tortoise
Wild Hare
1. Isolation - We might not see everyone we want to see, the way we want to see them, but that doesn't mean we are isolated. You choose how much you use your available options for social contact. How choose how to think and feel about those options determines whether you will experience loneliness or solitude.
2. Monopolization of perception - turn off the news, walk away from social media, don't participate in conversations on the topic. You choose what you pay attention to.
3. Humiliation - people with disabilities have struggled with mask requirements, sometimes from confusion and misdirected attempts at enforcing it, and I think those with hearing impairments have been most affected, but as Eleanor Roosevelt said, "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent."
4. Exhaustion - You choose what you do. If you are physically exhausted, no one is forcing you to continue moving. Your choice of how to think and feel about a situation determines your body's response. If you choose to breathe deeply with a repetitive experience (a thought, mantra, movement, etc), your body will change it's physiologic state and begin to rest. With the exception of people with diseases that impair this response or ability to sleep, how rested (or exhausted) you feel is within your control.
5. Threats - There are none. Fines are not threats of violence or harm, nor are they causing immediate fear to compel people to act against their will. You can choose to think about situations in ways that cause fear, or you can choose to think differently and not experience it as a threat.
6. Occasional indulgences - The data about chocolate sales, weight loss and fitness product sales, alcohol sales and interest in AA type programs, and business casual workwear rapidly changing to favor comfort over fashion says it pretty clearly: Most of the population is overindulging - fairly continuously. You have the choice to indulge - or not.
7. Demonstrating omnipotence - You always choose how to respond. If you didn't like the tone of a speech, turn off the radio/device or walk away. Scientists have been clear about what is known, what is not known, and what is assumed. You choose who to listen to. If you don't like omnipotence, try following science instead.
8. Forcing trivial demands - There has been little enforcement, in fact, many of the state travel restrictions don't have any consequence. Data shows that limiting travel was successfull in slowing COVID spread in areas where people actually limited travel. This shows that the "demand" was not trivial, and it was not forced. People chose whether to comply or not.
If you (general you, not specifically the person quoted above) are feeling coerced, you're doing it to yourself. If you're feeling this way in response to COVID, how prepared are you - mentally and emotionally - for a real SHTF situation? Being self-sufficient isn't all about growing veggies and having a bugout bag. If you don't have mental resources to handle situations and cooperate, how self-sufficient can you really be?
COVID is teaching us about preparing for emergencies, disasters, and SHTF. We've learned how unpredictable supply chain disruptions are, how irrational many people are, how inequitable the effects are. But we've also learned that mental health is a mostly a skill, that can be learned, and has been neglected.
Let's stop neglecting mental health as a skill, focus on what we can control, and get back to the topic of this thread - emergency preparedness.
It took me 3 years of weekly sessions of cognitive behavioral therapy. It os the gift that keeps giving. I am so much more resilient because of it. My mental health is much better. I'm not an anxious person anymore - which makes me much more SS.
