Excerpted essay from LET AMERICA LIVE by Stella Immanuel, MD, published by Charisma House, October 2021
By the fall of 2020, I was seeing an explosion of need and numbers in my outpatient psychiatric private practice. It was overwhelming to witness so much suffering in school-aged children. Medications and therapy tools that had worked wonders in the past were not making a dent in treatment. In fact, many patients continued to deteriorate right before my eyes. And this was in Texas, a state that was operating more normally than many other states. Our schools were not shut down for lengthy periods of time. Most businesses were open. Many people were back to work in some capacity. The economy was stable. But I knew this wasn’t normal. And my patients did too.
I worried specifically that this new reality we had created was causing harm. Of course, through my lens as a psychiatrist, I think it was causing more harm than potential benefit. So I began to speak out. I shared thoughts on my social media. I talked to parents, friends and neighbors. Some listened, some brushed me off and others thought I was outright crazy. I began advocating to my local school board, sharing my concerns that school-related COVID protocols were causing more harm than benefit and would lead to long-term mental health consequences in children and teens. Even after countless emails and speeches at local meetings, nothing changed. I felt like no one heard me. No one cared.
The challenge I kept receiving was something I now describe as the Prosperity Fallacy. It was the refrain of “I’m just happy my kids are in school” or “I’m just happy I have a job” or “I’m just happy I have a great home.” While I appreciate a focus on the positive, I was disappointed to hear the constant “good is good enough” message. To me, this was not good. This was a downright scary parallel universe that everyone was living in and pretending was okay. This was a world where we were beginning to normalize child abuse. Yes, masks on children for seven-plus hours a day is child abuse. This was not good at all. What happened? How did we get here?
When trauma becomes more consistent and chronic, we become conditioned to a new level of personal values and expectations. We get conditioned to a “new normal.” Imagine a wife who has suffered abuse at the hands of her husband. She once loved this man. Maybe she has children with this man. She is confused at first by the abuse. “Why?” she asks herself. She loves him and wants what she thinks is best for her children, so she stays with him despite the abuse. Or maybe she truly has no other options for residence or financial resources. So she endures the abuse. Time and again this happens. It takes an average of seven times for someone to leave an abusive loved one. Many more don’t even attempt to escape but live in abuse indefinitely.
Why do we stay in a place of trauma? Why would we actively stay in a place where we are being mistreated? Why would a woman stay with an abusive spouse? Two reasons. First is that her fear of the alternative (living alone with no shelter, no money, no food, etc.) overpowers the fear of the status quo (living in the abuse). Second is that due to chronic trauma, her brain has adapted a response known as “learned helplessness.”
Can we see similarities between the abused wife and the state of our country at large? Again, this is why I began this chapter through the lens of trauma. Without an understanding of trauma, we cannot begin to understand the psychological ramifications of the pandemic.
In a place of trauma that began with the initial lockdowns of March 2020, many individuals were overpowered by a fear of the virus, then with a fear of daily living. Because of the censoring of information about early treatment, the liberal counting of COVID deaths, and endless communication about the pandemic on television and social media, we were programmed to feel bad, selfish, or even amoral if we challenged anything related to protecting the well-being of others. Instead of sharing a matter-of-fact view of the function of the virus, evidence-based prevention strategies, and early treatment protocols, we got never-ending, fear-driven media messages with seemingly one mission: to make us comply. And so many became like the frog slowly boiling in water and not realizing where it was leading.
Interestingly enough, there has been a stronger fight for freedom in states and countries where lockdowns were the worst because I think those residents saw more obviously the harm being done. In states such as Texas that were operating relatively well, individuals adopted this “we should just be happy” mindset: the prosperity fallacy. Just because you are not homeless, filing bankruptcy, ending your marriage or losing a loved one to COVID does not mean you are not suffering. Remember my definition of trauma: it is not defined by the severity of the event but by the subjective neurological interpretation of the event. Trauma has affected all of us, even those of us living in prosperity.
It was the refrain of “I’m just happy my kids are in school” or “I’m just happy I have a job” or “I’m just happy I have a great home.” While I appreciate a focus on the positive, I was disappointed to hear the constant “good is good enough” message.