Dear Janel:

As you can see, I took way more than 10 hours to reply. As a matter of fact, I postpone replying to your thread all morning and it is only after I ran out of threads to respond to, that I am back to your thread. The reason: the topic scares the h*** out of me and it is never far from my mind for long: global warming (expanding global drought and extreme weather events that are getting worse and more frequent while there is no reality-based reason for optimism) as well as nuclear disaster.

“The fact that people aren’t talking about the grimness of our current situation adds to the dystopian Twilight Zone feel and makes me feel so incredibly lonely“- people are not talking because they too are scared. I see it in real-life. Denying danger lowers anxiety. In cases where there is nothing for an individual to do about a clear-and-present danger… denial has a positive value.

In regard to the two topics, it’s all in the hands of people in positions of power and not at all in the hands of most people, people like me. Therefore, I see a positive value to denial. I can’t muster full denial, but partial denial as in not thinking about it all the time and accommodating others’ denials by not bringing these two topics up… it’s the kind thing to do.

“I’m a late 40-something woman who endured severe trauma and abuse at the hands of my father until I was 17. As a result I’ve struggled with anxiety, OCD tendencies and dissociative episodes for most of my adult life. My anxiety has been an amorphous presence in my life for decades“- similarly here, add 10 years and substitute father with mother.

While thinking in the last few years about massive human annihilation as a result of droughts and/ or more recently,  as a result a global nuclear disaster, it became clear to me that my fear of my mother when living with her, and the amorphous presence of my fear of her (I like your phrasing) long after she’s no longer been a clear-and-present danger in my life- has  been more powerful than my fear of the clear and present dangers that currently threaten humanity and all of life on earth.

“Since February 24th when Russia invaded Ukraine, all my childhood nightmares about nuclear Holocaust have resurrected and I’ve had trouble functioning in many areas of my life because of it“- your use of the word holocaust reminds me that when I was a teenager, decades before I was concerned with global warming, and while not having nuclear disaster on my mind, I referred to my childhood as my private holocaust and thought of my mother as my private SS guard.

“I feel a similar sense of rage of powerlessness, now, at this moment, as I watch our government escalate this war to the brink of global annihilation. Billions for war while the unhoused people I help in my city live on sidewalks and have no access to mental health resources, food, healthcare etc.“- I agree. The war industry is an industry like many other industries: its concern is nothing other than financial profit. It is greed (the desire for power in terms of money and otherwise) that is and has been destroying our world, and how scary it is when individuals in very powerful positions are … the most greedy.

“I feel a similar sense of rage…  I’m just so sad and scared and not sure what to do“- rage is closely associated with fear. This is one of the reasons I personally don’t talk about the clear and present dangers to our world with people who cannot make a difference (all the people I know belong to this group): it will make them sad and scared… and angry at me for bringing it up, rageful perhaps.

This fear though, the fear of the clear and present dangers to us all… it makes me feel more alive: I look out through the window right now, the sun is shining pleasantly, trees, still green… and I think: how lovely, how interesting to have yet another day.

anita