Calling It for What It Is/Speaking Truth to Bullshit
"Welcome to the 8th Level of Jumanji," we greet one another. We check in with each other using memes, acerbic humor and dark moods. There is comradery in enduring the Eternal Shit Show. We are in the trenches together, battling the influx of critical cases and emergencies and being short-staffed.
But when they send emails from administration, they use brevity and smack of positivity and false platitudes. They encourage us to focus on the good, give each other grace, be fluffy and cute, to be grateful for our jobs, because so many people are out of work in these "unprecedented times," and to mask up, because you don't want to be the first technician positive for COVID-19 and shut down the teaching hospital do you? They are not us.
We are saddled with irate owners, with overwhelmed veterinary students who started their final year two months late, with underprepared technician students, with stressed residents and with attending clinicians who sit somewhere on the spectrum of Very Concerned About Staff to Very Concerned About Income. This is in addition to our daily lives. This is in addition to our daily careers, which have never been considered luxury work. This is in addition to surviving the pandemic with the rest of the world. We shoulder the extra burdens because it is our job. We have been isolated from that which we love, experiencing the pandemic in all of the ways, but also as essential staff. We are not front-line workers, but then there is that moment in the parking lot, while collecting the patients from the clients who refuse to wear masks, that you realize, Man, what bullshit.
* * *
This morning, while cupping my mug of chocolate milk like a tiny child, I read this article from the Atlantic, titled "How the Pandemic Defeated America." It is a succinct description (... and also long, because it's been six months) of how COVID-19 was allowed to have gained a foothold in the States, and how it's unobstructed spread exacerbated the problems that our "great" society has always managed to hide under the surface*. There was so much good in that article, I must say that you should simply read it... although this particular quote struck me:
Despite its epochal effects, COVID‑19 is merely a harbinger of worse plagues to come. The U.S. cannot prepare for these inevitable crises if it returns to normal, as many of its people ache to do. Normal led to this. Normal was a world ever more prone to a pandemic but ever less ready for one. To avert another catastrophe, the U.S. needs to grapple with all the ways normal failed us.Normal was tying people's health to employment. Normal was centuries of systematic, intentional acts of racism that became so insidious that we, the people, cannot even determine what is racist and what is not. Normal was assuming that the system's checks and balances would work in the face of absolute treason. Normal was allowing for those in power to determine the validity of science. Normal was never working. The pandemic of 2020 has underscored all that is wrong in America, and has given renewed fire to those who would deny it to our faces, despite all evidence suggesting otherwise.
* * *
In 2018, I was hit by a car. In addition to multiple physical injuries, I also began experiencing anxiety, depression, risk-taking behavior and irritability associated with post-traumatic stress disorder. Seems wildly appropriative to be diagnosed with PTSD, a mental illness generally associated with war-torn veterans and victims of abuse. And yet, as my world careened towards destruction in 2019, there was my diagnosis. And in taking ownership of my mental illness, in finding the bravery and strength of say, "This will likely kill me if I do not do something about it," I learned just enough about the amygdala to be considered dangerous.
This is what I know: the amygdala is the small, seemingly inconsequential portion of the brain, nestled just dorsocranial to the hippocampus. The amygdala is responsible for the processing of emotions, so while it's small shape tends to be overlooked in basic anatomy classes, it packs a powerful punch when stimulated. And so when body senses danger, the little amygdala is ignited, sending out fear responses using the hormones adrenaline and cortisol. I mean, the little amygdala also responds to good things, but hear me out. PTSD causes the amygdala to be in a constant state of activation of worry, resulting in hyper-reactivity to triggering stimulus. There have been reports of "amygdala hijacking," where the amygdala is so responsive that it might outwit and outplay the more reasonable aspect of our processing brain, the neocortex.
And so, I spent the end of 2019 and part of 2020 rewiring my brain. How to process perceived threats. How to manage chronic stress. How to desensitize my brain to triggering stimulus. How to navigate society. Once again in my lifetime, I found myself having to jump through hoops and change myself so that I could not only be palatable to the people around me, but also to just survive. I'd like to think that I am better for it **, but I also know that my emotional maturity is not only more grounded, but probably also makes people uncomfortable. I was never more prepared for the bottom to fall out, the other shoe to drop, the floor to be lava, than I was in March.
As America hurtled headlong into a pandemic, I stood on the sidelines, watching in fear as the government couldn't decide on how to best protect the people, and the people spun around in circles. My amygdala spazzed out: I am the sentinel chicken, the canary in the mine shaft! Danger! Danger! I am best in a crisis. But I am so inconvenient to those who are in charge.
"I do not feel safe in this situation. What are we going to do about it?" I would ask as my employer made half-ass attempts to mitigate disease transmission. "What is the university going to do to protect us?" I was a broken record, the squeaky wheel. "We are in over our heads, you are burning us out, stop talking over me, this is not a way to come up with solutions, you are putting up walls, this is not how you treat employees." The squeaky wheel is replaced, never ignored. "Why are our employers hiding the fact that COVID-19 is in the building, it's not a HIPPA violation!" said, as the supervisors screaming HIPPA! in my face. I am the mouthpiece of the people to whom no one listens. The stinking prophetess who people prefer to think of as crazy, rather than insightful.
* * *
On this day, August 5th, 2020, I have worked through the pandemic, with only days off to visit my new niece and time in therapy. Whilst in the Midwest, we have seen very few cases compared to the coastal states. We have yet to hit the first wave, methinks. I miss touching people. I miss being with people. I am not a People-Person. I feel trapped. My amygdala sends me "Danger!" signs, my neocortex fights back. I have been stalwart. I have been troubled. I try and I try, and it never feels like enough. I am the queen of marathons, but there is no end in sight today, and I am very tired. I finally admit that I have had enough, and yet the worst has yet to ever hit This Small City.
The past six months of therapy have taken place over the computer screen. I have not seen my therapist in person, but we have both agree I look and feel better. But on this particular day, on this particular moment, I am sobbing with the built up stress and fear and anxiety of everything that has happened, and I do it only in therapy, because if I were to do it elsewhere, I would be accused of being overly-emotional and incapable of mature thoughts, you crazy bitch.
"I don't know why I'm upset, I'm so sorry," I sniff.
My therapist says, "Name it for what it is."
"I'm angry. I'm fucking furious," and I succumb to more sobs. I only cry this hard when I am so angry, that the feeling vents through my eyes and my nose and my mouth.."
I said it. I called it for what it was. I spoke truth to bullshit. Relief washed over me like a cold, hard rain that neither cleanses nor restores.
* * *
I will never not call out the absolute bullshit that the government has done to set our country up to fail in such a gloriously, dangerous way. The inaction of our federal government is inexcusable. The action to silence the people by any means necessary is reprehensible. The action of corporate America, up to and including my employer, for choosing the bottom dollar over actionable directives and protective means, is becoming impossible to live with.
I am calling it what it is: I have at last succumbed to the dread of tomorrow. I am emotionally and mentally exhausted from the fear of last month. I am physically at my limit. I am lonely and I miss you. I am full of hatred and distrust. I need a break. None of this makes me a weak person.
* that surface is a thin, gross layer of shiny oil that shimmers atop the cesspool of bullshit: racism, classism, capitalism and narcicissm. It is an ugly surface that only the silent majority of 2016 & their rich ilk seem to find great and beautiful.
** although some days, I am not so sure... it was at great cost to my sense of self and several relationships were destroyed in the process.
As America hurtled headlong into a pandemic, I stood on the sidelines, watching in fear as the government couldn't decide on how to best protect the people, and the people spun around in circles. My amygdala spazzed out: I am the sentinel chicken, the canary in the mine shaft! Danger! Danger! I am best in a crisis. But I am so inconvenient to those who are in charge.
"I do not feel safe in this situation. What are we going to do about it?" I would ask as my employer made half-ass attempts to mitigate disease transmission. "What is the university going to do to protect us?" I was a broken record, the squeaky wheel. "We are in over our heads, you are burning us out, stop talking over me, this is not a way to come up with solutions, you are putting up walls, this is not how you treat employees." The squeaky wheel is replaced, never ignored. "Why are our employers hiding the fact that COVID-19 is in the building, it's not a HIPPA violation!" said, as the supervisors screaming HIPPA! in my face. I am the mouthpiece of the people to whom no one listens. The stinking prophetess who people prefer to think of as crazy, rather than insightful.
* * *
On this day, August 5th, 2020, I have worked through the pandemic, with only days off to visit my new niece and time in therapy. Whilst in the Midwest, we have seen very few cases compared to the coastal states. We have yet to hit the first wave, methinks. I miss touching people. I miss being with people. I am not a People-Person. I feel trapped. My amygdala sends me "Danger!" signs, my neocortex fights back. I have been stalwart. I have been troubled. I try and I try, and it never feels like enough. I am the queen of marathons, but there is no end in sight today, and I am very tired. I finally admit that I have had enough, and yet the worst has yet to ever hit This Small City.
The past six months of therapy have taken place over the computer screen. I have not seen my therapist in person, but we have both agree I look and feel better. But on this particular day, on this particular moment, I am sobbing with the built up stress and fear and anxiety of everything that has happened, and I do it only in therapy, because if I were to do it elsewhere, I would be accused of being overly-emotional and incapable of mature thoughts, you crazy bitch.
"I don't know why I'm upset, I'm so sorry," I sniff.
My therapist says, "Name it for what it is."
"I'm angry. I'm fucking furious," and I succumb to more sobs. I only cry this hard when I am so angry, that the feeling vents through my eyes and my nose and my mouth.."
I said it. I called it for what it was. I spoke truth to bullshit. Relief washed over me like a cold, hard rain that neither cleanses nor restores.
* * *
I will never not call out the absolute bullshit that the government has done to set our country up to fail in such a gloriously, dangerous way. The inaction of our federal government is inexcusable. The action to silence the people by any means necessary is reprehensible. The action of corporate America, up to and including my employer, for choosing the bottom dollar over actionable directives and protective means, is becoming impossible to live with.
I am calling it what it is: I have at last succumbed to the dread of tomorrow. I am emotionally and mentally exhausted from the fear of last month. I am physically at my limit. I am lonely and I miss you. I am full of hatred and distrust. I need a break. None of this makes me a weak person.
* that surface is a thin, gross layer of shiny oil that shimmers atop the cesspool of bullshit: racism, classism, capitalism and narcicissm. It is an ugly surface that only the silent majority of 2016 & their rich ilk seem to find great and beautiful.
** although some days, I am not so sure... it was at great cost to my sense of self and several relationships were destroyed in the process.
*** So, don't fucking tell me that Trump and his campaign committee wasn't playing on and twisting the fear and uncertainty of the conservative base to rouse support.
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