The Wounds We Carry, The Change We Fight For: Trauma and Activism Are Deeply Linked

To be an activist is to see injustice and say: “This is not okay.” To feel it in your bones and in your blood. To want to change it. And often, not always, but often, to have lived through it. This is not just about politics or principles. It’s about pain. It’s about people trying to rewrite stories they’ve been forced into.

Many activists are not just “allies” to the cause. They’re survivors of it. Of racism. Of poverty. Of war. Of queerphobia. Of ableism. Of genocide. They fight for equity because they never had equality. They fight for justice because they’ve lived through cruelty. And what happens when you are repeatedly exposed to injustice? Trauma. That’s what. Trauma that doesn’t come from one event, but from living in a world that constantly tells you you don’t belong.

This trauma can show up as anxiety, depression, hypervigilance, burnout, numbness, grief. But one other common ways it manifests is anger.

Anger is a powerful motivator. It makes you march. Shout. Disrupt. Demand. And we need that. We need those who throw bricks. Who shut it down. Who won’t play nice in the face of genocide, apartheid, fascism, and white supremacy.

But anger is also exhausting. And fragile. It burns hot, then out. It leaves you raw. Vulnerable. Prone to lashing out — not just at systems, but at each other. And while angry activists do get shit done, they can also get stuck.

In trauma therapy, we talk about phases: safety and stabilisation, processing the trauma, and integration. And activists often mirror these stages too.

• The protestors: The raw nerve endings. The newly awakened. Furious, emotional, reactive. Essential for visibility, but often not ready for complexity.

• The negotiators: Calmer. More regulated. Able to hold more nuance. Still grieving, still healing, but able to have difficult conversations and find shared language.

• The strategists: The integrated activists. The ones who have done the healing. Who understand how their pain connects with wider systems — but who are no longer consumed by it.

Burnout in activism isn’t just about long hours. It’s about trauma on top of trauma. Witnessing horror while being unable to fix it. Being attacked for caring. Losing friends to silence or cynicism. Watching the world ignore what you scream about every day. We see this with Gaza. In climate justice circles. In trans rights spaces. People giving everything and collapsing under the weight of it.

There’s something powerful about an activist who’s lived through it all, the fire, the burnout, the grief and still shows up. Not with blind rage or performative hope, but with clarity. With strategy. With a steady gaze that sees how the pieces fit together.

This is what trauma processing at its most advanced stage looks like.

These activists no longer get pulled into every fight but choose the ones that build toward liberation. They know that burning out helps no one. They know that it’s not just about being loud, it’s about being effective.

These are the activists who don’t just say “Free Palestine”, they also understand how capitalism is funding genocide, how arms companies profit from war, how corporations like McDonald's and Coca-Cola sponsor Pride while simultaneously supporting systems of global oppression.

They’re also the ones who say: “Yes, I stand with the people of Iran fighting for freedom, but no, I will not support U.S. intervention in the name of ‘liberation’ because we’ve seen this before. In Iraq. In Libya. Currently in Venezuela. And we know how it ends.”

They’ve processed that trauma and it’s given them vision. Vision to see that none of this is disconnected. Because ultimately, healing is not the absence of pain it’s the presence of insight. And these activists carry it like a torch.

So if you find yourself frustrated with activism that feels reactive, or burnt out by the constant urgency, or disillusioned by movements that replicate the same patterns of harm they are fighting, it might be because you’re starting to move into that later stage of healing yourself. You see the need for both passion and wisdom. You know that anger opens doors, but insight moves locks.

And that, to me, is the greatest power of activism. Not just being loud enough to be heard (which in itself is important), but being wise enough to guide others. Trauma and activism may come from pain, but the culmination of both does not end with rage but develops into clarity, compassion, and deep understanding of how connected we all are. That is healing!

Final point

Healing is possible, of course it is. I say that not from a place of theory but lived truth. I know the journey I’ve made, how I was and how I am today and I know I’m still on that journey. But healing isn’t passive. It doesn’t arrive with time alone. It takes active work: therapy, coaching, reading, reflecting, being present, taking action, and maybe hardest of all; being accountable to yourself and your values. The more we understand our pain, the more we can transform it into something powerful. And maybe, just maybe, that’s how we build a world worth fighting for… one healing activist at a time.

#ActivismHealing #TraumaRecovery #ActivistMentalHealth #TraumaInformedCare #HealingJustice #BurnoutRecovery #QueerActivism #TherapyForActivists #PoliticalTrauma #SocialJusticeHealing #CollectiveCare #AccountabilityAndHealing #ActivistBurnout #CompassionateActivism #TraumaInformedActivism