I clicked on the Huffington Posts. It was a gruesome read — the headline said, “17 Dead After Troubled Former Student Allegedly Opens Fire on a Florida High School.”
OMG, I gasped! We are morally bankrupt!!!
Now the Atlantic: “How kids’ bodies are blown apart by AR-15 bullets unlike pistol bullets, in precise, unflinching, gory technical detail.”
But what was more interesting to me — and telling — was what was left unsaid.
Can any sane person read about kids being blown apart, torn to shreds, by military-grade weapons — and treat it as a kind of clinical, emotionless progress note?
Isn’t that a little fucked-up and disturbing? The idea that we are reading autopsies in mass media, and pretending it’s…normal? That we don’t discuss our feelings; that we think of the world as something to be analyzed and intellectualized. That’s what it tells me.
But why are we afraid of emotions? I’m often puzzled by the notion that we haven’t figured out that there is no such thing as rising above emotion. Emotions play a vital role in our lives and relationships. Emotion explains that something crucial is happening to our well-being.
Yet emotions are taboo in our public and private discussions. It is clear to see — just flip open an op-ed page, and you’ll read loads of “fact-based” analysis — but almost never about how things feel. “Touchy-feely” — they call it. That insult reveals a frightening and ignorant social norm, doesn’t it?
And so today we discuss social collapse from a distance, trying to peel away from our feelings and emotions, as if we were spectators, scientists, or observers.
Get to the facts, please!
But we are not spectators. Collapse is something happening to us, to our well-being. When something dangerous, frightening, and undesirable is happening to our lives and we cannot talk about our feelings, then we will never have much power over it. It will always have power over us — the power to frighten us, shock us, and intimidate us, which is also the power to compel, force, and devalue us.
So what might happen if we shared our feelings with each other — of living in a collapsing society? A society where the average person must live through regular massacres, will never retire, whose life expectancy is falling, and has maybe a week’s income in savings, if that person is lucky?
I think I would say something like this — at least if I were in a supervision session with a supervisor I trusted, because therapists aren’t suppose to share their emotions either about their pain. Tabula rasa.
But with a supervisor I trusted behind closed doors, I could be honest, reflecting on my feelings enough to get to really know them.
I’d say to my fictional supervisor, “This fucking world … we are lost! All because of greed, pride, ego, grandiosity, arrogance, and selfishness. What we are going through is a very unsafe and dangerous time. I feel like I am constantly under threat. Not just imaginary threats , phobias, but real threats that paralyze me sometimes. I, my wife, my bird, my family, are also under financial threat, social threat, economic threat, political threat. Every day, there is a new and seemingly overwhelming hazard to my well-being, which I must somehow summon the spiritual and emotional and psychological energy to face.”
In turn, my fictional supervisor might ask me: “I would imagine that is a very frightening place to be. What do you suppose such an unsafe world makes you frightened of?”
And because I am both honest and self-aware, I might reply, “Well. I am scared, now that you mention it. I am scared of losing it all. I’m scared of falling through the cracks. I’m scared of everything going up in smoke. I live with a constant, pervasive, sometimes all-consuming fucking fear that I might suddenly be shot (by mistake of course) because I’m Black. Ruined, destroyed, financially, socially, relationally, or even physically. So I am never really quite sure which choice to make, which way to turn. Every decision seems to be a dilemma, where the stakes are life and death, because even the smallest misstep can be deadly.”
My fictional supervisor might say, “Ah. It must be very difficult to live with such profound fears of annihilation and abandonment. The pain must be quite intense.”
If I were to continue to be honest, and not let my stoicism as a therapist creep in — I might say: “Of course. It is. I admit it to myself, but it’s hard to admit to others, that I am in deep pain and distress. Sometimes it throbs in my soul, sometimes it feels like I’m going to smother. I am suffering. Living in this collapsing society is a profoundly and terribly terrifying experience. My fears and worries sometimes consume me. They seem to take my happiness and ease and lightness and hope away at times. Why haven’t I been able to say that I am in so much pain?”
“Well,” my fictional supervisor says, “To admit we are in pain often causes us to feel guilty, or ashamed, because we suppose that we are weak.”
“Yeah, but I don’t believe I am weak!” I reply. “If I admit I am in pain, my whole world — my peers, friends, co-workers, colleagues will immediately judge me, and even begin to shun me. Therapists aren’t supposed to express or feel pain, are they? Sadly, I really believe that what is most stigmatized in this culture above all is allowing ourselves to feel pain. Who are we?”
My fictional supervisor says, “Do you see the effect of admitting pain to yourself? It isn’t just that we confirm a sense of truth within ourselves, we grow less isolated. Those who cannot admit their pain to themselves feel envious of those who can admit they are in pain —when we cannot admit that we are in pain we often lash out, demean and hurt people. Isn’t that also a societal norm? That we take our anger out on those less powerful than us?
In this way, the abused becomes the abuser. And that is the problem with not allowing ourselves to feel our pain. It becomes a burden that we pass on, but it comes right back at us, in the form of broken relationships, careers, friendships, illnesses and families, instead of a wound that we allow to heal. As a Black person you know that with all the “change” that has happened in American society, there still has not been genuine collective healing. When your ancestors were brought to this country from Africa, there were no counseling centers available to help them heal from the trauma, loss and pain of being displaced. There was no counseling offered to mothers when their children were ripped from them and sold to a different white owner. There was no place for white slave owner(s) to examine and heal from the effects of their own brutality; the impact on their psyches and souls. We are hemorrhaging as a result of the effects untreated inter-generational traumas passed down, all of us Blacks and Whites; all unhealed, numb, scared, angry, traumatized, soul-sick … and for generations. We could learn something from the South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
We as a society have misguidedly mistaken change for healing. There is a difference. Healing cannot happen without dealing with our emotional and psychological pain, which is why it is crucial for us to do this now. Our existence is on the line.
I take a moment of silent reflection to digest all this, and then wonder quietly, “What am I to do with all my pain?”
My fictional supervisor says, “Now we are getting to the root. Pain is a message that you are hurt. All the things that we have discussed are signs of trauma, perhaps not severe trauma, but at least low-level trauma. The guilt, fear, anger, avoidance, shame, withdrawal, disconnection — all these are clear indications of someone who has been badly ‘hurt:’ traumatized.”
“I’m traumatized? What do I do?” I ask, surprised.
My fictional supervisor tells me, “Well, the roots of your trauma are living in a collapsing society and I’m sure there are other things that have hurt you. But what we’ve discussed is the feeling of pain that comes from living in an unsafe, deeply threatening world.
A world collapsing is a destabilizing, disorienting, devaluing one. Such a place, you now understand, is so painful that it is traumatizing.
There are many things you can ‘do’ — over time. You can be gentle with yourself. You can understand that everyone is being traumatized thus, too, so you can be gentle with others. You can work to fix your society. But these are secondary. The first thing is most true: reflecting on what we’ve discussed. To know, admit, and understand that the fear and anxiety of living in a collapsing society is so intensely painful that it is likely traumatizing. It is wounding you in ways that you are not aware of. So first let’s be aware of your wounds.
Then you are a little free. With that awareness, you don’t have to hide your trauma from yourself, or from anyone else, since everyone living through this is traumatized in some way, too.”
“Well. I feel a little better,” I say, reluctantly. “But I’m still frightened. If I share all this with people, what will happen?”
“Well, think of it this way. When you are not honest with yourself about your pain, you are living a lie — even if it is a comfortable one, it has a steep price. A person living a lie cannot have genuine relationships, intimacy, connection, or closeness with anyone — including themselves. They choose between guilt and shame, rage and despair. That’s true for a society, too.
A society that is not honest with itself about its pain is living a lie. And the people in that society cannot have genuine relationships, either — even with themselves. So perhaps by sharing your pain, those broken bonds in society can be rebuilt. And all these broken things — democracy, trust, values, norms, the economy, institutions, depend on those bonds. So in this way, a society that cannot really share its pain cannot fix itself either.”
Now. Perhaps there is a glimmer of truth in my imaginary supervision session. Perhaps there isn’t. That is for you to decide. What I will say is this: We think we can understand collapse analytically, but not emotionally. That is a huge myth. It might be true for the speed of light, but it’s not true for the rise or fall of societies or human beings. We cannot fix collapsing societies through dispassionate analysis alone — because societies, not being machines, often need healing before they can repair.
It is impossible for me to believe that living in a society where massacres are becoming a norm and the ones who call themselves authoritarians are taking over does not produce more … constant trauma among us.
If trauma goes unshared, unstated, kept hidden in the dark night of the soul, it becomes self-destruction.
But when it is shared, seen, and held something happens — pain becomes a sense of purpose, compassion, grace, truth, and beauty, which we will come to know one day simply as love and it’s stronger than it was before.
All that, too, is as necessary to heal collapsing societies — by restoring trust, faith, bonds, optimism, belief, in democracy and institutions— as it is to heal broken people.