HOW TO PREPARE FOR THE STORM AHEAD
DEAR SKIPPER JENN
Much like Dear Abby, or my favorite, Dear Sugar, this newsletter series is about questions and answers. I invite sailors to e-mail me with their questions and I will do my best to pick and answer those that reflect topics and themes that are important to our community. All questions will remain anonymous.
Dear Skipper Jenn,
Please explain to me how to cope this year. With sailing season ending and the US elections coming up, I am not sure I can take anymore.
Signed, WTF 2020?!
Dear WTF 2020,
I hear you. I think the clinical diagnosis for this year is shit-storm. This global pandemic is a collective trauma and an ongoing grief and loss process with consistent uncertainty. Everyone is impacted and experiencing stress in one way or another. Whatever our issues were pre-pandemic, whatever our habitual coping strategies for better or worse—COVID-19 has turned up the volume.
No one can predict the future, but disaster response research and data have given us a pretty good outline of what to expect for our mental health, and what to do about it. Here's the bad news: we will most likely be in and out of quarantine for the next 2-5 years, or until we get an effective vaccine. Here’s the good news: we can predict the behavioral and emotional phases we will potentially go through and prepare for this ongoing shit-storm as best as we can. I do not report the following to bring more fear, but to educate. We are sailors. The forecast is bad, but we have navigation on how to batten down the hatches and gather the right mental and emotional supplies.
Our brains and bodies are designed to keep us safe. Part of safety is routine, structure, and planning. Our brains naturally perseverate to run through possible outcomes in life. This is a fancy word for thinking about all the “what-if” scenarios. Perseveration allows us to imagine and prepare for the future. Too much perseveration, and you can quickly spiral into the doomsday realm of anxiety. This is because our brains naturally tend to focus on challenges and problems for survival strategies, an experience called negativity bias. Folks like me, with anxiety disorders, are especially good at this. It’s been a rough year trying not to think about death and the end of the world every 20 seconds.
One of my favorite terms during this past seven months has been allostatic load. It makes me feel super nerdy, and describes the experience I keep having of losing things right in front of me, forgetting obvious words, trying desperately to focus without success, and this pervasive ongoing fatigue, yet inability to sleep well. Allostatic load is essentially your brain responding to chronic stress. An important reminder is to go easy on yourself and be kind, this year is hard. Sadly, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, the shit-storm is going to continue.
In the US, we started the pandemic in full force with what disaster response researchers call, “the impact event”, in March. This is when we realized the virus was serious and we had to do something. The first phase was called “heroic”—agencies and helpers adrenalized to the call of need. From April-May was the “honeymoon phase,” based-off the newness of the situation and community cohesion. We started to settle into a strange “new normal”. “Honeymoon” sounds out of place, considering I had to up my anti-anxiety meds and fill a new script for sleep aides. Many folks experienced headaches, disturbed sleep, stomach aches and an impending sense of doom that led to panic over the coming days, weeks and months.
By June, we headed into the “acting out phase of disillusionment.” This was when some folks reached their limit of baking bread and binging Netflix. Many threw caution to the wind, leaving home to socialize and have fun come hell or high water. All summer at the beach by my marina, crowds of people partied and played day and night with no masks and no care. I became increasingly angry and irritable, seeing folks with no masks returning my sassy gaze. Judgmental thoughts and rage popped up on all sides, fueled by the divisiveness of cultural ideologies and different lifestyles. Conflict in our homes, with family, and online increased. The pandemic had us all paying attention to the news more than ever. The murder of George Floyd hi-lighted the deep power inequalities and ongoing violence in the US toward black people. Justified anger moved onto the streets with protests against racism and police violence. As a therapist and trauma specialist, I was not surprised. Trauma pushes people through thresholds; it can bring about clarity, priorities, and action like nothing else. When things fall apart there is great opportunity for something new and better to arise.
As we head into fall, we will be diving deeper into the “disillusionment phase.” Folks are already realizing we are not going back to the way things were—ever. The truth of a permanently changed world is setting in, bringing with it more grief. As the days get darker and colder in northern climates, it will be hard to see what that new normal is in the heart of winter as we shelter from the cold and the virus. On top of that, the presidential election here in the States, and the holidays soon after will cause a cascade of further stress. Research shows that addictions will rise significantly. Depression, anxiety and suicidality will increase, and sadly domestic violence will rise. If you or a loved one struggle with any of these, please seek professional help and be especially proactive.
To your main question WTF2020, the key to getting through this storm will be cultivating resilience. Many folks think of resilience as the ability to adapt, or to have grit to get through something hard and bounce back. That certainly can be part of it. In Psychology, we have well-researched lists and criteria for how to assess and grow your resilience. There are a lot of factors, but I am going to outline the big ones.
The main known factor of resilience is community and connection. The quality of your personal relationships has the biggest impact on your health. Loneliness is not only hard on mental health, it can make people physically ill. This is why the pandemic has been particularly traumatizing for folks—social distancing orders prevented us from contact we desperately need for our health.
Know who your people are, reach out and connect with them often. Bring in new people and get creative on how to socialize and be supportive in new ways. Have boundaries for people or social platforms that bring you down or are toxic. Consider therapy. Individual, family and marriage counselors are filling up at the moment and I am glad to see it. If ever there was a time to learn how to cope and communicate together better, it is now.
This leads to another major part of resilience: learn active coping skills for stress and practice them. Active coping skills are simple things like getting enough sleep, eating well, hydrating, and exercise. They are mental exercises to redirect your thoughts and calm your body. It is the ability to recognize, name, feel and soothe your emotions, and communicate your needs. Active coping is allowing yourself to be vulnerable and ASKING FOR HELP when you need it.
Another aspect of cultivating resilience is growing your emotional intelligence to what is sometimes called “emotional plurality;” or acknowledging and experiencing the “both/and” of life. 2020 is ripe with opportunities for this. I can be completely full of dread and laying on my cabin floor ugly crying listening to Beyonce and eating multiple cupcakes, while also being indebtedly grateful and joyous that I live on a boat in a beautiful natural world with Beyonce and oh so delicious cupcakes. So, WTF 2020, find the joy and savor it. Remember to notice the good whenever you can, no matter how simple, to balance out the ongoing shit-storm part of this year.
The final part of building resilience is creating meaning and purpose in your life. Many folks have trouble with this and feel pressure. Often people think it means they have to do something big like saving lives, creating something amazing for the masses, or self-sacrificing for a cause. Many in the USA relate it to career, productivity, and agency. While it can be all of those things, not everyone finds their purpose in their livelihood. In fact, most don’t. For most people their meaning in life is simple, and often relational, leading us back to the community and connection piece. Relationships and life experiences give us more happiness than money, status, or stuff. Meaning and purpose can be tending your garden and making delicious meals to share, working on your boat and taking loved ones for a sail (with masks on), or being an amazing dog mom. It can be your lifestyle or beliefs, it can be an intention and practice of kindness. Lord knows we need more of that these days. In short, meaning and purpose can be a quiet yet solid framework for how you live your life, not what you do in your life.
The good news WTF 2020, is that by spring we will be at a year mark, sailing season will open again, and without any further major impact events, we will be actively figuring out the new normal post COVID-19. Only 4-6% of the population generally has ongoing post-traumatic stress from disaster events. Most of us will mentally and emotionally recover. Some of us will even come through thriving, having created greater connection, coping, joy, and purpose in our lives. 2020 may be a WTF shit-storm, but in every epic, “the boat is going sideways sailing story,” there is potential for amazing character arcs and unforeseen heroics and adaptations to happen. The foundation to weather this storm will be from actively growing resilience in yourself and with your community. Like we would at sea, keep a keen eye on those who are disadvantaged or struggling, and look for how we can support. We are in this together, let’s create a better, kinder, more interconnected and just world moving forward.
From Women Who Sail Newsletter | Issue 2. | september 2020.
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Skipper Jenn
Jenn Harkness is a human being, artist, coach, therapist, writer, friend, mermaid, student of life and lover of all shine and sparkle. She is also Editor-in-Chief of the WWS Newsletter. You can find more of my writing over at skipperjenn.com. While I am a mental health counselor and life coach, and have expertise on human behavior and social dynamics, this series is not intended to be mental health treatment. If you are struggling, please seek personal professional help. Everyone needs support sometimes, being human is weird, complicated and can be hard. May we all sail in peace.