Virtual Reality and Trauma

Gradients of rupture and healing, and when it turns to trauma

Years ago I encountered a Buddhist teaching that seemed at first glance to be a statement of spiritual bypassing: Pain is inevitable, suffering is a choice. I was irritated by this for a long time until one day I realized that the choice isn’t about suffering, it’s about growth. Pain (and pleasure) is an internal stimulus, and the meaning and growth that comes from it is where we can choose harmony and/or transformation.?

Suffering happens when we continue to believe we have no choice, because in the moment when pain becomes rupture and even trauma, we likely have no choice, and a part of us still believes we are still in that moment. If we suffer long enough, we dissociate from the experience and go numb to our feelings and the feelings of others. Suffering creates a dichotomy of overwhelm and tolerance instead of belonging. We live in a trauma-arousal state where we are having reactions instead of responses. This leads us to objectifying ourselves and each other. Our frames of reference go from seeing each other as complex dynamic human beings into over-simplified equations to use and lose. Chronic objectifying of others leads to increasing relationship-rupture and trauma.?

Virtual Reality (VR) is an accelerated sensory-stimulating landscape that tells our brain and body we ARE in a different type of reality. VR is designed to convince those in headsets that what they see, hear, and physically feel IS a very real experience. Add other human beings who are experiencing the same environmental stimuli alongside you and it is hard to remember that one even has a headset on. The technology is becoming better and better at convincing us that we are creators and co-creators of our own dreams and nightmares. This can be fun, but also extremely violating when others decide you are the object to use and harm.?

VR is also a relatively young and powerful technology and one can easily find social VR applications demonstrating how quickly we can experience, participate in, or even initiate profound psychological harm with our fellow humans. Recently a friend reached out and told me that she had just experienced a sexual assault in virtual reality. Here is the internal conflict and resiliency process that happened for me within a few minutes of seeing her text and then watching my phone ring from her call. These thoughts are framed through a conflict resiliency process I work with and teach called the DOT model:?

Deepen (into the feelings of fear to understand them)

1. Feelings - Fear, sadness, dread. I was immediately afraid that my own overwhelm and traumas in my life would somehow result in invalidating her experience.?
2. History - We are both survivors of sexual abuse and assault in physical reality. As professionals in VR technology who are also women, we have both also experienced multiple sexual advances and violations in VR. However, in past conversations, we had reflected that these VR experiences had never affected us physically the way we had heard some people describe them. We believe this can happen, but just had never seen or experienced it first hand.?
3. Knowledge - My professional background in clinical psychology reminded me that it is not the initial trauma that becomes the long-term harm, but instead it is how it is responded to by others.?

Orient (to the connection and how this moment is different)

1. Relationship - I realized that I was her first point of contact after the trauma and that who we choose to reach out to when we have been harmed matters.?
2. Present moment - Especially right now I could make time for this (I am taking some time off work).
3. Reframe - This is an opportunity to step up here and co-create a stronger relationship with my friend out of this horror and violation.??

Transform (decide and respond)

1. Wisdom and Action -? I made the decision to trust this timing and show up for her as an imperfect and overwhelmed human being and just be with whatever emotions and story she was aware of. What we might do from this knowledge and sharing would come later. This was my moment to lean in and be present.?

I answered the phone. While my friend shared her emotional (fear, disorientation, terror, anger) and physical responses (nausea, numbness, difficulty concentrating) to the violence and bystanderism she had just encountered, I felt all the feelings with her and some of my own: Horror, confusion, and love. The horror and confusion was less about the aggressor and more about the bystanders present. How could so many human beings see something so violent happening and not say anything? Was I now also becoming a bystander to this traumatic event? The love came in witnessing her vulnerability and my choice to lean in despite how “off” I was feeling and see if that could still be enough for someone I cared about.?

I realized that if this trauma had happened in physical reality, I would have at that point been orienting her to her options in contacting law enforcement and even going with her to urgent care. But in VR, reporting this violence is not as simple as dialing 911 and the user interface in many applications is not set up in a way that made it at all apparent on how to get help or even block the aggressor. She had tried to find a way to block him, report him, and even leave the space, but none of these attempts worked, and she eventually had to just quit the application entirely.?

My friend and I talked and texted on and off throughout the day and have stayed in closer contact since. She wrote about her experience, but we both felt caution around her sharing her story publicly. We asked: What are the reactions she might get from a variety of people inside and outside of the tech industry? As a former therapist and sexual assault advocate, I have seen how people often react when learning about sexual abuse and assault. I am concerned that people will minimize the harm that happened to her and call this type of self-advocacy a dilution of “real life” physical harm and violence that can lead to physical death. Some people might even blame her for being there in the first place.?

I remember my friend saying several times in the call, “I knew I could call you and you would understand.” This was healing for me to hear. What she was telling me is “you are a safe person.” What this translates to inside of me is: “I am safe.” I’ve been feeling a lot of fear lately and being safe (even if for just a moment for someone else) was a relief. Also, in my own life situation, my friend’s wound gave me a thread of direction and purpose. We both realized that the man who had harmed her and the bystanders who had participated in this are likely in VR still doing this to other people.

My friend also said a couple times: “Ruth, I’m realizing that what happened to me is what you’ve been doing everything to prevent through your DEI work in VR.” This was a wake up call for me. I have been teaching about microaggressions in VR for years now but I have never directly been present for what happened to her. The closest to this was a group bullying situation towards someone who later identified as having autism where I immediately stepped in front of it and gave everyone present the option to assist in supporting the person they were targeting or leaving. A few people stayed, most people backed off, and the remaining group had a magical time making space for someone who was trying to understand how to exist safely in VR. However, none of those people were my friends, and it’s never been personal until now. She was right, this is one of the experiences I had been trying to get ahead of and prevent. And, now it had arrived at a whole new level of horror and harm.?

Here is what I know about gradients of rupture and when they turn into trauma.?

Rupture is what happens when we encounter our environment (objects and/or people) in a way that violates our sense of sustainable well-being. The simplest form of physical rupture that we have all encountered as humans is falling on the ground and skinning our knee. How that wound is responded to psychologically by the people who care for us matters more than the mis-under-stand-ing with our environment. The experience can become healing or it can become further physical and psychological harm or Trauma. Here are some examples of how many us are responded to when something happens physically with our environment:

1. If we are shamed or blamed, we learn that our pain is our responsibility and we failed to see it coming. If this messaging is repeated by those we think care about us, we also learn that we are alone and separate in the world. We will likely take less risks in the future and be less connected to those we care about. = Rupture and Trauma
2. If we are treated with anxiety and over-protectiveness, we learn that our pain is overwhelming to others, and we shut down and never finish the process of moving through our pain towards conscious growth. This sets us up to have a greater rupture and trauma later on when we engage in riskier behavior without feeling connected to ourselves. = Rupture and Trauma
3. If we are met on the ground in our mess of fear and tears, and sat with compassionately and honestly, we eventually rise WITH our companion and make new choices about how we are in relationship with gravity next time. = Rupture and Healing.

Of course, it gets more complicated through body language and verbal language as we grow older. The ground where our skin ripped off becomes people and systems who see us as objects on which to reenact their past traumas. The skin that is ruptured can be as deep as inside our body (e.g., rape, stabbing, bullets, etc). Again, it is the secondary response to what happens that matters the most for our long-term healing and sense of safety and power to change our world. Despite all the ruptures and trauma I have encountered through physical reality and VR, I continue to believe that VR is an opportunity to change the patterns of our relationship ruptures and traumas and co-create spaces and social encounters that help us heal our humanity together.?

In my friend’s VR sexual assault, I believe that the greatest responsibility is with the tech industry who creates hyper-stimulating believable environments that allow for this type of encounter, do not invest enough in user-friendly interfaces that add accountability for harmful actions reportable, do not regulate/moderate their own applications enough, and most importantly, do not invest in community education and create reconciliation and education cycles for violators. The fault also lies with the bystanders who participated in the violence happening to my friend by not speaking up and instead watching what happened.?

Thank you for reading and I look forward to the conversations and healing that will follow.?

Here is what you can do:

• Reply to this expressing empathy and support for my friend. She will be reading your responses. If you need a format to reply try sharing something by following the DOT model process I went through earlier:?

Deepen

1. Feelings - I am feeling….
2. History - My experience of rupture and trauma and how it was responded too is…
3. Knowledge - My education on this topic is….

Orient?

1. Relationship - I care about this person (Ruth or Ruth’s friend) because….?
2. Present moment - What my capacity is right now to respond to this….
3. Reframe - This is an opportunity to……

Transform

Wisdom and Action… What I can do now is:?

• See something, say something. If you see someone violating someone else’s personal space or using someone for pleasure without their consent, start with naming micro-expressions of discomfort like “I feel uncomfortable….” or “I don’t like this….” and see how that liberates fellow bystanders to join in the disagreement with what’s happening. If that doesn’t work, step it up and ask for help from those who aren’t doing anything. “I need help with this!”?
• Do your own healing. Look for the ways that you were taught that your pain caused suffering in others. Remember that pain is an opportunity for growth, but first we must feel it and ideally we will find someone CONSENTING to feel it with us and grow together. How have you worked to heal yourself and these frames that minimized you and your pain? If you haven’t, you are likely re-enacting this cycle on others. Find support to do your healing work.?
• If you are a professional in VR software that uses socializing as a retention factor, prioritize and invest in DEIB experts who will help you develop better user interfaces on reporting, hire and create training for moderators, and develop education programs for the community on conflict resiliency and intervention. If you don’t know where your next steps are to become more accountable here, let’s talk.?