Bounce! A Therapist’s New Year Resolution for Tough Times
By: Martha Manning
Tags: Resilience, Mental Health, Stress, Coronavirus, New Year

Let’s face it. We are in a collective and personal crisis. It’s been going on for almost a year, and though there are reasons for optimism, their impact won’t be felt for quite a while. The Covid pandemic has conspired with the ugliest and sometimes frightening political and cultural issues of our history.

It’s like the band-aid that has covered several wounds, has been ripped off, and we are left with all our hurts exposed and not yet healed. A vulnerable wound is at risk for more pain, as well as the potential for new complications like spreading or infection.

As a therapist and a person who already suffers from mental illness, I can testify about this vulnerability, combined with uncertainty about how to keep my equilibrium. I am not alone.

Mental health problems are real and common

In the past several months, the toll of the pandemic on mental health has received more attention and is alarming in its sweeping and growing impact on people who already suffer from mental illness, as well as those who never have.

A study by the CDC in late June showed that 40.9% of people reported at least one mental health complaint, and there were significant increases in anxiety, depression, a worsening of previous trauma, and an increase in substance abuse. They judged their symptoms to be 3–4 times what they’d been the year before. One of the most disturbing findings was that almost 11% reported seriously thinking about suicide. Across a number of studies, 18–30 year-olds report high levels of significant distress in a number of areas, reporting dramatic increases in depression, anxiety and loneliness. These numbers are likely to rise for several reasons:

Symptoms of distress don’t stay static over time. Untreated, they often worsen with time. It is not a good thing to expect to acclimate to them.

The impact of stress on mental health doesn’t just magically disappear once difficult circumstances abate. In fact, often, when things calm down, symptoms can worsen, as in the occurrence of post-traumatic stress disorders

Effective, affordable mental health services are unavailable to most people in the best of times.

We are stressed in an incomprehensible range of ways:

the illness itself, with psychiatric and neurological syndromes that will likely be more apparent over time, with more research.

protracted recovery and uncertainty after illness

constricting rules involving separation and isolation which influence covid patient and loved ones

financial reversals that are far-reaching and sometimes permanent

need to work at low pay, low benefit jobs classified as necessary

overworked healers who battle the illness and the inundation of limited resources, leading to exhaustion and powerlessness.

disruption of the rituals that make life expectable and controllable, such as going to school every day.

To make it worse

As individuals and as a culture, we have always had ways of dealing with the experience of stress and loss. They don’t take away the pain. But they help us get through it.

The cruelest blow in our current situation is that the things that usually help us through hard times aren’t available

For example

Religions, cultures and families observe traditions of bereavement that are remarkably similar. They include a recognition of the death, a memorialization in the form of rituals in which friends and family walk through the initial stages of grief together through a variety of practices. The shared grief and social support are integral to the healing process. One after the other, the announcement of people’s deaths includes statements about how these events will be deferred until after the pandemic subsides. This leaves us in suspended animation grief, which is very unsettling.

On an individual level, many people have found that exercise is helpful in managing stress. Closing gyms, swimming pools, exercise rooms in apartments reduce access to good habits. To make things more difficult, the cold weather is now making outdoor exercise more challenging. Even physical therapy and massage therapy may be curtailed. We may also let our decent nutrition behavior go. In a domino effect, sleep may also suffer. Disruptions in our basic rhythms is both a cause and an effect of the stress we experience and wears us down over time.

Photo by Michael Walter on Unsplash

Think of yourself as a rubber band

Imagine a new rubber band around your wrist. Pull it just a bit and it will give your skin a pop. Now imagine it as time goes by. It loses its elasticity or resilience. You will need to pull on it harder, until no matter how much effort you make, it sags on your wrist, or breaks entirely.

This is what stress does to our mental health. Sometimes without knowing how or when, we find ourselves working harder to make less progress. We become less able to bend, stretch, go with the flow. Whatever things we expect of ourselves become harder, or impossible to do. We are frayed and weak.

It’s hard to recover our elasticity once it’s gone.

And the thing is, we often don’t recognize the harm until it happens. Yes, there are lightning strikes that hit us (like an anxiety attack or an outburst of anger or tears). Wow! “Where did that come from?” we ask ourselves. It gets our attention as a signal of stress.

But stress doesn’t always present with drama. Thunder, lightning, and pounding rain are recognizable signs that a storm is happening. But sometimes a “storm” that is even stronger is going on without our notice. Think of a steady, light rain landing on the soil for a long time. Its impact doesn’t register until the soil can’t take anymore and the water floods and destroys.

Bounce

Photo by Samuel-Elias Nadler on Unsplash

Resilience is the way we come back from the small and huge insults to our equilibrium

1. Cut yourself some slack

Lower your expectations of yourself. This isn’t the year for a lot of ambitious resolutions for change. Sometimes you have to just “coast.” We are all in situations in which we must deal with illness, death, separation, loss, constriction of normal life, uncertainty, hostility, political confusion and dramatic divisions, and no clear sense of an ending. How could we not be thrown off? Something has squashed the ball and there isn’t enough air for a good strong bounce, so we adjust. Maybe we can toss it up in the air, rather than throw it down on the floor.

2. “Dare to be Average”

Psychiatrist David Burns, in his book Feeling Good coined that wonderful phrase. We need to change our expectations of ourselves when they are unrealistically high, or the situation is too demanding so we don’t feel constantly angry at ourselves. In the words of composer Stephan Sondheim in his musical “Bounce,” — “You needn’t have brilliance, just resilience.”

3. Maximize your sense of control in an out- of- control situation.

Get real. This is a bad time. You have to be Superman not to be negatively affected. Do things that make you feel competent. Do what the experts tell you to do. This will end. But it isn’t a sprint. It’s a marathon, requiring new skills, endurance, flexibility and patience.

Be informed, but not overwhelmed . Exposure to too much media has been identified as a common stressor. It’s just too much.

. Exposure to too much media has been identified as a common stressor. It’s just too much. Identify areas in which you feel most vulnerable , for example, isolation increased anxiety, loss of “anchors” during the day with a lack of structure.

, for example, isolation increased anxiety, loss of “anchors” during the day with a lack of structure. For each vulnerability, set goals to deal with the stress that collapses your coping, and deflates you. Set a limit on the amount of time you spend with media coverage of the pandemic and/or the current political chaos. Social media may be appealing, but it, too, can lead to overload, especially when the content is aggressive or conflicting.

Take charge

Redesign your life to fit your current situations. Flexibility is imperative in maintaining resilience.

Set a schedule — keep sleep and eating in regular rhythms.

keep sleep and eating in regular rhythms. Distraction — there’s nothing wrong with “escape” (watching a movie, reading, trying your hand at creative activities (even if you suck, painting or constructing, even “coloring books, allow you important “shifts) to interrupt stressful states.

— there’s nothing wrong with “escape” (watching a movie, reading, trying your hand at creative activities (even if you suck, painting or constructing, even “coloring books, allow you important “shifts) to interrupt stressful states. Substitution — learn something new, try different things. Pick up a new language, discover music that’s different from your usual. Cook. Keep a large puzzle “in process” on the table. Pets, from dogs to goldfish ease isolation, introduce an original element into your constrained existence, and provide their own “social support.”

— learn something new, try different things. Pick up a new language, discover music that’s different from your usual. Cook. Keep a large puzzle “in process” on the table. Pets, from dogs to goldfish ease isolation, introduce an original element into your constrained existence, and provide their own “social support.” Move — even though exercise is more challenging, there are exercise programs online, on television. Be creative, walk the halls of your apartment building. Dress warmly and walk. The upside of this is that it can combine with social interaction by including a “walking buddy.”

— even though exercise is more challenging, there are exercise programs online, on television. Be creative, walk the halls of your apartment building. Dress warmly and walk. The upside of this is that it can combine with social interaction by including a “walking buddy.” Connect — even with social distancing, it is imperative to maintain human contact with family, friends and work associates. Contact online with social support groups can be helpful. You may have to experiment to find one you like.

— even with social distancing, it is imperative to maintain human contact with family, friends and work associates. Contact online with social support groups can be helpful. You may have to experiment to find one you like. Be vigilant — Even if you have no history of mental health issues, you are still vulnerable. Pay attention to problems with your sleep, anxiety, depression, obsessive thinking. If you see these things worsen, remember that your reactions make sense. They arise from a perfect storm of influences that make most people distressed. They are uncomfortable, but they are likely to resolve. Self-help approaches like meditation, breathing techniques, prayer, and contact with others can be helpful.

— Even if you have no history of mental health issues, you are still vulnerable. Pay attention to problems with your sleep, anxiety, depression, obsessive thinking. If you see these things worsen, remember that your reactions make sense. They arise from a perfect storm of influences that make most people distressed. They are uncomfortable, but they are likely to resolve. Self-help approaches like meditation, breathing techniques, prayer, and contact with others can be helpful. But — if these feelings interfere with your general sense of well-being, you might want to seek mental health intervention. If you have a history of mental illness, you are at increased risk of exacerbation of your symptoms. Stay on top of your current treatment.

if these feelings interfere with your general sense of well-being, you might want to seek mental health intervention. If you have a history of mental illness, you are at increased risk of exacerbation of your symptoms. Stay on top of your current treatment. Consult — the wide variety of mental health resources online to give information about the virus, coping with the stressors of the pandemic, and locating national and local organizations that can be helpful in educating, and also connecting you to care when you find you need more structured mental health treatment.

Compassion

One of the major components of resilience is compassion. We need to exercise empathy for people who are stressed similarly or worse than we are. To mangle Shakespeare, I would add the adage, “To thine own self be kind.” We will emerge from this long nightmare. But it’s not going to be quick or easy. So we have to “chill.” We have no choice.

With this new year, it’s time to learn to bounce. In the lyrics of the play, “Bounce” by Stephen Sondheim, he gives some hints.

“Don’t dwell on the times

that you fail

Remember the times

When you said

Find a new road —

Forge a new trail — Bounce.”

Happier New Year!