Recently, when out and about, I have noticed there is a glumness and withdrawn look about many people, hardly surprising you might say, look at what they have been through!
The above is a turn of phrase often used to excuse the behaviour of others, and sometimes even to comfort ourselves when someone is being difficult or nasty however, in my opinion,we do not often give sufficient credence or hear the stories others have been through with enough love and compassion.
I belong to a zoom group and sometimes I get frustrated with the lack of meaningful engagement or connections. Truth is its a wonderful platform, and has helped many of us significantly during the pandemic,and since then, it cannot replace the engagement and connective experience of face to face meetings.Such meetings are more important than ever before, as people need really need to share ‘soul to soul.’
There is often one within the group, at least, who will quickly guide the meeting by being all ‘upbeat’and talking about going forward, leaving the past behind. In my considerable experience , and since time immemorial,this type of behaviour has been a defensive position practised by the human race,and such behaviour spoils much learning from the mistakes and developments contained within the past.
It can also be considered as a type of ‘arrogance’ that takes little or no account of the individual, population, and global needs individuals and groups may require to move forward, and , as such, this attitude is the outside of denial, or at least denial at its most unhealthy.
Such behaviour reminds us that the peoples of the world have been deeply regressed, and desire to run away from the unbearable feelings of brokenness this has caused, to enter into the loss in this situation requires holding one to the other, the question arises how many are capable of this as we have all been in it together? It is true , of course that not all people have had the same experiences or as much loss as others, so there are those able to help.
Moving on requires appropriate facilities for grieving care of the workers being very important, without stable institutions Northern Ireland has suffered greatly in this area, and has been left with huge holes in appropriate provisions which needs to include supportive facilities for individuals and groups to lament and grieve over the experiences of the pandemic-the losses- and the ensuing chaos in the world.
After my husband died in the first wave of the pandemic I was obliged to shop for myself, and my Autistic son I experienced absolute terror going in and out of the stores. In ordinary times I cope with a lot and am unphased, but this was different. At times I felt like some kind of freak unable to get over this, as though I was one of a few who couldn’t just get on with it.
It is , however the case that many people have experienced similar feelings, and for some time, as mental health issues have been challenging a large proportion of the population at societial and global levels treatment is perhaps quite experiential, after all this is a new situation.
Having worked with severe trauma cases for many years I am interested in searching for answers, it would be so easy for people to just get more medication, but in many cases this is not the answer.
Recently I read about the current views re post pandemic affects as they are emerging within the global populations. One such effect is ‘Cognitive ‘Dissonance’ this means the cognitive balance may be affected. It is appropriate to mention that such an effect is ‘normal’ and even’ when you think about it, common sense,after all stressful events have always disturbed our concentration, and it is good to normalise what is happening here.
The internet is overrun with exercises , and other ideas to overcome and attempt to restore balanced cognitions, these ideas are drawn from various secular and biblical, and similar themes emerge in each case.
Living a meditative life is key and hard to return to given the aforementioned circumstances,but determination may help as one takes recovery seriously and it becomes our purpose ,even doing a small amount of breathing exercises each day is a beginning and may be more achievable as is the simple excercise of making small medium and larger goals to achieve ones aim of overcoming and improving our concentration.
NEXT WHAT ABOUT BRAIN FOG?
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aoibheann thoughtful reflections 