If somehow you hadn’t noticed, we are on the verge of an international health crisis with COVID-19 altering the way almost everything is done.
Grocery aisles are becoming empty. Community gatherings, concerts, sporting events, and meetings are cancelled. Schools are closed. We are quarantining, isolating, and battening down the hatches as this virus sweeps into our lives. Former Surgeon General Dr. Vivek H. Murthy says he thinks there will be a subsequent loneliness epidemic "because it affects a great number of people in our country but also because one person’s loneliness can have an impact on another person.” This effect could be long lasting. Certainly, everything we have discovered about trauma makes this seem inevitable.
I am reminded of the book I’m OK - You’re OK by Thomas Anthony Harris which was a bestseller 40 years ago. It was pop psychology that introduced Transactional Analysis to the public along with a communication model which was embraced and used by professionals as well as would-be therapists for years. I was a young behaviorist at the time and scoffed at the whole concept as nativistic nonsense.
Lots of rather silly and tongue-in-cheek publications followed. But there was part of what he wrote that was quite useful. Dr. Harris promoted the concept that trauma has a lasting impact on neurological formation. Extreme experiences definitively shape subsequent behavioral responses or patterns. Brain science has exploded with evidence to support this theory.
So, during this health crisis it would be wise to accept that our wounding and trauma will be practically universal.
Business as usual has been suspended. We cannot happy talk ourselves into being OK.
Spiritual teachers throughout history have asserted that brokenness is our common bond. Jesus points to salvation through his own suffering and resurrection. They tell us that trauma is overcome by accepting, embracing, and sharing it.
“The only way to avert or minimize chronic trauma during the COVID-19 pandemic will be to develop an ongoing strategy of reaching out to one another”
Yet, our overwhelming response to pain and adversity is to maintain that “I am perfectly OK” despite evidence to the contrary. While we might view those who struggle with sympathy, I will man-up and get through on my own. Disastrously, by exerting this response we remain disconnected.
The only way to avert or minimize chronic trauma during the COVID-19 pandemic will be to develop an ongoing strategy of reaching out to one another. It's no time for individualism and ruggedness.
A notion of “I’m OK even though you’re not” has to be abandoned. We must openly share our worries, fears, hopes and needs. The way to survive and get through this is hand-in-hand. Who knows, we might just come out the other side of this with an awakening that all of us are fragile, somewhat broken, and quite alike. Maybe we will finally realize how much we really need each other.