particularly re-traumatized by this mass murder targeting Asian American women. I would like to add to this, that there is no such thing as individual mental health, and all mental health is cultural mental health. Asian American men and women must stand united for the safety and well-being of all our community members. To do so, we must name the cultural forces that threaten safety and well-being, and also enhance forces that aim us towards healing and wellness.

When women are endangered, the very foundations of society are in peril. The dangers to women have become more palpable and visible in recent years because of the #MeToo movement started by Tarana Burke and the activism and creative vulnerability of Chanel Miller and her book Know My Name. The Asian American community is in deep grief and trauma as we speak. This is a moment of potential awakening and awareness in the broader culture for the histories and identities of Asian Americans, and our still-frustrated quest for belonging, equity, justice and wellness for our entire community. But we are yet in anguish.

The hate rhetoric from political leaders, the 4,000 verbal and physical assaults over the last year, and the recent homicides and mass murder at the Georgia spas have made it clear that Asian Americans, particularly women and elders, are not safe in the current climate. Asian American history over the last 200 years makes it clear that we were never originally intended to be full citizens. Asian Americans have worked hard to contribute to this country and participate in democracy. When we are targeted physically, emotionally, and psychologically, it reminds us our sense of belonging is precarious and conditional. Belonging, safety, and understanding are critical for well-being. The current traumas trigger memories of historical trauma, particularly the subordination of and violence done to women, and floods us with the sense of not being understood or cared about. That our pain and suffering are invisible and marginalized. Racism, sexism, misogyny, and other forces bully and devalue the thoughts, needs, feelings, and lives of those considered outside the mainstream, generating rage, grief, shame, loss, and other difficult emotions.

Asians are easily identifiable, and thus easily othered. For the last year, GOP political leaders persisted in calling COVID the "China virus.” Many people’s distress about the pandemic was thrust onto Asians, as if we were the cause. Most recently, the spa shooter seems to have blamed Asian massage parlor workers for his sexual desire, desire which his Church taught him was evil. Asian women have been sexualized and “blamed” for arousing the desire of White American men since 1875’s Page Act, preceding the Chinese Exclusion Act.

Asian Americans have been silent and silenced, alternately falsely valorized or feared, blamed, and othered. Some of us have avoided speaking of our traumas because there has not been receptive or collaborative capacity for what we carry. Studies have indicated that Asian Americans self-report more distress than White Americans, yet have lower rates of DSM diagnoses. I think Asian Americans suffer from what I call “Complex Relational Cultural Distress” which includes intergenerational and historical trauma, relational stress within families, and cultural and spiritual dislocation in the broader American context. We tend to be more interdependent than individualistic, and this adds both resilience and stress. We also tend to be more pessimistic yet also just as optimistic as whites – and this combination is thought to produce resilience and distress as well. Asian American youth and young adult suicidality have been increasing dramatically over the last 20 years, and this is not well studied at all. So we really need to generate more care for our communities.

COVID has hit Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander communities particularly hard, with case rates four times that of whites in Los Angeles. Reports suggest that Chinese elders in the Bay Area have also been highly impacted by the virus. There has been very poor data disaggregation, which means that it has been harder to help those communities in need.

Grief Essential Reads

Until Now, There's Been No Word for Parents Who've Lost a Child

Hurricane Milton and Anticipatory Grief

Black Lives Matter has had a profound impact on Asian Americans. Psychiatrists and community members have reported great distress, anger, and anguish as we press for social justice and allyship with Black Americans, and question the ways some of us have tried to fit in with the dominant culture in a quest for safety, survival, and security in America. Some have agonized over anti-Blackness and colorism in the Asian American community as well – which is an important conversation, I think, but far less important than actively promoting relatedness, understanding, solidarity, and equity.

On a psychological level, I think that the push for belonging exposes the ways we have been disconnected and fragmented. As the American psyche has moved towards inclusion and belonging, our political discourse has too often amplified the disconnection instead of emphasizing common humanity, equality, and compassion as the sources of societal stability. Those with skills for facilitating the quality of interdependence are deeply needed for the healing of our wounds and the growth of community.

Mainstream White American culture needs help with distress tolerance and managing emotions like shame and vulnerability with compassion. Mainstream White American culture needs help navigating whatever distress it feels with changing demographics, with the spirit of understanding and commitment to growth and wellness for all. America also needs responsible gun regulation. Asian Americans are low utilizers of mental health resources as well, and there needs to be more cultural competence and compassionate understanding of our needs.

The Asian American route to healing our trauma lies in relationship and community with others, including mental health care providers as needed, naming our wounds, expressing and affirming our identities, and cultivating our own cultural forms of working with the suffering we feel in our inner lives and relatedness.

Disconnection is at the root of suffering. The opposite of suffering is belonging.

Comfort, Growth and Overwhelm zones

Source: Image by Ravi Chandra

Naming our pain: grieving and healing after the Atlanta Spa murders

Healing message in wake of Atlanta Spa mass murder from Dr Ravi Chandra

PBS NewsHour: 'Hate is learned: tracing the history of anti-Asian Violence in America"

See also Due Quach's article on this site: Tender, Loving Self-Care for Asian Americans.

(c) 2021 Ravi Chandra, M.D., D.F.A.P.A.