It is often hard to find the time or the energy to express my feelings at the end of the day but after a weeks vacation and what happened today in Alabama I am here for it. This is my SOS to other therapists, healers and caretakers. I see you (and if I am completely honest I am not entirely sure how to best help) and I want you to know that you aren’t alone, you aren’t crazy and this job is complicated and has never been more important. Well at least I know I need to remind myself that right now so figured others may need to hear it too.
We are at a precipice. Months before our next presidential election, months after the start of a brutal and horrifying display of what fear can do and money can buy. I have to keep coming back to the moment, to the sound of Bluey in the background and my dog under my feet, to not lose it completely. Somehow I am supposed to be a guiding light for others, the stable base for my children to securely attach. I have already gotten to the point in my career I understand and have accepted I cannot save anyone and I am not the expert in anyone else’s life at best I can offer some adaptive information and techniques towards integration but man the ride has gotten so messy and accepting the limits of my control when it comes to parenting further complicates it.
I am blown away daily by people’s strength and resilience. While each person and their story is unique the common humanity that unites us is impossible to ignore. I have truly come to believe that we are all just looking for a sense of safety and belonging to be our authentic self and developing the skills necessary to navigate the inevitable ups and downs and discomforts of life. So why is it so damn hard?!?
I can see beauty and commonality in us all AND I can be terrified and shocked by the public displays of humanity I am witnessing around me. Gaza, Trump, today’s news that something happening to someone’s frozen embryos in a fertility clinic is being equated to manslaughter (yes, I know this is a bit dramatic and not entirely factually accurate but its not as far off as it seems), the examples seem endless and it is hard to hold these dialects. To constantly have to oscillate, to pendulate, between the internal and external, logic and emotion, nature and nurture, hypoarousal and hyperarousal, the good and the bad, student teacher, wounded healer. I am exhausted.
Our climate (both literally and figuratively) feels so unstable and we are depending on dysregulated people to make balanced decisions. It’s a fallacy. We are turning empaths into martyrs to uphold a system that is simultaneously destroying us and things are so damn backwards its hard to see a way out.
After 6 hours of individual therapy sessions, 4 of which were with healthcare providers in one capacity or another and a drive home occupied by news about Alabama I am keenly aware that the energy that I bring into the house will have a profound impact on the way the rest of the night will go- so I put it away. I greet my kids trying to demonstrate that they are what makes it worth it while knowing the juxtaposition between my attempted display of affection and connection and the internal fire that was raging inside of me is confusing at best. If I let myself, this is an easy place to spiral into all I know about attachment theory and all the ways my external stress is impacting their development and perception of themselves and the world, but I try desperately not to. Come back to my breath.
My husband asks how my day was and I start spewing about the problems in our healthcare system and begin spiraling to worst case scenarios about what it could mean for the future of our country if there is legal precedence for giving an embryo personhood. What does it mean for our LGBTQIA+ folks if we make IVF illegal. What does it mean for our already overburdened social service departments if we eliminate access to birth control. What does it mean for women who desperately want a baby but doing so could cost them their life. What does it mean for victims of assault who are impregnated against their will? The questions go on and on and I know I am not solving them tonight so I come back to the moment and lean into gratitude and go back to the mild form of dissociation required to function in the system. In and out, trying to remain grounded in the dissonance.
We are at a precipice. Months before our next presidential election, months after the start of a brutal and horrifying display of what fear can do and money can buy. I have to keep coming back to the moment, to the sound of Bluey in the background and my dog under my feet, to not lose it completely. Somehow I am supposed to be a guiding light for others, the stable base for my children to securely attach. I have already gotten to the point in my career I understand and have accepted I cannot save anyone and I am not the expert in anyone else’s life at best I can offer some adaptive information and techniques towards integration but man the ride has gotten so messy and accepting the limits of my control when it comes to parenting further complicates it.
I am blown away daily by people’s strength and resilience. While each person and their story is unique the common humanity that unites us is impossible to ignore. I have truly come to believe that we are all just looking for a sense of safety and belonging to be our authentic self and developing the skills necessary to navigate the inevitable ups and downs and discomforts of life. So why is it so damn hard?!?
I can see beauty and commonality in us all AND I can be terrified and shocked by the public displays of humanity I am witnessing around me. Gaza, Trump, today’s news that something happening to someone’s frozen embryos in a fertility clinic is being equated to manslaughter (yes, I know this is a bit dramatic and not entirely factually accurate but its not as far off as it seems), the examples seem endless and it is hard to hold these dialects. To constantly have to oscillate, to pendulate, between the internal and external, logic and emotion, nature and nurture, hypoarousal and hyperarousal, the good and the bad, student teacher, wounded healer. I am exhausted.
Our climate (both literally and figuratively) feels so unstable and we are depending on dysregulated people to make balanced decisions. It’s a fallacy. We are turning empaths into martyrs to uphold a system that is simultaneously destroying us and things are so damn backwards its hard to see a way out.
After 6 hours of individual therapy sessions, 4 of which were with healthcare providers in one capacity or another and a drive home occupied by news about Alabama I am keenly aware that the energy that I bring into the house will have a profound impact on the way the rest of the night will go- so I put it away. I greet my kids trying to demonstrate that they are what makes it worth it while knowing the juxtaposition between my attempted display of affection and connection and the internal fire that was raging inside of me is confusing at best. If I let myself, this is an easy place to spiral into all I know about attachment theory and all the ways my external stress is impacting their development and perception of themselves and the world, but I try desperately not to. Come back to my breath.
My husband asks how my day was and I start spewing about the problems in our healthcare system and begin spiraling to worst case scenarios about what it could mean for the future of our country if there is legal precedence for giving an embryo personhood. What does it mean for our LGBTQIA+ folks if we make IVF illegal. What does it mean for our already overburdened social service departments if we eliminate access to birth control. What does it mean for women who desperately want a baby but doing so could cost them their life. What does it mean for victims of assault who are impregnated against their will? The questions go on and on and I know I am not solving them tonight so I come back to the moment and lean into gratitude and go back to the mild form of dissociation required to function in the system. In and out, trying to remain grounded in the dissonance.
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