I’ve been sitting on this blogpost for a while….feeling like I don’t have enough information or don’t “know” enough, feeling like my need to be out and about is getting the better of me, etc. etc. Two days ago, however, I saw a post that reminded me that, in fact, no one has enough information and no one “knows” enough to be the absolute truth-teller about COVID-19, yet that doesn’t stop them from trying. I wrote a draft of this post then.
Fast forward to today and I hadn’t found my courage to share the post yet, and my 86-year-old grandma was hospitalized for a non-COVID related issue. My grandparents moved into an assisted living facility in March, two days before the facility was completely shut down by COVID – no one in, no one out. They are making it work, yet struggling with the lack of independence and socialization. My grandparents have been married for 70 years (!!!) and are very social humans. Yes, you read that correctly – they have been together through EVERYTHING for the past 70 years. They have been active in their church community, square-dancing, and a million other things I’m sure I don’t know about. They have a lot of friends. Certainly, they have survived a lot in their lives and they had each other – and their community – for every step of the way. Today, when my grandma fell, my grandpa couldn’t go to the hospital with her. They were both – in possibly one of the scariest times of their lives – completely alone. No one could be there with either of them. We know that being with our people helps us heal. They are in their late 80s. They are going to die soon – at the very least, I wish they could be together. It’s heart-wrenching to think of either of them working through this on their own. What does it mean when we privilege our physical health over our mental and emotional health? Yes, either one of them (or both!) could contract COVID and die. They could also die tomorrow from a million other things. Our collective irrationality and fear is wreaking havoc on our lives.
So, today, I’m getting brave and sharing my ideas with the world – not because I have an answer about what to do in the process of navigating COVID, but because I want us to be able to have real dialogue and conversations about this to find the both/and without shutting each other down. And I’m scared to share. I’m guessing I’ve overlooked some important ideas or perspectives, and that’s ok. I’ve talked to enough people that feel shut down in trying to have these conversations – especially in “progressive” spaces – that I’m ok making some mistakes in an effort to contribute to a more nuanced conversation.
Although this piece is probably not the most organized or clear thing I’ve ever written, my ideas come down to three things:
- We have to do better listening to each other and considering multiple ways of approaching our collective response to COVID. We must avoid making assumptions about people’s situations and applying a one-size-fits-all approach to addressing COVID.
- I’m really concerned about the ways we’re privileging physical health over mental and emotional health as if they are separate. They’re not. We know that our mental and emotional health contributes to our physical health in significant ways.
- We must continue to center power, privilege, and oppression in all of our discussions about COVID, and as always, many issues of power conflict with each other.
On listening…
I’m feeling super sad about the ways I’m observing judgment and absoluteness of our ideas and perspectives about what to do as we navigate the unknowns of COVID. I believe that most of this judgement and stubbornness is coming from a place of fear, a place of the unknowns, which is why I’m sad. We’re not being our best selves right now, and I understand why. And, I believe in us. We can have more thoughtful, nuanced discussions about this.
For me, as usual, it’s not as easy as either/or…it’s always both/and. And in true U.S.-fashion, we have politicized and polarized this issue to the point that we can’t even have thoughtful conversations about it with our friends and neighbors. As I talk with people when I can and as I read posts online, my sense is that if you run in left-leaning circles, that means you have to advocate for keeping everything closed down and staying home. That somehow, if we don’t, that means we are greedy and/or selfish, that we value money over life, or that we value our own livelihood at the expense of others’. I don’t think it’s that simple.
I also don’t think that money and livelihood are mutually exclusive. Unfortunately, in the world we live in right now money is directly tied to livelihood. We can’t have livelihood without money. Yes, in a perfect world, the government would take care of the most vulnerable among us, providing income and stability for people who truly cannot be out and about in this madness. And in my lifetime, I’ve never seen that happen, and I doubt I ever will. I don’t blame people for not waiting for the government to take care of them – there’s no reason to believe that would happen effectively and equitably. There’s too much controversy over who is “worthy” of this protection (though no one would ever actually say that in their arguments), and there’s too much fear and suspicion that people are trying to game the system. They are. They’re called large business owners and we let them do it all day long. But, I digress….kinda.
On holistic health…
Recently, I started seeing a new counselor. Nothing significant – just trying to better understand and own my own experiences with trauma. My counselor is helping me understand how trauma stays in our bodies. I worked directly with survivors of IPV for so long that I never believed I experienced anything significant enough to rise to the level of “trauma.” This is false. Trauma comes in a lot of forms – not all of it physical. And right now, people are living in a state of fear, which is a form of mental and emotional un-health. And mental and emotional health is directly related to physical health. We see case after case after case of this – racism has been linked to a number of physical health issues, PTSD in veterans and survivors of violence is directly linked to their physical health. We feel emotional and mental un-health in our bodies. Additionally, we know that people heal when they are in community with each other. All of these factors are important to consider in our response to COVID. These things are not mutually exclusive. I’ve seen people say things like, “if you aren’t alive, you can’t have mental and emotional health.” This is quite a limited perspective – also, in fact, for some people, they may not be alive if they don’t have mental and emotional health. Our health – all of it – is grounded in community and bound together.
Many people want or need parts of our lives to “open back up” and allow for some semi-normalcy for a number of reasons that are tightly wound with mental and emotional health. In my field, domestic violence and child abuse rates are through the roof. Some people need to get out (and need their partner to get out) to keep themselves and their children mentally, emotionally, and physically safe. Additionally, other friends of mine who work in mental health have shared that they are concerned about suicide rates increasing as well. There are MANY of these reasons that many of us know little about, and it’s important that we do not assume that every person who is asking to open back up a little are doing so because they want to get their roots dyed or hit the gym to lose their COVID-15.
And possibly the most important part of this: if these things are happening to people in your life (or not in your life), it is not their responsibility to tell you as a justification for their desire to make a “non-essential” trip to Target or to their mother’s home halfway across the country.
We do not know the long-term impacts of COVID-19 on our collective physical health. We also don’t know the long-term emotional and mental impacts. We do, in fact, know that mental and emotional health is tied to our physical health, so what does it mean that our children can’t interact with their peers? That they have been pulled from their regular school routines? School is just as important for social development as it is for cognitive development. What about adults? What is the impact on our mental and emotional health of being locked in our houses and told that we must fear death and sickness?
On power, privilege, and oppression…
This is not the time to be the privilege police. It’s never appropriate, and now certainly isn’t the time to try to “call people out” on their privilege, because it’s hella complicated and layered. Privilege is directly related to systemic power – it’s complex, layered, and nuanced, and it’s not something we have access to or not. It’s way more complicated than that – we may have access to some privilege in some ways and not in others. Additionally, calling out other people’s “privilege” when you have no idea what is actually going on in their lives is very problematic…and dare I say, often comes from a limited perspective, often as a result of a whole lotta privilege!
It seems that people throw out the “privilege” argument when other people express that they may want to loosen up some of the tightening we’re experiencing in our lives. The privilege claim is often that people are overly focused on themselves, not accounting for the ways that COVID spreads and being irresponsible in going out contributes to increasing the curve. Period. End of story. No response allowed. I mean, I used the P-word. If you’re a progressive, you can’t argue with that!
Certainly, if we choose to get out and about, we MUST be responsible about it. I don’t know many people denying that (and before you argue with me, I know there are some…the extreme end of the curve, and I’m not talking about them – that’s a whole different conversation). Additionally, one of the hardest parts of all of this for me is the response of, “well, at-risk people just need to stay home.” I’m not ok with just saying this – certainly, most at risk people are probably making a choice to stay home, but that doesn’t mean the rest of us should just ignore them or act like their issues are not our collective issues – they are. There are ways we can support immuno-compromised people – we can be intentional about reaching out and communicating, we can bring food, we can give money, and we can advocate that the government do their job and take care of at risk people. Most importantly, we can ask what people in our lives need from us and then DO IT.
Another conversation that frequently emerges as it relates to privilege is the racialization of COVID. And again, this is multi-layered. Certainly, communities of color are being impacted in disproportionate ways through contracting and being killed by COVID, largely as a result of underlying conditions and illness people of color have because of the ways racism impacts their physical health (another connection between what we think is emotional and mental health, yet is actually also physical health). AND so-called “minority-owned businesses” are disproportionately impacted by the pandemic. People of color and women are more likely to own small business than larger business, and small business are suffering most. It could be that supporting these businesses is a way of addressing the inequity. Again, let’s ask what people need and be comfortable with different answers for different people, rather than just assuming we know best based on our own limited perspectives.
We must balance our individual and collective needs – ALWAYS – and especially right now. We must do our best to stay calm and grounded and not rely solely on our own limited perspectives and experiences to make decisions for and police everyone around us. THIS is the time to use our stellar listening skills to connect with people, to learn, and to find that elusive middle ground that is almost always better.
Dear Nice White Ladies 