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gaudior2) You don't have to emotionally process this right now.
People keep coming in and talking with some puzzlement about feeling basically fine.* Like, the quarantine is disruptive, they're having to do a lot of adjusting to the changes in their schedules and lifestyle, but that adjusting is going okay, they're handling the problems that are coming up, and they're... pretty okay?
And they don't feel okay about feeling okay, because they know the situation is horrifying. They know that people are dying, that many more people will die, that there are all sorts of terrible things that could happen, and a number of terrible things that only miracles could prevent at this point, and they expect to feel something about all that. They expect to be more afraid, or more sad and horrified, or more guilty about their own better circumstances, and they're not, and they don't know why.
And what I keep telling them is: the reason you feel okay right now is that your mind is functioning as it's designed to. This is exactly what dissociation is FOR.. The entire point of dissociation is to allow you to function and survive instead of feeling the full emotional impact of what's happening as it's happening.
That's obvious in a quick crisis: you run out of the burning building, you rescue your child from the bear, and while you're doing it, you seem perfectly calm, and you don't have much time to think about how calm you're acting, and then everyone is safe, and then you collapse sobbing. When the emergency is over in minutes, or even hours or days, you know that you're in crisis mode, and you won't always be, and it feels reasonable, if you even notice it.
But what makes this pandemic so strange, so unique in human history, is that it's taking a long time.. We can see it coming from a long way away. That foreknowledge will hopefully save thousands of lives, but it also means that we are living in some form of crisis mode for literally weeks or months. We are all running out of the burning building in extreme slow motion, such that we have time to send some emails and play some games and work full days from home and cook dinner as we go.
That's so weird.
But what I keep telling people is: do not worry about the fact that, at this precise moment, you're not worrying. Do not get upset about the fact that you're not more upset. Emotions take energy and physical resources to feel, and you will need those physical resources later, when you are actually in a situation where you need to take an action, or where you are actually grieving someone you love. And on some level, your mind and body know that, and they are helping you save that energy for when you need it.
After all this is over, we will process it. We will have art and songs and poetry and support groups and (I very much hope) political action to change the systems that will make it quite as bad as it will be. After this is all over, we will know what it actually was and we will be able to deal with it then.
Right now, if you can clean your living room and then be happy to sit in a clean living room, you should definitely do that. There is no good reason not to, and it will help you and the people around you.
--R
*Not everybody, obviously. Maybe not even a majority of people-- so many people are having a ton of hard emotions right now, and I think that also makes perfect sense, and I'll probably talk more tomorrow about ways of dealing with that. And a lot of us (like, for example, me) are going back and forth between feeling fucking awful and feeling perfectly fine. So, y'know, there is no wrong way to feel about this.
People keep coming in and talking with some puzzlement about feeling basically fine.* Like, the quarantine is disruptive, they're having to do a lot of adjusting to the changes in their schedules and lifestyle, but that adjusting is going okay, they're handling the problems that are coming up, and they're... pretty okay?
And they don't feel okay about feeling okay, because they know the situation is horrifying. They know that people are dying, that many more people will die, that there are all sorts of terrible things that could happen, and a number of terrible things that only miracles could prevent at this point, and they expect to feel something about all that. They expect to be more afraid, or more sad and horrified, or more guilty about their own better circumstances, and they're not, and they don't know why.
And what I keep telling them is: the reason you feel okay right now is that your mind is functioning as it's designed to. This is exactly what dissociation is FOR.. The entire point of dissociation is to allow you to function and survive instead of feeling the full emotional impact of what's happening as it's happening.
That's obvious in a quick crisis: you run out of the burning building, you rescue your child from the bear, and while you're doing it, you seem perfectly calm, and you don't have much time to think about how calm you're acting, and then everyone is safe, and then you collapse sobbing. When the emergency is over in minutes, or even hours or days, you know that you're in crisis mode, and you won't always be, and it feels reasonable, if you even notice it.
But what makes this pandemic so strange, so unique in human history, is that it's taking a long time.. We can see it coming from a long way away. That foreknowledge will hopefully save thousands of lives, but it also means that we are living in some form of crisis mode for literally weeks or months. We are all running out of the burning building in extreme slow motion, such that we have time to send some emails and play some games and work full days from home and cook dinner as we go.
That's so weird.
But what I keep telling people is: do not worry about the fact that, at this precise moment, you're not worrying. Do not get upset about the fact that you're not more upset. Emotions take energy and physical resources to feel, and you will need those physical resources later, when you are actually in a situation where you need to take an action, or where you are actually grieving someone you love. And on some level, your mind and body know that, and they are helping you save that energy for when you need it.
After all this is over, we will process it. We will have art and songs and poetry and support groups and (I very much hope) political action to change the systems that will make it quite as bad as it will be. After this is all over, we will know what it actually was and we will be able to deal with it then.
Right now, if you can clean your living room and then be happy to sit in a clean living room, you should definitely do that. There is no good reason not to, and it will help you and the people around you.
--R
*Not everybody, obviously. Maybe not even a majority of people-- so many people are having a ton of hard emotions right now, and I think that also makes perfect sense, and I'll probably talk more tomorrow about ways of dealing with that. And a lot of us (like, for example, me) are going back and forth between feeling fucking awful and feeling perfectly fine. So, y'know, there is no wrong way to feel about this.
