Absorbing Dark Emotions: Emotional Contagion

Trauma, anxiety and depression have long been thought of as individual illnesses, with various degrees of adverse experiences sadly impinging on many separate people in recent times. Many cases of depression and anxiety are secondary to experiencing trauma, and with it, symptoms of helpless, hopelessness, fearfulness and inability to cope. But, recently more individuals have been diagnosed with PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder), with some estimates up to 5,000 a day in the U.S. This makes it sound like it could be contagious, as if traumatic emotions and associated emotions associated with PTSD, such as to depression (hopelessness) and anxiety (hypervigilance) are spreading. That is not a surprise, since, with the political and social turmoil in the U.S. in recent times, it is likely that many people do absorb contagious dark emotions related to traumatization.

Do psychiatrists realize what is going on? Do they realize that emotions, dark emotions such as hate, anger, fear, anxiety, dysphoria, gloom, despair, pessimism and cynicism related to the dark times we live in can be contagious and spread to others? Do they know that emotional contagion exists? With the many traumatic events, including many deaths in wars, mass shootings, and other travesties, happening daily, spreading many dark emotions to others, causing serious dysfunctionality, do any psychiatrists not realize that it is much, much more than biochemical imbalances, which don’t really exist anyway, and much more than an endogenous illness? Do they think we live in a vacuum without influences on us?

Even if people do not have actual PTSD, they may have PTSS (Post-Traumatic Stress Symptoms), meaning that they have some symptoms of PTSD but not severe enough to qualify for the full diagnosis of PTSD. And similarly, even if people do not have depression, they may have dysphoria or dysthymia. And even if people do not have anxiety, or panic disorder, they may have uncertainty or worry. In other words, they may carry symptoms showing that they have encountered and absorbed contagious emotions related to these conditions, stemming from traumatization, that affect their emotional, behavioral and physical health negatively. And if they build up, they become depression and anxiety, reactive conditions to the noxious events in the US., in Iran, Ukraine, and much of the world.

Under these circumstances, it wouldn’t take many experiences related to unemployment and many other social, familial, economic, educational and relationship breakdowns to put such a person into the area of significant frustration, helplessness, loneliness, aggravation or others which could lead to a DSM-5-TR diagnosis of illness or psychopathology. This so-called illness is not an illness at all in many cases, but is really a natural reaction to the political, economic and social turmoil in American society. Are psychiatrists aware that susceptible people can absorb dark emotions from others when times are tough? Do they know there is a good chance that many such people absorb contagious dark emotions from others in a traumatized society? Are they aware that there is more loneliness and family breakdown than before? Or do they see it only as an illness? And do they only see the cure as one pharmaceutical after another pharmaceutical when the first one doesn’t work? Do they not see other solutions? Like emotional regulation? Like decision-making skills? Like psychosocial adjustments? Like wise, effective decision-making? Or even geographical cures?

And, more to the point, is the U.S. feeling the effects of chronic and pervasive traumatization from the large number of atrocities in the country over the last two to three decades, up to 25 years by my count?

Are people aware that drug companies get rich from the psychiatrist’s prescribing anti-depressants to treat the influx of depressive emotions being absorbed by people from contagious emotions like cynicism, fear, demoralization, pessimism, helplessness, sadness, and other dark emotions similar to depression but which have their source in the political turmoil in the country? Are they aware that feelings of hopelessness, despair, disillusionment that mimic depression stem from social, economic and political turmoil, including corruption, shootings, and a renegade President? Are psychiatrist’s only solutions for the epidemic of depression in this traumatized society to add more medications when the initial ones, unsurprisingly to most of us, don’t work? Is that why they are advertising medications like the atypical antipsychotic, such as Vraylar (cariprazine) often used in MDD or Major Depressive Disorder, or Bipolar Disorder, even though its exact mechanism is not known? It is advertised as a “thermostat” for brain chemicals, as if people can turn down the dial on the darkness in America’s emotional life. This is ridiculous. There is no such dial and most of us know it.

Do psychiatrists and even clinical psychologists think outside the box and realize that that America and other countries have an emotional life as a nation? Or do they still account for symptoms of traumatization as mental illness, in a sense blaming the patient for the traumatic emotions stemming from doomscrolling from social media and our news broadcasts and affecting the population regularly? Do they know that emotions are contagious and can travel via the voice over video? Videos from the major networks, and others, playing voices of injured people, may be spreading dark emotions from wars and killings. Or do they care since if this were widely known, then maybe Big Pharma would have to forego some of the big bucks they take in these days?

The prevalence of PTSD or PTSS makes traumatization and its effects a greater societal concern, even in civilized society in modernized countries, especially since these effects may be contagious. The even greater societal concern comes when we consider the vicarious effects on others who are not direct victims. For example, it is also likely that if people carry implicit, suppressed or concealed emotions of hypervigilance, horror, fear, cynicism, anger, etc. that they could be easily triggered by other’s similar emotions that, when they become overt or expressed openly, could set them off.

For example, 36 people have been killed in mass shootings in the U.S. between July 2 and 14 this year, with another 177 injured in the same time period, according to the Gun Violence Archive at https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/reports/mass-shooting. There is an average of 1.5 mass shootings a day in the U.S. Each occasion will also affect many others emotionally, such as bystanders, neighbors, immediate and extended family, acquaintances, schoolmates or workmates, and all their families, or even those in the public who are aware of the episodes through various news feeds. Do psychiatrists know this? Or are they living like an ostrich?

This spreads dark emotions stemming from demoralization and disillusionment far and wide. It is not healthy for people. If we think outside the box, or simply enlarge the box in our minds, but maintain its shape and boundaries, we can see how a nation can have an emotional disorder, as emotions associated with trauma can spread. People can easily develop cynicism and fear, or worse, and these emotions can be lethal at worst and inconveniently impede one’s functioning at best.

Most people will not absorb traumatic emotions, but they could still be emotionally affected by these instances and experience PTSS (Post-Traumatic Stress Symptoms) as dark emotions such as dysthymia, dysphoria, severe worry, uncertainty and unpredictability, move about between people as a result of emotional contagion. With so many traumatic experiences occurring to people and with traumatic emotional reactions such as fear, anger, hypervigilance, panic, horror, and many others spreading via emotional contagion, we are in dangerous times, beset by a hidden emotional turmoil. This is worsened by the effects of social media and similar platforms, since video and voice can transmit emotions to listeners and observers, especially if they are susceptible to such effects. There is no medication for the emotional effects of political turmoil. Some without an actual dysfunctional emotional experience can still be unhappy, cynical and demoralized and susceptible to these effects.

And then there are the forgotten ones: the street people, the homeless, the chronically and persistently mentally ill, and other fringe people. With emotions and behaviors involving revenge, vindictiveness, shootings and assaults, along with emotions of many being in a dark place, such as fear, distrust, bitterness, a low-grade depression and others circulating through society, we can see how the U.S. could be diagnosed with a emotional disorder, although such an entity does not exist, as people are constrained by the narrow measurements of the DSM-5TR box. With relationships being more fractionated and polarized, as divisiveness spreads, and family breakdown is more common, it may be so widespread these days that being traumatized is on the way to being common in American society.

In fact, with contagious dark emotions emanating from others, including those in power in the U.S., or an invisible emotional residue waiting to be triggered by each episode of violence, it could be argued that America is experiencing an invisible emotional turmoil. Perhaps this is a chronic, perpetual traumatization when we add corruption and other upsetting experiences in the current political world. Trauma causes dark emotions to linger in an emotional residue. Just because emotions are invisible doesn’t mean a residue doesn’t exist. Dark emotions can spread.

Emotions can be regulated. Emotional regulation through cognitive reappraisal and relabeling may help with regulating emotions, as long as we don’t sugarcoat it. For example, we could say that America, and indeed the world, are going through very dangerous times right now. This is better than saying “Let’s get that guy!!” This lowers the emotions and puts them into a cognitive, or mental framework, making it less likely we will act on the emotion. We need to regulate our emotions so they don’t get the best of us. Or is it too late?