- Trey Yingst suffers from post-traumatic stress dysfunction after spending a decade as a struggle correspondent
- The journalist is studying to navigate his psychological well being after being on the bottom masking the Israel-Hamas struggle
- He particulars the psychological affect of his career in his new e book, Black Saturday
For Trey Yingst, the scent of barbecue triggers his PTSD. It reminds him of the burning our bodies he witnessed in Gaza after struggle abruptly broke out in October 2023. The smells are eerily comparable, he says, including that his mind struggles to tell apart them.
“I try as much as possible to separate things in my mind, but that can be difficult,” he tells PEOPLE. “The mind will flash back very quickly.”
On Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas militants from Gaza launched a shock terrorist assault on Israel, killing roughly 1,400 individuals and taking greater than 200 others hostage — a day that later grew to become often known as “Black Saturday,” which can be the title of Yingst’s new e book.
Yingst — Fox News chief overseas correspondent — spent practically 200 days on the bottom masking the struggle and calls it “one of the scariest assignments I’ve ever had.”
“We were in southern Israel on the morning of October 7 and witnessed the massacre firsthand. There were people that died in front of me and we saw the aftermath… bodies everywhere,” he remembers. “That was when I really started to realize the impact that being a war correspondent can have on your mind.”
Courtesy Trey Yingst
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For the previous decade, Yingst has traveled the world reporting on the realities of struggle, violence and human battle.
The job, which has him away from dwelling for a lot of the 12 months, has taken a toll on his psychological well being — he now suffers from post-traumatic stress dysfunction (PTSD). The 31-year-old usually has nightmares about what he noticed on the entrance traces and is triggered by sure sights and smells.
“When you come back from a reporting assignment and you're cleaning other people's blood off the bottom of your boots… you don't learn this in journalism school,” he says. “Small issues like seeing a espresso stain on the bottom. It appears to be like like blood that was on the bottom in these homes that we went into. It's fairly a tragic factor.”
Along together with his “gruesome” flashbacks and nightmares, Yingst additionally struggles with “reintegration” — disconnecting from work and balancing his private {and professional} lives. Sharing what he calls a susceptible second, he says he’s really “dreading” going to a good friend’s wedding ceremony as a result of the small speak that comes with seeing others usually leaves him feeling lonely.
“My focus for the past year has been what's going on inside Gaza? What is the military saying about a strike that was conducted? How many civilians were killed? How many militants were killed? And then when you go to a wedding, you have to talk about the weather and what people did over the last week, and that can feel really isolating,” he explains.
As he navigates PTSD, Yingst admits that it was difficult to simply accept his personal psychological well being points whereas concurrently reporting on individuals whose lives are tougher.
“There's so much suffering and I tried to capture everything from a very empathetic lens,” the journalist explains. “I try to really humanize the story, understanding that if I'm having trouble with my mental health just covering the story, how must the people who are living through this hell on earth feel? So I try to keep that in mind.”
Yingst remembers assembly a person evacuating Gaza City and seeing, “the look in his eyes of sadness and deep despair.” He usually reminds himself when he will get dwelling from an extended task, “I don’t have to live it.”
“I can, in a way, leave,” he says. “And that's the one difference and probably the reason why I still do this job. I find value in being a voice for the voiceless. It's why I do what I do.”
Courtesy Trey Yingst
That’s one of many causes Yingst wrote his e book Black Saturday, which shall be launched October 1.
“I think Black Saturday is truly the gold standard of covering the October 7th massacre because it is a story about people,” he shares. “It’s about the human experience in Southern Israel and in Gaza. The goal is to help people better understand what happened on that morning and in the weeks after, not just through my storytelling, but through the stories of other people that I interview.”
While a lot of the e book tells these emotional tales, Yingst says 20% of the e book is about his personal expertise, detailing the psychological affect of reporting on the struggle and overcoming his psychological well being challenges. He says it was useful to get issues “out of the mind” and onto paper.
“These are parts of the job that we don't talk about as a journalist, but it's the time in between the live shots where we experience these things that you truly take the job home with you,” he explains. “You can't escape. And I think that has been the most challenging part for me, and I've tried to acknowledge that and then deal with it in a healthy way.”
Courtesy Trey Yingst
Although there are laborious days, Yingst says he’s happy with how he has discovered to take care of the stress.
He’s a proponent of remedy, chilly publicity, bodily exercise to alleviate stress, meditation, respiration workout routines and retaining a clear food regimen. He additionally not drinks alcohol, saying that he’s been sober since January 2023.
“This job has long hours in stressful, dangerous environments. So having a healthy outlet has been really helpful,” he says. “I just think that taking care of the body and mind together prepares you to be able to go back into war zones and do the work that we're doing.”
“I want to set an example for others to let them know you don't have to turn to drugs and alcohol when you're struggling in these ways,” Yingst tells PEOPLE. “There are healthier options.”
Black Saturday releases October 1 and is out there for pre-order now.
If you or somebody you realize wants psychological well being assist, textual content “STRENGTH” to the Crisis Text Line at 741-741 to be linked to a licensed disaster counselor.
