Episode 6: 'Time passed, so move on'? One psychiatrist says Korea still has a long way to go.

*The series is based on the real-life experience of Kim Nam-young, a JoongAng Ilbo reporter currently living with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The following articles are written from Kim’s first-person perspective.

To Readers

I have PTSD.

As a reporter on the social affairs desk, I covered the Itaewon disaster on Oct. 29, 2022. Since November of the following year, I have been receiving treatment regularly. I attend psychiatric counseling sessions and take medication every day.

I am only revealing the illness now, more than two years later, not because I have overcome it. This is not a story about recovery, but a record of living through the illness. To be honest, I still do not know when, or if, I will overcome it.

Instead, I want to talk about the time I have spent living alongside PTSD. Even now, I continue to work as a policy and social affairs reporter while exercising, traveling and getting on with daily life.

If someone is hesitating to see a doctor, I hope this piece can help. I also hope we can become a society where people do not feel forced to hide emotional pain and trauma.

It's no different from a traffic accident.

They went there for fun and died.

I had always assumed that the natural response of Korean society to a major tragedy was mourning. I thought that was simply how people should react.

But after witnessing the secondary harm that surfaced after every major disaster — from when the Sewol ferry sank in 2014 to the Itaewon crowd crush in 2022 and the Jeju Air crash in 2024 — I began to wonder if that assumption was wrong.

At times, I even found myself questioning whether hate spreads in the same way mold slowly takes over a home.

My heart would race and I would feel nauseous whenever I saw people turning others’ suffering into entertainment or exploiting it for political gain. No matter how much love and support I received from those around me, a single hateful comment could send my PTSD back to square one.

Moments like those always remind me of one thing: People are capable of helping one to stand up again, but they are also capable of destroying them.

The same is true of society. Many experts say that what helps people endure PTSD — and eventually recover from it — is society itself.

Knowing that I have support

Shortly after the Itaewon disaster in 2022, my company informed me that psychological counseling and treatment would be available.

Around the same time, the Journalists Association of Korea announced that it would also provide financial support for counseling and treatment.

Later, journalists dispatched to Muan County in South Jeolla following the 2024 Jeju Air crash were offered similar mental health support.

Those experiences strengthened my trust in my organization. Knowing that I could seek help and receive support if something similar happened again gave me a significant sense of psychological security.

Psychologists refer to this feeling as "perceived support," a concept discussed in the 2021 paper “Social Support and posttraumatic stress disorder: A meta-analysis of longitudinal studies.”

Simply put, it refers to the extent to which a person believes someone will help when they are struggling. It is not exactly the same as actually receiving assistance.

Rather, it is the belief that support will be available if needed.

People who experience trauma can fall into a negative state where they feel that the world is dangerous, they have lost control and nobody understands them.

The belief that someone is nearby, that help is available and that there is someone willing to listen can pull them in a different direction.

Perceived support is more than comfort; it serves as a safeguard against psychological collapse after trauma.

This is also known as organizational support, which comes from the institutions and groups that surround an individual, such as workplaces, hospitals, public agencies, leaders and peer groups.

It is the feeling that an organization cares about you, will help when necessary and values your well-being. Like support from family and friends, organizational support can have a protective effect and plays an important role in reducing PTSD.

An insensitive society toward trauma

Is Korean society prepared to provide perceived and organizational support?

Ultimately, what matters is whether society believes the memories and suffering of people living with PTSD and whether it is prepared to continue believing them over time.

To answer that question, we first need to consider what kind of society we aspire to become.

As a reporter, I have witnessed countless attacks directed at victims. Comment sections are filled with remarks that lack both facts and context.

Questions such as “Why were they there?” or “Didn't they choose to be there?” became so common that they no longer felt surprising.

Some people doubted whether the victims actually suffered. Others treated it as something to be measured, judged or compared. In the middle of it all, victims were forced to explain themselves, prove themselves or sometimes remain silent.

Watching those moments taught me that trauma rarely ends with the event itself. What comes afterward — the words, the glances and the judgment — can leave wounds of their own. At times, those wounds last longer than the original trauma.

Korean society is truly insensitive toward trauma.

This is how Chae Jeong-ho, a professor of psychiatry at Seoul St. Mary’s Hospital, described society's approach to trauma during an interview with me.

“A trauma-sensitive society is one in which people always recognize that they do not know what kind of trauma someone may have experienced, acknowledge that trauma survivors can be sensitive and treat them with warmth and understanding,” Prof. Chae explained.

Korea is still a long way from that.

He cited the Sewol ferry disaster as an example, noting that some people accused victims’ families of exploiting the tragedy for personal gain and mocked them with derogatory remarks.

“Trauma can never heal in that kind of environment,” Prof. Chae said. “Recovery becomes possible when society creates a culture of warmth and recognition, saying things like ‘You’ve been through a lot’ or ‘That must be very difficult.’”

Chae also stressed the dangers of subsequent trauma.

“Trauma caused by a specific event is serious enough, but secondary harm that blames victims for the event can make things even worse,” he said. “It’s like, when a police officer tells a sexual assault survivor, ‘That happened because you were wearing a short skirt.’”

“The reason an illness becomes truly severe is often because of people who intensify the suffering,” he added.

Telling victims to move on simply because time has passed can be harmful, too.

In my case, specific symptoms did not emerge until a year after the Itaewon disaster.

PTSD can develop long after a traumatic event, in what is often referred to as a delayed onset. Some people appear fine in the immediate aftermath, only to develop symptoms months or even years later.

“Many people who experienced childhood sexual abuse or violence by family members suppress those experiences for years and only develop PTSD symptoms as adults,” Prof. Chae said.

“People say the Sewol ferry disaster happened more than 10 years ago and that victims should move on, but as a psychiatrist, I always point out that new cases continue to emerge long afterward. For example, in Japan, many people took their own lives nearly five years after the Fukushima nuclear disaster.”

What if social support were institutionalized?

To be fair, Korea does provide a modest level of societal support. One example is the legal protection of victims from further harm.

In February, the Cabinet approved a bill to prevent secondary harm toward victims of the disaster, including defamation and mockery of victims. The revisions call for strict action against online misinformation and the disclosure of personal information while also strengthening support for victims.

Personally, I sometimes wonder whether a broader law addressing secondary harm would be more effective than incorporating such provisions into every disaster-related law.

The Framework Act on the Prevention of Violence Against Women defines secondary harm, but its scope is limited to violence against women. There may be a need for stronger legal protections for people suffering from PTSD and other trauma caused by social disasters or natural catastrophes.

I found myself emotionally swinging back and forth between the overwhelming love I received from people around me and the inadequate social support that often stood in contrast to it.

I continued seeing the doctor, but treatment alone was not enough. Outside the doctor’s office, I had to find ways to keep moving forward on my own, even if only one small step at a time.

BY KIM NAM-YOUNG  [[email protected]]