Thursday, July 10, 2014

On the value of denial, and the importance of acknowledgment

There are rockets falling all around me.

Last night, I set my alarm for 7:50 this morning (I know, it's late, and I'm spoiled. I get it. I'm also very pregnant and able to set my own hours.).

At 7:58, I was brushing my teeth when the siren went off. I was still in that liminal state--not yet dressed, no shoes on, moving slowly, when I had to hustle to find shoes I could hustle in, something to wear around my neighbors, and get my keys and myself downstairs within 90 seconds.

On the way down the stairs to the shelter, I saw that there was a bus that had stopped outside our building, and people were coming off--one was a woman with a baby in her arms running to the closest building--ours. I opened the building's door (normally locked) for her and we got into the shelter about three seconds after the boom.

Five? Ten? Some minutes later, I bade my neighbors farewell and went to finish (start?) getting ready for the day. I packed my lunch, put on make-up, got dressed, and here I am in my office, about an hour later. That's what life is like, now, with rockets falling.

But in some sense, there have been rockets falling for some time--those of bad news in absurd proportions. I'm like the world's worst broken record these last 18 months or so.

And over that time, I've learned two lessons, which apply as well to actual rockets as to metaphorical ones, sometimes called crises.

1) Denial is a great tool to help you do what you need to do.

2) Acknowledgment of what's happening by those around you is really, really important.

Last August, we got some bad news about someone I love. I literally collapsed into a pile of tears when I heard. The person only wanted cheery messages. I didn't get it--why cheery messages, when bad things were happening? Didn't she understand that BAD THINGS WERE HAPPENING?

Sad messages don't stop bad things. Neither do sad movies. They just make a person more sad, between dodging rockets, when they're trying to handle their life.

Some months ago, someone I considered a friend essentially told me that in the midst of the worst news I had ever received, I should really be acting differently--that my watching sitcoms, reading trash and trying to focus on other things were wrong.

She has no idea.

It's not like if you watch Schindler's List, and Titanic and some horror films, you can negotiate with illness. You don't get a pass out of depression if you read enough sad memoirs, and listening to sad music won't make the rockets stop falling.

You know what does help? Denial. When you're in your car driving home from work and a siren sounds (meaning: rocket, headed for you NOW) for the first time in years, and you have to weigh whether to pull over or keep going, knowing that you move slower now because of your growing belly and the risk inherent to pulling over on the highway, you can let the tears well up for about half a second. You can ask yourself how you will raise your child here, how you will teach him of things he should never learn. You have time to ask that one question. I know, since it happened, the day before yesterday.

Then you pull yourself together, and make a decision. You tell yourself things will be fine and you do what you need to.

Even with rockets falling, you have to get through a day. Offices don't close because a few times a day for a few minutes you stand in a bomb shelter, and the person at the supermarket doesn't give you a free pass because you're living a nightmare she has no idea of. There are no "park close to the store because you've been in the hospital for 12 hours" signs. The pharmacy doesn't have a separate line for the worst time in your life. There is no express lane for crisis.

So you tell yourself it will be ok, and you do what you have to do. You go into the bomb shelter, you get to work, you carry on. You deny, until you can't. I'm not a mental health professional and you have to let down and deal with your stuff at some point, but on a day to day basis, denial works really well to get you from one point to the next.

Which brings me to my next point. Acknowledgment.

I'm trying really, really, really hard, but I'm having a hard time fathoming the people who aren't saying anything about what's going on right now, where I live, in Israel, far from the territories, in a pretty much undisputed area right by Tel Aviv. On Yom Ha'atzmaut, or when Waze is sold, these folks are proud, but now? Or when Muhammad Abu Khdeir was killed, they were horrified, and now, nothing? When rockets are falling on me, and they're far away? A deafening silence.

That's true for crises, too. "I don't know what to say." "I didn't know what to say." So you say nothing. I get it. This stuff is hard. There's no "sorry rockets are falling on you" Hallmark card.

But you know what there is? Whatsapp, where a friend just sent a message saying "I'm really sorry this is happening. It must be so scary." There's Facebook, where you can post messages of solidarity and let me know that you don't think it's ok that people are trying to kill me several times a day, regardless of what you think of the rest of the situation (which, to be clear, I don't like, either).

Acknowledgment says "I see your suffering." Acknowledgment says "I get it" or "I'm trying to get it" or "I'm really sorry I don't get it, but I'm sorry you're dealing with this."

It's not complicated. But it makes a hell of a difference.

Because whether you pull over or keep driving, when you have to make it through another day that's guaranteed to be difficult, whatever--knowing that you're not alone really helps.  You have the ability to deny what's happening, so long as the people around you acknowledge it. When they don't, you can start to feel crazy.

I don't ever want to be a person who's unfazed by rockets falling. I don't want you to be, either. Someone near you is sick? You're getting a divorce? Running for shelter before you've put on deodorant? These things should throw us for a loop. They are not ok.

And you are not crazy. I get it. I feel your pain. I acknowledge you. And whatever it is, I'm sorry you're dealing with it. Your watching sitcoms, reading trashy novels or running for hours doesn't make your tragedy less.

Denial and acknowledgment. The ways I'm surviving the latest round of rockets.

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