We're All Fucking Crazy!!!!!!! AHHHHH!!!
[LINK DROP] Yes it's the pandemic. And the internet. And cars. And everything else. Yes!!!
-The BBC reported on a shoddy study (truly, the methodology is atrocious) that claimed that most people’s mental health wasn’t negatively affected by the pandemic, which led to a host of funny replies about how truly insane everyone has become (I remember making a unabomber-ass package filled with instant yeast to send to a friend across the country so that they could bake bread when everyone was making a bank run on supermarket yeast , lol) .
But one serious tweet that’s stuck with me from the whole saga is this one.
I think Ryan is essentially right. Whatever your views on government action (or inaction) during the pandemic, I think being locked in your house for weeks or months on end, or forced to work while knowing people were dying around you, or simply being asked to move on and kind of pretend the whole thing never happened, is enough to drive you insane! I’ve heard from lots of people about how road rage seems worse, about how people seem less friendly, about how everyone seems a bit…off. To which I say, duh! We’re all like, traumatized or whatever.
Our collective inability to recognize trauma, to admit that we’re feeling a bit insane, to admit we are affected by the world, is something that extends far beyond the pandemic. We’re encouraged to shut up about the world, to let it roll off our backs (like ducks, quack quack), because if we were to individually admit just how mentally fucked the world is making us, it would require a collective reckoning so immense that the world would explode. We’d at least have to have conversations about what we want the world to look like, and realize that we don’t want it to look like this. So keep being insane, friends, and keep ensuring you don’t let the world silently weigh on your shoulders. Not to sound too Jewish, but there is power in complaining.