I'm going to copy and paste something I wrote to /u/penelopepnortney in DM 9 days ago (typos and all)

I can never get used to it.

I've been seeing images and videos of people that look like me murdered, dismembered...etc. pretty much my entire life. I can never get used to it.

The earliest memory I have of actually paying attention, was when Clinton Bombed Iraq and Sudan. I had lived through the earlier shit, but didn't pay attention or really understand it, I just knew things were bad.

They say you get desensitized after a while.... No, you just stop reacting outwardly, inside you still die a bit more, a bit more, a bit more, whenever you feel like there's no more left to die, another bit dies.

You sit glued to yet another screen, watching and screaming inside as you see yet another explosion, hear yet another bullet, cause you know it'll lead to yet another group of mangled bodies, another group of lost souls, another group of survivors that will live with the scars and trauma until they die. You know because you've seen it before, so so so many times before that you've lost count, yet you convince yourself "Hey, this is nothing new, I'm use to this, I can take it". You look at the pictures of corpses, of the blood, of the death, and you say "Hey, this is nothing new, I'm use to this, I can take it".

But no, you can't. You endure it because you feel you must, almost like a penance for the fact that you survived when they didn't. That you're whole while they're not.

Listening to the horrors friends and family have faced from the ones that managed to escape... watching them describe what happened to their loved ones.... Looking at their injuries, their amputations...etc. You just stop reacting outwardly, or if you do, you fake it, you express shock and horror as you know you should, but you no longer feel it. You just feel more and more dead inside.

But you still listen, and you visualize what you hear, imprinting it to memory, almost like some morbid curiosity to do so, but more so because inside you feel so helpless, like this is the only thing you can do to help; Listen and remember.

It's utterly hilarious about all those "WeLl wHy DoN't ThE aRaB cOunTries tAke tHem" bullshit being spouted; they have, repeatedly, I know because I've met them, befriended them, lived with them, laughed with them, fought with them, ate with them, got drunk with them, loved (and fell in love with) some of them and hated some of them, listened to their stories, listened to their trauma and horrors.

But to armchair pundits that are always eager to erase them, they're erased yet again to serve the gluttonous geopolitical purposes of the propagandists the pundits listen to. They neither exist in their own lands, nor in other lands. Erased.

They're erased, over and over again, literally and figuratively. Over and over again. Makes standing witness and remembering their stories and experiences feel much more important, or maybe that's what I tell myself to make myself feel better about my relative helplessness.

Neil Gaiman's Sandman has a quote that I always loved and hated;

HOB GADLING: I do think you're listening to me, from somewhere. I mean, I've seen too much over the years to believe that it starts and ends with bodies. There's something around before bodies start, something around after they rot. Buggered if I know what it is, though. Somebody once told me you don't really die until everyone that you knew is dead, too. Think of all the people I'm keeping alive, eh? I don't know.

I don't remember what you smell like. You've been gone two days, and I don't remember how you smelled. You didn't smell like anyone else. I like the way you smelled. I...

I miss you a lot.

It doesn't matter if they were Iraqi or Palestinian, Afghani or Armenian...etc. You end up listening, and dying bit by bit inside.

They say a life well lived is the best revenge, and that may be true for the self, for self preservation, for the part of you that wants to continue living despite the thousands of deaths and mutilations you've stood witness to, but for the rest of you? You become cynical and bitter, you spiral, you randomly sob, and randomly full out cry, and even that makes you feel guilty, because how dare I cry? I'm alive, they're not. I have a roof over my head, and food and water to drink, they don't. I have all my limbs, I have my health, they don't. How dare I feel sorry for myself? How dare I feel sorry for myself when I've seen a mother cry over her dead children? Orphans over their dead parents? So you hate yourself a bit more, and push yourself a bit more to do what little you can to get their voice out.

It is of little comfort that I know myself to be morally superior to the gluttonous hypocritical ghouls that murder and mutilate all these people, because I know that unlike they, I would never willingly condemn innocent souls to death or suffering for the sake of more pieces of green paper than I could ever realistically spend without becoming a glutton myself.

It's of little comfort, but it's a comfort I hold onto; I haven't lost my humanity. I still feel despite the millions of deaths of my soul. I still empathize even with those that I should in theory hate. I still live. So I have to remember. I have to remember how it feels, because maybe just maybe, one day I'll be in a position of power strong enough to stop it or do something about it, to keep everyone alive and happy. Maybe. Might never happen, but the chance is non-zero, so I must remember.

But I digress, I'm incredibly emotional right now, so I'm kinda waxing poetic.