Moral injury happens when a person feels a moral line has been crossed or they ' ve been forced to cross their own moral boundaries . This may cause them to question and doubt who they are and even the nature of reality itself .
Infamously , young conscripts were ordered to shoot civilians and even babies at The My Lai massacre during the Vietnam War . I suspect many of those involved felt a terrible sense of moral injury . They had done something that in their darkest nightmares they ' d never dreamed they ' d do . What ' s more , they ' d " only been following orders " from those in authority .[ 1 ]
To summarise , moral injury often entails :
* A sense of self-betrayal of what ' s deemed right * A sense of betrayal by a legitimate authority figure who influenced the morally injured person * A ' high-stakes situation ' such as a war or medical front line .
The morally injured person will feel shame , guilt , anger , profound betrayal , and also maybe a kind of loss of innocence whereby the person feels morally disorientated , as though they no longer know the difference between right and wrong . It can also produce a kind of world-weary , and world-wary ,
cynicism . But generally the feeling is directed towards oneself . And the effects on the self can be devastating .
" Why am I even alive ?!"
Gavin told me he ' d attempted suicide because " why should someone like me exist !"
As Rita Nakashima Brock and Gabriella Lettini write :
" Moral injury results when soldiers violate their core moral beliefs , and in evaluating their behaviour negatively , they feel they no longer live in a reliable , meaningful world and can no longer be regarded as decent human beings . They may feel this even if what they did was warranted and unavoidable . Killing , torturing prisoners , abusing dead bodies , or failing to prevent such acts can elicit moral injury .