Author: Peggy Oliveira, MSW

How are you? Really? I don’t mean in the casual way to greet someone. I mean what’s happening in your body? What do you need more or less of?

I’d like to invite you to take a few moments and really check in with yourself.

I’m “officially” on holiday for the next couple of weeks. But with all the energy of the past week in the aftermath of Charlie Kirk’s murder, I wanted to take a moment to connect.

You’re not alone, and there is no one way someone should feel or react.

While this happened in the US, the repercussions and energy transcend any borders or oceans. I mostly want to address an issue that has come up suggesting that people are cruel, morally bankrupt, or some other version of bad if they are not deeply mourning his death.

Your Feelings Are Valid

As I said, there is no one way someone should feel about anything. Grief and loss are complicated. When someone in the public eye dies, it can impact people in a way that can seem pretty unexpected and even out of proportion sometimes.

I know most of you reading this have experienced trauma at the hands of someone else. A choice that was made by them to harm you… sometimes over and over again.

Whether physical, sexual, emotional, psychological, or neglect, our feelings and reactions to people who are careless about their impact on others or who actively hurt others can be complicated and vary.

When Grief Gets Complicated

I’ve worked with many people over the years who’ve had to go through a very complicated grieving process when their perpetrator or enabler died.

There are often a variety of feelings that can show up:

• Sadness
• Guilt
• Relief
• Indifference
• Happiness

People often expect sadness and guilt as part of the typical grieving process. But relief or happiness?

What is wrong with me?! How can I feel relief? Only a horrible person can be happy when someone dies!

While it’s normal to have those thoughts, they reinforce all the false beliefs survivors tend to hold about themselves.

The truth is, feeling relief and yes, even happiness, when someone who actively hurts others is completely normal… and can even be a healthy response.

What Often Happens Instead

What often happens instead is that people will begin to deny, rationalize, and minimize the person’s behavior and impact. They’ll tell themselves they misunderstood, it wasn’t that big of a deal, that it wasn’t as bad as dying.

If you’ve watched the news or been on social media, you’ve likely heard people making him out to be a great Christian and good family man who created opportunities to debate important issues. A man who shared his “opinions” and valued free speech.

The Reality of His Impact

The truth is, he made his living and status by demonizing people different than him. Whether religion, gender, or race. He called for the elimination of groups of human beings. He mocked the value of other people’s lives. He said a lot of reprehensible things to marginalize and devalue other people.

He did not, in good faith, debate opinions. He created and manipulated a platform to make his behavior and rhetoric seem acceptable.

While his actions may not be the same as a sexual violence perpetrator, they have/had far-reaching, devastating, and lasting consequences… both to those he targeted and those he indoctrinated.

You Are Not a Bad Person

Feeling something other than grief, especially when there is so much in the world to grieve, does not make you a bad person.

It makes you human. It makes you someone who is honoring where you are, what you feel, and what you need.

Remember, there is no right way to feel or respond. Be gentle with yourself. Take some time for you. ?