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For months we have heard this mantra: “For the common good.” We are to isolate ourselves. Close our businesses. Cancel activities. Cancel weddings and postpone funerals. Shut down our schools. Sterilize everything. Cover our faces. All because of a virus (that is highly treatable and for most, curable) and all “for the common good.” The media outlets assault us with images of old people dying and hospitals being “at full capacity” (a largely questioned narrative and rightfully so). We see infection numbers that seem to change in the ways of the wind and moon.
Once the images and numbers settle, we are left with the common mantra again: “For the common good.”
And yet, who belongs in that “common good” category?
Do you?
Do I and my family for that matter?
Hmmm…
Let me tell you how this world-wide lock-down has impacted me and my family.
I am a survivor of sexual assault. More than once, I might add. As such, I experience severe claustrophobia and panic when I have ANYTHING near my face and neck area. Yes, that includes turtle necks. I also have a sinus condition. Combine those experiences and I am someone for whom wearing a mask is a challenge. Let me rephrase that: It is a HUGE challenge. And yet do it I must – in certain situations – if I want to feed my family and NOT be verbally attacked by someone who thinks I am not wearing it correctly much less wearing one at all – which has happened several times. Most stores around here do not offer pick up or delivery services. The delivery services – when allowed – are expensive. There are delivery fees and you are expected to tip. And every single delivery service does not take our family’s main form of food payment: EBT. So most of our grocery store visits require in-person shopping. I have a spouse who has similar claustrophobia issues along with breathing issues. Wearing a mask for him presents the same challenge.
For both of us, our panic and claustrophobia have increased markedly since this all began. Before entering a store with a mask requires us to both self soothe and prepare ourselves for potential verbal attack by a customer who chastises us for dropping it down (to take a moment or two to breathe) or for wearing it, in their mind, “improperly”. We must also mentally prepare ourselves to keep that face covering on our face fighting the bodily response that screams to TAKE IT OF TAKE IT OFF.
Four weeks before this all began, I had finally found someone locally who treats PTSD using the modality I had been seeking. She was forced to close her business due to the lock down. As Morpheus says, life is not without a sense of irony.
But we are doing this “for the common good”, right?
Take our daughter. She has had all of her activities cancelled. She has been denied the right to play with friends in the way she once did (and that is not due to OUR decision but due to the decision of her friends parents who are absolutely trapped in fear over this virus). She has dealt with an increase in anxiety and depression. Regularly she cries. She wants to go back to seeing her friends. She wants to participate in her roller-blading activities again. Again – NONE of these decisions to stop her from participating came from myself or her dad. But still – try telling that to a child who is in tears. She is brilliant and wise – but she is still a child.
But hey, we are doing this “for the common good”, right?
Let’s talk about that term now, shall we?
For my story – for our story – there are hundreds of thousands – millions of similar other stories. Untold suffering. Untold loss. Businesses closed. Livelihoods lost. Domestic violence up. Suicides up. Drug abuse up. I recently spoke with a Counselor who agreed with these increases. She has seen huge increases with her clients experiencing anxiety and depression.
What about these stories? These people? These children? Don’t they matter too?
They better if you really believe you are doing this “for the common good.”
And if you DO feel in your heart they matter too, then it is far past time to look at the end result of these lock downs and command an end to them. For these stories are only increasing and will continue to increase in numbers until we are living a truly dystopian experience where we are all afraid to leave our homes.
Makes you think perhaps that was the plan all along, doesn’t it?
