I remember exactly where I was when I first heard the term moral injury. It was during one of Katie Kurtz’s podcast episodes, where she spoke about collective trauma and the emotional toll of witnessing injustice and harm, especially when those in power do nothing, or worse, enable it.
As soon as I heard her say the words, something cracked open inside me. Not in a broken way, but in a way that finally let some light in. There it was: the ache I had carried for years. The heaviness in my chest that had always felt different from grief, different from fear. It had never quite fit the usual descriptions of trauma. But moral injury – that fit.
What Is Moral Injury?
The term was first introduced by psychiatrist Jonathan Shay in the 1990s. Shay worked closely with Vietnam veterans and defined moral injury as the distress that comes when someone in a position of authority violates what is morally right, especially in a high-stakes situation. It’s not just the trauma of what happened, it’s the betrayal of what should have happened.
Psychologist Brett Litz later expanded on Shay’s work, describing moral injury as what happens when someone does (or fails to do) something that deeply violates their moral beliefs, whether by action, inaction, or complicity. It often includes shame, guilt, and a feeling of being spiritually or ethically wounded.
Originally explored in military contexts, moral injury has since been recognised in other settings: in healthcare systems stretched beyond capacity, in social justice movements, and in communities affected by systemic failures.
Katie Kurtz described it this way:
“That palpable feeling of exhaustion, looming uncertainties, mounting moral injury, fast pace demoralisation unfolding on our screens and in our streets. It’s not an overreaction, it’s collective trauma.”
But for me, it wasn’t just something I saw in the world. It was something I lived.
My Experience of Moral Injury
I am a survivor of child sexual abuse. And the wound of that experience is deep, but there’s another wound layered within it, one that came long before I ever had the language for it.
It’s the wound of knowing that people knew. That people were aware of my perpetrator’s history. That somewhere, someone had enough information to raise a flag or stop the cycle, but didn’t.
It’s the wound of realising that adults, people who should have protected me, turned away, stayed quiet, or failed to act in a way that aligned with what’s right. That failure, that absence of protection, sits heavy in my body in a different way than the abuse itself. That is moral injury.
And now, as a parent myself, the ache grows sharper. I know what it means to protect a child. I know the instinct, the responsibility, the fire in your chest that says, Not on my watch. So when I think about the people who looked the other way, or who stayed in comfort rather than step into courage, it breaks me in a different way.
This isn’t about blame. It’s about truth. And the truth is, part of my healing has been untangling what happened to me from what didn’t happen for me, the protection I needed, the voices that stayed silent, the action that never came.
Reflection Questions for You
Language can be a powerful balm. And sometimes, the right words don’t just describe how we feel, they validate it.
If the idea of moral injury resonates with you, here are a few questions you might want to journal on, or sit with gently:
- Have I ever felt betrayed by someone I trusted to protect me?
- Is there a moment in my past that still stings, not because of what happened, but because of who allowed it to happen?
- Am I carrying shame that actually belongs to someone else’s inaction?
- Could the idea of moral injury help me make sense of a painful rupture or relationship breakdown?
- What would it mean to give myself permission to name that pain?
Moral injury won’t be the right term for everyone. But for some of us, it can offer a mirror, a way to say, That’s it. That’s why it hurts so much. And when we can name something, we can begin to hold it with more care, more compassion, more understanding.
If you find yourself sitting with new questions, or if this helped you name something that’s been sitting just below the surface, I’d love to hear from you.
Sometimes the bravest thing we can do is acknowledge that we’re hurt, not because we’re broken, but because we know what right should look like.
You’re not alone in that ache. And you don’t have to walk with it silently.
