Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, a British-Indian businessman, returned to London from Ahmedabad when the AI171 AI171 flight crashed a few minutes after takeoff. Of the 241 passengers and crew on board, it was the only survival. His brother Aji, who was also in the flight, did not do so.
“The plane crashed and my place came off. That’s how I was saved,” he told the doctors at Ahmedabad’s hospital, where he was treated. However, when talking to the family about a video call, Vishwash expressed his unbelief: “I do not know how I am alive.”
For those who survived with such traumatic events, the path to recovery is often as mental as physical and some of them fight psychological disasters known as the survival guilt.
Why the survivor’s fault feels heavy
Surgers’ wines often follow tragedies such as accidents, attacks or disasters, leaving those who survived, asking, “Why am I?” Or “could I do more?” The 2021 study in the electronic magazine of social and strategic research has shown that reactions to such incidents may vary depending on factors such as severity damage, intimacy, cruelty of incidents and fight skills.
A neuro-psychologist of Dieksha Partararti at the PSR hospital in Delhi explains: “The survival wine is often deep sadness, confusion or feeling unworthy.
Lots of faces of the survival
Stephen Joseph, a psychologist at Warick University, studied those who survived as a result of the Free Enterprise disaster, where 193 of 459 passengers were killed in 1987. He found that 60 percent of the survivors felt the survivors. He explained three types. For the first time, the wine for what remains alive and others died. Secondly, the fault for the fact that it did not help, which made people re -survive this event. Third, the wines in the actions they started to survive as climbing over others. These people often avoided thinking about what happened. Joseph’s work shows how deeply survived wine can affect people after a tragic event
How to determine the survival guilt
They can fight sleep, avoid loved ones or lose interest in life. The surviving wines can be quiet – a person can avoid certain places, remain constantly busy or ashamed after the moments of joy.
Personal relationships can become strained, causing feelings of improper or excessive self -sacrifice. Milestones such as birthdays may feel painful or undeserved, confusing loved ones.
Emotional loads can cause sleep problems, cancellation, poor concentration, fatigue or loss of appetite, and can lead to anxiety or post -traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Symptoms can also include helplessness, numbness, intense fear, irritability, low motivation and suicidal thoughts.
– Input neuro-psychologist Deeksha Partsarthi
Search support to help treat
This may be a problem to comfort who is experiencing the surviving guilt. Well-free phrases such as “at least you are alive” or “you should be grateful” can feel painful by saying “to be strong” or “move on”, can deepen their isolation.
What really helps is a simple presence – sitting quietly, listening without opinion and offering a mild assurance like: “feel good in this way” or “you are not one.”
Groups of therapy and support can play a vital role in healing. Group settings resemble survivors, they are not alone, while one -on -one therapy provides safe space to study deeper emotions.
Daily habits such as magazine, walking, deep breathing or participation in creative activities, such as painting or music, can change the situation.
Prioritization of good sleep, good nutrition and connection with good people can also be important than we often understand.
– Input Dr. Schma Sharma, Psychiatrist and Co -founder, Anvaya Healthcare
Meetings with firsthand
After the fatal shooting of 2021, on the set of his film, which was killed by Kinematographer Halin Hatchers, Alec Baldwin shared on the reality reality that he had survived the suicidal idea. His wife Hillary Baldwin added: “He has a Vinatz survived … He is coming back to this day; he wants [with Hutchins] in a second. “
Actor Nina Dobreva showed on Instagram that after narrowly avoiding forest fires in the Los -Angeles on January 2025, she felt the survival guilt. “I was absolutely ill with the abdomen with all the destruction and devastation that caused these fires … I felt the survival guilty,” she said.
Gura Paley, who survived the crash of the Obysh train in 2023, which killed 275, told reporters from her hospital bed that he was “persecuted” by what he saw. He, thrown from the train during the collision, said, “I never imagined that something like this could happen.” Despite his injuries, his deep pain comes from survival, if so much was not.
