This may come out sounding like a dorm room poster, but your mention of being thrown into a weird world has me thinking about the ways that our brain grooves and broader social grooves reinforce each other (yep, definitely dorm room poster, but whatever). Somewhere in my head there's a malformed thought about the connection between a Marxist conception of society and cognitive-behavioral therapy, but what I'm really thinking about is the ways that so often my own individual change has happened as a result of me getting whatever groove/pattern I'm stuck in out of my head (metaphorically) and seeing it as an object (again, metaphorically) before shoving it back in my head (...) with greater awareness so that maybe I don't get stuck in it next time around. Yes, that describes therapy, but it also describes what one can do sometimes mutually with good friends, and I guess the groove I want to cut is always to remember to seek out deeper connection and interaction with actual humans I know and care about rather than thinking the surface sheen of networked information is going to solve shit.
As for the flinching though, yeah--witnessing casual human contact has me twitchy.
Hey, things end up on posters for a reason. HANG IN THERE!
If I'm hearing you correctly, this communing-as-therapy is an idea I'm drawn to, and in fact have had some really important conversations with friends about how listening to each other has unstuck us. How do you accomplish it right now with the nonstop messaging to stay away from other people, even the ones you love? Are calls/Zooms still working for you?
Hey, you hang in there too. It's hard not to have a kind of pedestrian form of disruption where you're going along and then realize what was once normal, like cheek-kissing real housewives, is suddenly weighted with all sorts of meaning that you wish was never there. I mean, I think it's important for us to jar ourselves out of whatever inevitable complacency we end up, and relative freedom from worldwide pandemics is, I suppose, something that many nations leading relatively charmed lives were due to be shaken out of. But fuck, millions of deaths worldwide, and then heatwaving in California while it's wildfire-fucked, it's hard not to be low-key staring into the abyss sometimes. You know that thing where you're, like, totally fine but then also life is too short and devoid of meaning? Yeah, that thing.
But yeah, I mean, I'm thankful to be living with a partner and kid who're both great, and I certainly think that we're all helping each other process as best we can and try to break out of negative grooves where possible, plus my therapist and whatever contact and distance-hangs can be mustered are always a help. But to get, finally, to your questions, I think the challenge, with the nonstop stay-away messaging, is the lack of being able to interact in a way that's, like, ordinary, that doesn't feel like it has to include so much deliberation around staying socially distant, or deal with another layer of mediation through Zoom and all that. It's been interesting hearing about people who are so profoundly touch-starved, and realizing too how physical proximity and touch is a form of "learning," not in a woo way, but in that our physical experience is a part of our mental and emotional interaction with people and the world. I think it just throws into relief how atomized we already are and are continuing to become.
I believe this has gone into "ramble" territory, which makes this a case in point of everything that I'm talking about above. But concretely, I started a book group via Zoom, to add some variety to life, to ensure my brain doesn't drip out of my ears, and to create a collective pretext to hang out with far-flung friends on a regular basis. We work with what we've got, right?
The flip side of casual human contact and interactions now often being repulsive and wtf-inducing, is that some things have become incredibly erotic to witness, lol. Now when I see two people hold hands I'm like oh-shit, ohmygosh in PUBLIC? I get the Jane Austen sweats.
What I find really interesting about one of my new coping strategies, is the friends that I rely on most for emotionally understanding and regrounding me--I'm talking to them less frequently. But then we'll actually talk on the phone for an hour or get into a long scrolling text convo. It's feeling more like letter writing than how we communicated before.
Despite being depressed, I feel like I can deal with the second year quarantine weirdness. Except for my worry about my toddler. She has no friends, except for when her 8yr old step sister is here on alternate weeks. Which is a HUGE blessing, despite being an increased risk. She is so desperate for socialization and friendship, I cry about it on the regular. When her sister isn't here she drums on the backdoor calling her sister's name, thinking she's just outside. Fucking sucks so hard. My trauma is kind of whatever at this point, but my kid's trauma? It's killing me.
After losing both of my parents in 2 years, I'm basically always anticipating my friends' parents to drop dead at any minute...so, I'm super fun to be around. 😶
This may come out sounding like a dorm room poster, but your mention of being thrown into a weird world has me thinking about the ways that our brain grooves and broader social grooves reinforce each other (yep, definitely dorm room poster, but whatever). Somewhere in my head there's a malformed thought about the connection between a Marxist conception of society and cognitive-behavioral therapy, but what I'm really thinking about is the ways that so often my own individual change has happened as a result of me getting whatever groove/pattern I'm stuck in out of my head (metaphorically) and seeing it as an object (again, metaphorically) before shoving it back in my head (...) with greater awareness so that maybe I don't get stuck in it next time around. Yes, that describes therapy, but it also describes what one can do sometimes mutually with good friends, and I guess the groove I want to cut is always to remember to seek out deeper connection and interaction with actual humans I know and care about rather than thinking the surface sheen of networked information is going to solve shit.
As for the flinching though, yeah--witnessing casual human contact has me twitchy.
Hey, things end up on posters for a reason. HANG IN THERE!
If I'm hearing you correctly, this communing-as-therapy is an idea I'm drawn to, and in fact have had some really important conversations with friends about how listening to each other has unstuck us. How do you accomplish it right now with the nonstop messaging to stay away from other people, even the ones you love? Are calls/Zooms still working for you?
Hey, you hang in there too. It's hard not to have a kind of pedestrian form of disruption where you're going along and then realize what was once normal, like cheek-kissing real housewives, is suddenly weighted with all sorts of meaning that you wish was never there. I mean, I think it's important for us to jar ourselves out of whatever inevitable complacency we end up, and relative freedom from worldwide pandemics is, I suppose, something that many nations leading relatively charmed lives were due to be shaken out of. But fuck, millions of deaths worldwide, and then heatwaving in California while it's wildfire-fucked, it's hard not to be low-key staring into the abyss sometimes. You know that thing where you're, like, totally fine but then also life is too short and devoid of meaning? Yeah, that thing.
But yeah, I mean, I'm thankful to be living with a partner and kid who're both great, and I certainly think that we're all helping each other process as best we can and try to break out of negative grooves where possible, plus my therapist and whatever contact and distance-hangs can be mustered are always a help. But to get, finally, to your questions, I think the challenge, with the nonstop stay-away messaging, is the lack of being able to interact in a way that's, like, ordinary, that doesn't feel like it has to include so much deliberation around staying socially distant, or deal with another layer of mediation through Zoom and all that. It's been interesting hearing about people who are so profoundly touch-starved, and realizing too how physical proximity and touch is a form of "learning," not in a woo way, but in that our physical experience is a part of our mental and emotional interaction with people and the world. I think it just throws into relief how atomized we already are and are continuing to become.
I believe this has gone into "ramble" territory, which makes this a case in point of everything that I'm talking about above. But concretely, I started a book group via Zoom, to add some variety to life, to ensure my brain doesn't drip out of my ears, and to create a collective pretext to hang out with far-flung friends on a regular basis. We work with what we've got, right?
The flip side of casual human contact and interactions now often being repulsive and wtf-inducing, is that some things have become incredibly erotic to witness, lol. Now when I see two people hold hands I'm like oh-shit, ohmygosh in PUBLIC? I get the Jane Austen sweats.
What I find really interesting about one of my new coping strategies, is the friends that I rely on most for emotionally understanding and regrounding me--I'm talking to them less frequently. But then we'll actually talk on the phone for an hour or get into a long scrolling text convo. It's feeling more like letter writing than how we communicated before.
Despite being depressed, I feel like I can deal with the second year quarantine weirdness. Except for my worry about my toddler. She has no friends, except for when her 8yr old step sister is here on alternate weeks. Which is a HUGE blessing, despite being an increased risk. She is so desperate for socialization and friendship, I cry about it on the regular. When her sister isn't here she drums on the backdoor calling her sister's name, thinking she's just outside. Fucking sucks so hard. My trauma is kind of whatever at this point, but my kid's trauma? It's killing me.
After losing both of my parents in 2 years, I'm basically always anticipating my friends' parents to drop dead at any minute...so, I'm super fun to be around. 😶