COVID Denial
I don’t do denial.
It’s not my go-to defense. Intellectualizing? Yes. Obsessing? Yes. Controlling my surroundings? Yes.
But denial? Nah. I prefer to do my best to engage with reality.
Except.
In these times, I have been amazed at how surreal my relationship with COVID has been. I routinely forget to stay 6 feet away from people. I often have to retrace my steps to grab my mask, which I forgot when I left the house. When it’s time to quarantine, my mind becomes a whirling mass of mush.
I think I’m in COVID denial.
And I think I’m in denial for at least three important reasons:
I am overwhelmed.
I feel uncontained.
Reality seems unstable.
I am overwhelmed with conflicting and constantly changing information. It has been impossible for me to organize all of the information into a reliable sense of how to proceed at any given moment. This chronic confusion, even as the COVID dust clears, has become my mental way of life.
Related to the information overload is the experience of being un-held. Our President is not containing the virus; he is not making rational or reliable decisions; he is not leading the states, so they are having a hard time leading us; and, worse than all of this, perhaps, he is adding to the confusion by lying, diverting, and going on the attack. That is, Trump is himself constitutionally uncontained, and his actions invite uncontained behavior from others.
This is not a political statement.
It is a statement of fact.
Related to both of these is the fact that we are living in a time of contradictory, non-overlapping realities. Here’s a sample:
Students are missing out on the developmental benefits of schooling and being together.
States are re-opening economically.
Schools are expected to provide needed child care while parents re-open the economy (and, in many cases, work desperately to keep their homes and put food on their tables).
Everyone — every single one of us — is at risk of contracting a disease we don’t fully understand and could easily die from.
Everyone — every single one of us — could spread the disease and cause the deaths of people we love and people we don’t even know.
My response to these incommensurate realities? Possibly your response? At least to some degree? COVID denial.
And, for many teachers, terror.