You are experiencing trauma
With all this time at home, I initially thought that I would be able to get tons of stuff done around the house. Then the first realization hit that because we were still living a fairly typical life for us, all the imagined free time was just that, imagined. But the other day I realized that that was not quite true. I do have more free time than usual. Once everything is somewhat caught up, keeping it up isn't as time consuming as digging out. This past week I was finding myself with a little bit of down time during the day. Did I do anything with that free time? No. Not at all. Never have I been so unproductive with so much extra time.
A friend posted something the other day which clarified my thinking. This current season of all of our lives is indeed traumatic. For some, the trauma is more apparent... those who work in hospitals, first responders, those who have contracted the virus and their family members, those who have lost loved ones. I know it might feel a little silly to call what many of us are experiencing trauma, since pretty much we are all staying at home and trying to entertain ourselves and our children, but it is. There is the significant disruption of schedule, missing friends and family, concern for family member's health and safety, concern about money, the daily weighing of what is worth going out for, worries about what the future will hold, grief over missing vacations and major events, huge adjustments in how children are educated, etc., etc. The list feels nearly endless to write. And then if you add in the misuse of imagination that probably most of us are engaging in... you know that worry that catastrophizes what the future is going to look like, often at 3am. Yikes!
We are definitely, all of us, in coping mode. This means that none of us is at our best. We all deal with stress and trauma differently. Some people over react. They become hypervigilant, extremely busy, always doing something. They may find it difficult to understand why others are not behaving the same way and find it frustrating to live or work with people who cope differently.
Others under react. They become depressed, find nothing worthwhile to do, find it extremely difficult to focus on anything. If they live or work with an over reactor, they may feel inadequate or harassed or just unable to keep up with the demands of others.
Still others, and I definitely fall into this category, veer from one extreme to the other on any given day. Some days I'm full of energy wanting to make use of this time that has been given to us. Other days, it's all I can do to manage the very basics of what life demands. My reading reflects this. I am still able to read, but only because I have chosen to reread a series that I have read several times before. It is light and amusing, with nothing too serious. There is no work at all required to enjoy it. My stack of books piled in the corner are neglected because they feel as though it will be too much work to read them and because there are too many unknowns inside their covers. What if I inadvertently picked up a book that had distressing content hidden inside of it? I don't know that I can manage that at the moment, so they sit there unread because I am unwilling and/or unable to take a chance on them right now.
Why am I writing this? To urge you to be kind and gentle with yourself and with others. Remember you are not at the top of your game. Remember others may cope with the bizarre turn life has taken in ways that are very different from you. We all need a healthy dose of grace right now. Someday, life will go back to normal. We will begin to recover from the trauma we have experienced. Looking back, we will remember how we acted and how we felt and we will wonder at it. We will understand better why we could or could not do certain things. We will also realize that we are substantially different as a result of having gone through it. For right now, though, there are just a few things that you need to do. Breath, remind yourself that this is not permanent, and focus on the relationships you have with the people around you. And interestingly enough, this is the exact advice that I give to parents who are in the thick of raising a child with a traumatic past, which is, in its own way, a traumatic event. Remember, there's nothing wrong with you or how you are reacting, but there is everything wrong with a very difficult situation that no one really knows how to navigate.
A friend posted something the other day which clarified my thinking. This current season of all of our lives is indeed traumatic. For some, the trauma is more apparent... those who work in hospitals, first responders, those who have contracted the virus and their family members, those who have lost loved ones. I know it might feel a little silly to call what many of us are experiencing trauma, since pretty much we are all staying at home and trying to entertain ourselves and our children, but it is. There is the significant disruption of schedule, missing friends and family, concern for family member's health and safety, concern about money, the daily weighing of what is worth going out for, worries about what the future will hold, grief over missing vacations and major events, huge adjustments in how children are educated, etc., etc. The list feels nearly endless to write. And then if you add in the misuse of imagination that probably most of us are engaging in... you know that worry that catastrophizes what the future is going to look like, often at 3am. Yikes!
We are definitely, all of us, in coping mode. This means that none of us is at our best. We all deal with stress and trauma differently. Some people over react. They become hypervigilant, extremely busy, always doing something. They may find it difficult to understand why others are not behaving the same way and find it frustrating to live or work with people who cope differently.
Others under react. They become depressed, find nothing worthwhile to do, find it extremely difficult to focus on anything. If they live or work with an over reactor, they may feel inadequate or harassed or just unable to keep up with the demands of others.
Still others, and I definitely fall into this category, veer from one extreme to the other on any given day. Some days I'm full of energy wanting to make use of this time that has been given to us. Other days, it's all I can do to manage the very basics of what life demands. My reading reflects this. I am still able to read, but only because I have chosen to reread a series that I have read several times before. It is light and amusing, with nothing too serious. There is no work at all required to enjoy it. My stack of books piled in the corner are neglected because they feel as though it will be too much work to read them and because there are too many unknowns inside their covers. What if I inadvertently picked up a book that had distressing content hidden inside of it? I don't know that I can manage that at the moment, so they sit there unread because I am unwilling and/or unable to take a chance on them right now.
Why am I writing this? To urge you to be kind and gentle with yourself and with others. Remember you are not at the top of your game. Remember others may cope with the bizarre turn life has taken in ways that are very different from you. We all need a healthy dose of grace right now. Someday, life will go back to normal. We will begin to recover from the trauma we have experienced. Looking back, we will remember how we acted and how we felt and we will wonder at it. We will understand better why we could or could not do certain things. We will also realize that we are substantially different as a result of having gone through it. For right now, though, there are just a few things that you need to do. Breath, remind yourself that this is not permanent, and focus on the relationships you have with the people around you. And interestingly enough, this is the exact advice that I give to parents who are in the thick of raising a child with a traumatic past, which is, in its own way, a traumatic event. Remember, there's nothing wrong with you or how you are reacting, but there is everything wrong with a very difficult situation that no one really knows how to navigate.
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