The last 12 months has been rough. Even if you didn’t lose your job, or your business, or your home or a loved one to the virus, it’s been hard. The toll on our mental health has been more than any of us realize, or maybe, like me, can admit. We’ve been cut off from family and friends, stripped of our usual social habits and denied all of the healthy coping mechanisms that we have, and many of the unhealthy ones as well. We’ve had nowhere to turn but internally, and only our closest family members to help to deal with the frustrations that arise, the stress of juggling new and different responsibilities, and learning to live in the altered landscape that the last year has painted for us.
My friend Liz posted picture of a morale patch with the words: “No One Is Coming. Expect to Self-Rescue.” It’s a phrase that keeps running through my mind on an almost hourly basis, for many reasons.
In January, I believe we saw one of the darker moments of American History. Not because I am a liberal and I think the rioters who stormed the capitol are idiots, although I do. And not because I am a conservative and I think the media narrative is wildly inaccurate with the intent to drive up ratings by turning Americans against each other, although I think that as well. I believe it was dark because it was the next rung on a ladder to the new peak of division in a these once United States. I won’t call it a climax, because I don’t believe we’re done. The knee jerk reaction of many Americans after January 6th was to point fingers in righteous indignation at the other side for perceived evil and stupidity. There is no seeking to understand. There is no empathy. No compassion for our fellow Americans. There is ridicule and judgement. Middle ground is no longer permissible in these United States. Choose your island. Pick your team, or be ousted by both.
My conservative friends mock me for wearing a mask. My liberal friends judge me for owning guns. It is difficult to maintain any relationship at all these days, even without a state that’s locked down endlessly and a virus that makes face-to-face connection so much harder. We can’t talk. We can only hurl vitriol and our lofty opinions from emotionless social media posts, left open for misinterpretation and twisting.
In many ways, I have never felt more alone than I do now. This has been one of the hardest winters that I can remember, when it comes to my mental health. I feel cut off and isolated from everyone, on many levels. Some of that is self-inflicted, some of it is circumstantial. Either way, no one is coming. Expect to Self Rescue.
I recently switched jobs at my work and my new task is to help write a regional economic recovery and resiliency plan. It’s a play book for what to do when all the “best practices” for our regional businesses, agencies and governments don’t work anymore, either because of a threat to infrastructure or an economic shock, such as the Coronavirus has wrought. The plan has to be built on the same idea: No one is coming. Expect to Self Rescue. What are the tools and resources we need to survive without outside help?
As I pour through plans from other regions and learn about this process, it strikes me that while each entity in the region has a responsibility to prepare internally for disaster, the fallout from any catastrophe is lessened by the strength of our regional network. The plan has to take into consideration all of the assets and tools we have at our disposal across the region in the event that no one from the outside: help from the state or federal government, etc., can reach us. The more we can rely on our neighbors, the better the outcome will be.
It turns out that the same is true for individuals. Even in my darkest moments this winter, feeling like I was painted into a corner, out of reach from any help or hope, that I still had self-rescue tools at my disposal. These tools were the words of friends and family logged into my memory banks over the years. The random acts of kindness and the example set by Good Humans throughout the course of my life. The resilience of the warriors that I work with who have faced adversity on the battlefields and at home that I can only pretend to imagine. Even when no one is coming, they are there.
I started writing this over a month ago. I was in a dark, almost bitter place and I imagined the take-away being some resolute toughness aligning with my “nobody cares, work harder” mantra, but as I write, and sit, and think, I realize that it is the care of people, past and present, that make the work possible. It's is the others in my life who have taught me how to self-extricate from the darkness.
We need each other. We need our differences and our solidarity. We need the empathy and compassion that only humans (and most dogs) are capable of. When I started trying to understand how to be effective in helping veterans a few years ago, I asked almost every one that I met what made the most difference for them when they faced their moments of darkness, or what kept them from spiraling downward. Without exception, the veterans that I talked with said it was having the camaraderie of someone who knew. Another vet, another Soldier, Sailor or Marine. Someone who had been there, regardless of the conflict or generation - someone who knew the value and necessity of team. I realized I didn’t have the tools to help these veterans - they needed each other. It’s what drove me to start the shooting team, connecting the vets to each other for the healing and the understanding they need.
We are all veterans of the last 12 months. Those of us left standing have survived the politics, the lockdowns, the virus, the insult to our economy. We’re all still here and we can find the healing and understanding we need from each other. We don’t need to look to Washington DC or Olympia for our salvation, we need to look to our neighbor, our friends, our families. No one is coming. We can self rescue.
