Editor’s Note: This post references the first season of “Jessica Jones” and contains major spoilers.
I had never heard of Jessica Jones until a few weeks ago when I spotted a headline on io9. A Netflix series about a hard-drinking woman PI who also happens to have serious super powers? I was intrigued. I have long enjoyed comic books, though the overwhelming explosion of superhero media in the last ten years has left me mostly cold and uninterested. All of it seemed to blow up around the time I was beginning to long for slower-paced, more compelling stories. Adult stories about adult people — preferably adult women — with a feminist bent.
On a whim, I decided to watch Jessica Jones. And I found what I’d been longing for: an adult story about an adult woman with a feminist bent. I realized something else as I was watching: Jessica Jones had experienced moral injury.
The term “moral injury” was coined in 2009 by the Veterans’ Administration in response to the growing number of American soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan in serious emotional distress over what they had done, what they had witnessed, or what had been done to them or their fellow soldiers. Moral injury is defined as “a construct that describes extreme and unprecedented life experience including the harmful aftermath of exposure to such events. Events are considered morally injurious if they ‘transgress deeply held moral beliefs and expectations.’” When our deepest beliefs and values are violated by our own actions or the actions of others, or when extremely difficult decisions are made in ethically foggy situations, it can have serious, painful, and long-term effects, both mental and physical.
Moral injury often appears with PTSD, the two like unholy twins. They share many of the same symptoms: anxiety, depression, anger, self-medication, sleep disturbances. But the appearance of one will not always mean the other is present. And just as the stand-alone symptoms of PTSD can reinforce the shared symptoms without the presence of moral injury, so moral injury’s stand-alone symptoms of grief, sorrow, alienation, regret, and shame can reinforce the sleepless nights where anxiety is clawing one’s throat and the days spent feeling deeply depressed and alone.
As I watched the show, it became clear that Jessica Jones was living with both unholy twins thanks to her time under the control of the psychopathic mind-controller Kilgrave. Yet it was her moral injury that leapt out at me with every scene. She had been forced to do things she didn’t want to do, things that violated her own sense of right and wrong. She had been forced to have sex with Kilgrave, whose attempts to manipulate her into thinking she had to be his conscience and “save” him through her love might as well be labeled Emotional Abuse 101. The consequences of his abuse are obvious: she drinks all the time and barely sleeps. She longs for some kind of connection, which she briefly indulges with Luke Cage, but most of the time keeps everyone beyond arm’s length (with the exception of Trish, her adopted sister and best friend, who refuses Jessica’s self-imposed universal restraining order). She feels guilty for murdering Reva Connors at the order of Kilgrave; she feels shame for being unable to escape Kilgrave’s clutches for so long while he tormented her and used her to torment others.
Moral injury may be a relatively new concept, but it is evident that soldiers have experienced it as long as there has been war. Dr. Jonathan Shay has written two books linking the experiences of returning Vietnam War veterans with the stories of Greek and Trojan soldiers in The Iliad and The Odyssey. When I attended a lecture on moral injury by Dr. Rita Nakashima Brock this past fall, she explained how this concept can be applied to people in many professions who encounter difficult ethical situations, such as doctors, lawyers, social workers, and others in helping professions. Listening to her talk, it struck me that it might apply to domestic violence survivors as well.
Those who have lived through domestic violence and sexual assault have experienced extremely challenging and unprecedented life experiences. Many of them have been in situations that transgress their deeply held moral beliefs and expectations. They have had terrible things done to them by people they might have loved and who they believe should have loved them. For those who have been assaulted by strangers or acquaintances, love may not be part of the equation, but there is still the sense that you should be able to go through life without someone harming or violating you — this is part of the basic social contract with which we all live. People who survive these violent situations face the cognitive dissonance of trying to assert and reassert their human identity in the face of a situation and/or person that has treated them as less than human, as undeserving of humanity.
It is a source of untold anguish and pain that can take years to heal, if it ever heals at all. Survivors can feel an enormous amount of shame over what was done, the feeling that they brought it upon themselves, the feeling that they should have done more to stop it somehow, the feeling that they may have deserved it, the feeling that they didn’t deserve it but why why why did it happen, why them? There can be shame for loving or caring about the person who hurt them. There can be shame for not being able to heal faster or just “get over it.” There can be guilt or shame for being part of the perpetrator’s manipulations, for not knowing how to leave, for turning the abuser into the authorities or leaving the relationship. There is often alienation for not realizing what was happening. There might be blame for not being able to “fix” the abuser. For survivors of domestic or sexual violence, the concept of right and wrong can be destabilized as well: Is it still wrong if he says he loves me? If I yelled and threw things too, does that make me as bad as her? The survivor is left to wander in a fog of uncertainty about themselves, about the person or people who hurt them, and how concepts of morality, apology, redress, repentance, and forgiveness are supposed to function. None of these are fair burdens for survivors to bear, yet many do.
People in a survivor’s life can help to alleviate or reinforce the sense of moral injury. Some help by listening, reassuring the person of their own worth, reminding them they aren’t alone, and helping them to get back on their feet and get whatever help and support they need to heal. In Jessica Jones, Trish Walker tried to play this role as much as Jessica allowed her to. There were times when I felt that Trish trespassed on Jessica’s boundaries — mostly because it was expedient for the storyline — but overall, I felt Trish was an example of someone who was trying to alleviate rather than reinforce Jessica’s burden.
Then there are those who reinforce the moral injury in several ways — by minimizing the abuse, pushing for a quick resolution, or agreeing with the abuser. Minimizing the abuse might take the form of disbelief, denial, or thinking that what happened “wasn’t that bad.” Pushing for a quick resolution might include pressing a survivor to forgive the abuser before the survivor is ready, or expecting the person to “get over it” and being upset if they are not doing so quickly. A person could also reinforce moral injury by siding with the abuser and saying or implying that the survivor deserved the abuse/violation, either for behaving in a certain way or for not leaving the relationship. All of these reactions deny the survivor’s humanity and dishonor their agency as they seek their own path to healing.
This leads us to a very important question: How can survivors be healed after experiencing moral injury? Obviously, the choice Jessica Jones made to kill her abuser exists in the realm of a comic book/television show, where consequences differ from those of reality. One could argue that this action didn’t heal her moral injury; it just kept the injury from growing larger and more grotesque with Kilgrave’s pursuit of her. It is not a route that one could take without suffering dire consequences, legally and morally, but it is one that some survivors feel they have no choice but to take. We have to acknowledge that our society has done a terrible job of keeping domestic violence and sexual assault survivors safe from further violations and even death at the hands of their abusers.
So what does happen when it’s time to move beyond just surviving? How does one pry the proverbial fungus from the window, to paraphrase Jessica’s own words? In the lecture I attended, Dr. Nakashima Brock offered some suggestions based on resources that have been developed for recovering veterans. Some of these resources exist for domestic violence and sexual assault survivors as well, though their availability and accessibility varies. Therapy and support groups are always recommended. Dr. Brock recommended rituals that explore liminal space (religious or otherwise), art and music therapy, and calming practices such as mindfulness, meditation, and prayer. The emphasis, with any and all of these resources, seems to be on allowing the survivor to claim and tell their own narrative so their pain and trauma can be seen and processed — emotionally, mentally, and physically, as necessary. In her lecture, Dr. Brock also emphasized the fact that grief and healing are not only individual activities; they are often communal. Having a community of supportive, trusted people means that the survivor does not have to deal with their pain and fear alone.
At the end of the series, Jessica Jones had her brutal closure, and a few people who cared about her had her back. We will probably never see her attending art therapy or visiting a meditation center, but the end of the first season did leave open the possibility of her being able to take control of a new narrative through her life and work — one that does not have to be defined by Kilgrave and what he did to her; one that could be written solely by her. I think this can be an important goal for anyone who has experienced great moral injury: to take steps to reclaim your own story and write new chapters with a receding amount of pain, even if you find you aren’t exactly who you were before.
Rita Nakashima Brock is a superhero in her own right! Theology (and generally, the world) is so much richer for her kickass feminist work.
Yes, yes, yes! I read _Soul Repair_ during my senior year Religion seminar and it was both so accessible and enlightening. I haven’t even read this essay yet, but I was so excited by the title!
This is the post I have been looking for since the series aired.
This is great. I’ve never heard the term “moral injury” before (which is odd, given my field of work, honestly), but it fits so well, both for the reality of intimate partner abuse and sexual violence, and for the show. Thank you for writing this!
I will disagree with a small bit of this analysis, though, in that killing Kilgrave “heals” jessica. There’s definitely this belief that if you’ve experienced a trauma, there’s that Cathartic Moment that will heal you, and after that you’re fine. Maybe you’re sad about it sometimes but you’ve moved on. And that’s not how it works. Recovery varies from person to person, but it’s very often a longer journey, with setbacks and bumps and sometimes it feels like you’re cycling, and there’s really no one way to just “get better”. And I really wish we got more representation of that journey and all the amazing things people who are struggling with PTSD or other injuries do.
My hopes for s2 (because there will be a s2 or I am seriously side-eyeing Netflix) is that Jessica is still struggling with PTSD, and still being a badass. I’d be pretty disappointed if the show chose to erase that part of her struggle in s2 honestly.
Just from a narrative perspective, a fully healed and mentally healthy Jessica yields lot fewer options than one who is still struggling somewhat, so I really doubt they’ll go that direction.
There’s no word either way on S2, but she’ll definitely be showing up in the Defenders team-up series (Jessica, Luke, and Daredevil).
It’s a lot easier to do “struggling somewhat but not in a way that’s central to the plot or character anymore” though. I guess I’m so burned out by all the shows where they have a Very Special PTSD Episode That Never Impacts the Character Again that I’m wary. But here’s hoping!
Glad to hear JJ will still be in *something*. But with the response it got, I would call sexism if it’s not renewed for its own s2. I could not see a show starring a white male character with that response not getting its own sequel.
I understand your reservations about trauma being swept under the rug.
Ana Mardoll deconstructed several Buffy episodes and lamented the ‘magical reset button’ by which close, trusted people did horrible things but because they were under the influence of magic or possession or whatnot, there are no repercussions.
(www[dot]anamardoll[dot]com/2011/02/buffy-buffy-index-thread.html)
Also, having finally watched the show, I don’t think there is any narrative suggestion that Jessica has been healed by killing Kilgrave. There wasn’t anything cathartic about the event, the way it was presented. Just necessary, and some satisfaction in the moment. She was still miserable and conflicted to the last frame.
Thank you.
I legit started tearing up while I read this. Thank you.
Thank you for this- I hadn’t heard of this term and discussing how it affects survivors of domestic abuse and sexual assault have given me a lot to think about. It took me a long time to realize that the most harmful part of my sexual harassment in junior high wasn’t merely that this kid kept groping me but that everyone in the class knew he was doing it and watched him do it and no one stepped in to help. Calling that feeling a “moral injury” makes sense.
This jibes with my own experience as well–that when someone does something horrible/upsetting, and then I tell my loved ones and the response is “Oh my god, are you okay? What a terrible person/experience! How can I help?”, the hurt is SO MUCH LESS than when the response is “It wasn’t that bad/it’s not that important/why are you making such a big deal out of this”
I’m having a hard time distinguishing your definition of moral injury from trauma, especially since the “stand alone” symptoms of moral injury that are mentioned (grief, sorrow, alienation, regret, and shame) are often included in the buffet of symptoms that make up PTSD. Can anyone explain this better, or share a resource that does? It’s an interesting concept, but I’m having trouble wrapping my mind around it as anything other than trauma.
The VA addresses this some in its main page on moral injury. It’s such a new field that there is still a lot of work parsing it out from PTSD: http://www.ptsd.va.gov/professional/co-occurring/…
However, in the research on moral distress, which is a very similar, if not the same, phenomenon among nurses (which I didn’t include for the sake of length of the piece), it is not usually linked with PTSD at all. http://www.nursingworld.org/MainMenuCategories/Et…
As I said above, it’s a new field, and I think in the next few years there may be a lot of new research and work that will encompass the way this phenomenon appears in human experience.
This is GREAT and so relevant to my interests (psychology/violence). I’ve been meaning to read Shay’s book, but I haven’t gotten hold of it yet.
Are you sure that being a victim of other people’s violence is included in the term “moral injury”? I can’t remember reading that anywhere but I definitely haven’t had time to dive as deep into it as I want to. The impression I’ve got is that moral injury is supposed to mean that you (or someone you identify with, such as a fellow soldier) have done something wrong to someone else.
However, I stumbled over a construct which I think applies better to being let down or hurt by the people closest to you – betrayal trauma. I’ll be back with links, but the author I’m thinking of explicitly mentioned it in relation to being a survivor of rape, domestic violence and (I think?) terrible support from others.
Edit: sorry if my tone is weird, I haven’t found my voice in English yet. It’s either too pompous or too casual…
From what I understood from Dr. Nakashima Brock’s lecture and some of the other literature I reviewed, as well as literature on moral distress, which is a virtually identical concept that grew out of nursing, it could be applied to people who were victims and witnesses as well. Some of the people Dr. Nakashima Brock referenced in the lecture were people who had the task of handling human remains during the conflicts, people who were not involved in hurting someone but who bore witness to the consequences of violence. Since a lot of victims are put into a situation of ethical quandary about how to deal with what happened to them, and feeling like their decisions might be the wrong thing, I think the VA term applies, particularly the aftermath of exposure to violence. Thanks for commenting, though, I would love to learn more about betrayal trauma if you do have time to reply.
I hadn’t heard this concept, but I find it very compelling–something I think a lot about, both in my real life (or at least in the therapy hour of my real life) and in the characters I tend to write about, is the feeling of complicity (in a whole bunch of variations), and “moral injury” seems like a really strong way to phrase it. I just finished Jessica Jones last night, and that definitely was part of what affected me–that Kilgrave’s violation of Jessica is, I’m trying to think of the word, not only acted upon her but acted through her. It also runs through the support group (especially the man who left his child on the curb) and Malcolm, this wound at the core of identity.
I’ve heard that in Russian Orthodox Christianty, there is a ritual for soldiers returning from war, acknowledging the wrongdoing of killing in war and returning them to the community. Wish I knew more about it! And great article overall!
The ancient greeks had a ritual for it, if I’m remembering correctly.
I think the Navajo ceremony of The Enemy Way is used for returning soldiers to help them return to Hozho (balance and beauty).
Thank you for writing this. I’m not entirely sure what I want to say right now but thank you. I needed to read this today.
This was excellent.
This is interesting, because a consequence of discovering I’d been abused and betrayed and sexually manipulated for years(20) was to lose my ability to enter liminal space. I can’t say I lost my faith in a higher power, because im not sure it was there before, but my connection to anything spiritual has been severed irreparably. One of the legs of my spiritual practice collapsed when I found out that a man who had led me into hinduism and meditation had for the entire 2 decades colluded with my abuser. Another was when my church leaders (a different organization completely) sided with the abuser, and one who became my divorce lawyer caused me further harm. The third leg of the stool of my spirituality collapsed with my inability to do yoga due to injuries, which had been a daily personal practice. None of the recovery work that I have done has addressed that. I am not sure I will ever fully forgive myself for being abused, and this is a rare article that puts words to that particular loss –of faith, to use the only word I have, but that’s not it, exactly.
First you have to understand that you are a victim, then you have to unlearn thinking like a victim, and then you have to forgive yourself for allowing yourself to be abused. But even if that was something that could ever be considered “done”, the other step is moving forward as a former victim. To put it out of my mind completely denies the changes in who I am physically and emotionally post-trauma. It also means I let my guard done and previous victim-habits of thinking creep back in. When I share this with others, even counselors, many people assume I’m overly attached to my victim status and “dwelling on the past”, where in fact it’s a constant balancing act between acknowledgement and optimism.
This is interesting, because a consequence of discovering I'd been abused and betrayed and sexually manipulated for years(20) was to lose my ability to enter liminal space. I can't say I lost my faith in a higher power, because im not sure it was there before, but my connection to anything spiritual has been severed irreparably. One of the legs of my spiritual practice collapsed when I found out that a man who had led me into hinduism and meditation had for the entire 2 decades colluded with my abuser. Another was when my church leaders (a different organization completely) sided with the abuser, and one who became my divorce lawyer caused me further harm. The third leg of the stool of my spirituality collapsed with my inability to do yoga due to injuries, which had been a daily personal practice. None of the recovery work that I have done has addressed that. I am not sure I will ever fully forgive myself for being abused, and this is a rare article that puts words to that particular loss –of faith, to use the only word I have, but that's not it, exactly.
First you have to understand that you are a victim, then you have to unlearn thinking like a victim, and then you have to forgive yourself for allowing yourself to be abused. But even if that was something that could ever be considered "done", the other step is moving forward as a former victim. To put it out of my mind completely denies the changes in who I am physically and emotionally post-trauma. It also means I let my guard done and previous victim-habits of thinking creep back in. When I share this with others, even counselors, many people assume I'm overly attached to my victim status and "dwelling on the past", where in fact it's a constant balancing act between acknowledgement and optimism.
oh I super want to know what rituals that explore liminal space means concretely.
also this was excellent.
Hmm..something I contemplate, both in my genuine living (or if nothing else in the treatment hour of my genuine living) and in the characters I have a tendency to expound on, is the sentiment complicity (in an entire cluster of varieties), and “good damage” appears like a truly solid approach to expression it. I simply completed Jessica Jones the previous evening, and that certainly was a piece of what influenced me- – that Kilgrave’s infringement of Jessica is, I’m attempting to think about the word followed up on her as well as acted through her. It likewise goes through the care group and Malcolm, this injury at the center of personality. Thank you so much and visit: https://foursquare.com/v/peterson-law-offices/525… for more details about this issue.