I'm going to spoil the ending of the limited series, Dopesick, so fair warning. I'm only semi-serious, of course, since the "end" is still playing out in court but I'm talking about the actual series here, which I didn't know how they'd end. Turns out they found the perfect ending, and I can't stop thinking about it.
They offered the possibility that maybe we should stop trying to stop feeling pain.
I offer it here not just as an answer to the opioid epidemic, but also in response to the pandemic, the political divides, the many divides that we're finding as a way to separate ourselves: working mom vs stay at home mom, mom versus childfree, married versus single - which are all relatively harmless, especially when compared to some of the horrific dividers that have gotten people killed: racism, misogyny, and the prejudices that have started wars.
I saw a headline of an opinion piece that school shutdowns are "only hurting children," which of course, is problematic since shutdowns might also be saving lives. But it's the prime example of what is happening: it's someone else crying for us to pay attention to their pain, their plight.
We're all in pain, we're all suffering in one way or another. Because we're in a pandemic!
But even if we weren't, each of us has suffered some sort of trauma, some sort of longing, some desire to connect with others. What I find sad is that in this moment, when we're all suffering, instead of coming together, there are so many that are trying to find someone to blame. We're all to blame, no one is to blame...did I mention we're in a pandemic?
Particularly us Americans, we mistake our right to "pursue happiness" as some sort of promise that no one should ever cause us unhappiness. And that if they do, someone will pay.
I work in the legal profession: I understand and appreciate on a daily level our constitutional rights that include our day in court...WHEN someone has committed a crime. Causing us unhappiness is not, in fact, a crime.
And I confess, I do it, too. I place blame on anti-vaxxers for prolonging the pandemic. But even if I do, and even though I have wondered if there's a way for them to "stand trial," I know that's futile. So I vent with my friends and then I go about my day.
We're allowed to feel our pain, our anger, and our sadness when we feel loss. But we should also recognize that pain is part of life.
We have to stop denying that. We have to stop fighting it. We have to recognize our trauma, our pain, so that we can properly heal.
We don't heal by yelling in people's face to take off or put on a mask. We don't heal by hiring bot farms to attack someone on social media. We don't heal when we numb the pain with drugs, alcohol, or even retail therapy.
We can only start to heal when we face our pain, our trauma. When we reach out to friends or mental health professionals that we need help. And it does help to get outside of ourselves and help someone else, if we can.
