The impact of crime on our relationships

Security workers are a group of people in our society who are vulnerable to various traumatic experiences involving physical harm, death, loss (etc.) or the potential for such a loss (thus going through an event and not knowing if you will come out of it alive).

Boguaerts, Daalder, Van der Knaap, & Kunst, Bushman (2008) studied security workers in three groups – those who actively / directly experienced a traumatic event, those who passively / indirectly experienced it (experiencing it through the impact on others) and those who were not victims of such events. It was found that people in the first two groups’ relationships with other adults were significantly less secure after the trauma. This relates to those feelings of being alienated from others, as well as increased fearfulness around our safety, and a raised level of irritability and anger. One of the symptoms of traumatic stress can be the inability to experience and express love.

We live in a society where not only many of the people in our community have jobs that expose them to traumatic incidents (crime), but as South Africans we experience more of such events than in most other countries.

What is the significance of this study to our church community? We should not become so ‘used to’ crime that we dismiss the effects it may have on ourselves or others. People need to experience the love, compassion and care of other people around them after such events. The fact that it is such a common experience in our community does not take away the effects of nightmares, flashbacks, diminished productivity, hypervigilance and other stress reactions. It is not a sign of weakness to reach out for support, to receive it – and to receive trauma counselling to help you through it. Rather – it will re-establish or build resilience.

If traumatic experiences causes people to be less secure in their close relationships – it is key to the greatest commandment of love, that we help one another through such times. We can help another in practical ways meeting practical needs – i.e. meeting physical needs, listening without judging, being there for each other and helping each other to regain a sense of safety. On the one hand we acknowledge the reality of the threats that was faced and that we continue to face in our community. On the other we encourage each other in the Lord and make sense of events (through trauma support in a group or other trauma counselling).