In March, when we started to react to the already serious pandemic, I didn’t really have time to emotionally react as we went directly into online teaching. I mean, I was clearly feeling emotions, but I didn’t have the energy to process them adequately, almost all of my energy went into learning online software like Google classroom and later Zoom. (Also, online video recording and editing software, how to use a green-screen and achieve adequate lighting, staging, online teaching and assessing programs, etc. You get the idea.) It was a lot at once, and the pressure was on to provide as close to classroom-quality as we could. Grading papers wasn’t bad online (we use a software that many educational institutions use called “Canvas.” It provides the tools to create teaching modules, post and collect homework, offer videos and video links, etc.) What was really bad was trying to get students to turn their work in on time. I kid you not, most of my time was spent emailing and re-emailing detailed personalized emails to students, parents, counselors, and administrators trying to catch up with students who had a rough time turning in assignments on time. That, along with everything else, was exhausting and emotionally sapping – big time. That having been said, I am well aware that this was/is an unprecedented time for everyone. Each person responds differently to dealing with stress – and for many people who were experiencing sickness and joblessness in their own families that stress might be translated as trauma. So, I was very willing to “go with the flow” as it were and give students the space that they needed. As long as they got the assignment in, I never counted anything “late.”

Then the school year ended and we finally had some breathing space. The three and a half months of social isolation and the extreme amount of work (at least for me) finally caught up with me. I crashed. I had been dealing with my anxiety during the first phase pretty well, I thought. But when the train screeched to a halt, my depression kicked in full time.  Usually I deal with things by reading, writing, meditating, etc. But, I was so depressed that trying to read put me to sleep, and I found that trying to write was just not going to happen. And, I tend to eat my stress – which was certainly happening. I like to play video games as an escape sometimes, so I reverted to that. For the rest of June, I played a lot of video games, pretty much ignoring my anxiety and depression by placing myself outside of the context of lived reality as I took refuge in the digital world of the game.

Then I started “doomscrolling” through social media. For those of you who don’t know that “doomscrolling” (all one word) means, then I encourage you to Google it. I was seeing things that I had known already, but now I had time to dwell on them in a different way: The rise of white supremacy, human rights violations abounding in our own country, the rise of a different kind of American nationalism, the rejection of science,  unemployment at an all time high – subsuming many of our friends in the process…It all seems so hopeless precisely because we can do nothing about it. Then the protests, and the newly empowered “alt-right” responding to the peaceful protests with violence. Police abuse came into the forefront of the news…and I could go on and on – you know I could. Most of you are mentally filling in everything that I did not write down.
Anxiety and depression are fed by all of the above.

Ideas and realizations hit us at different times. What seems obvious to one person, my not even dawn on another. Every person deals with things in their own way and in their own time. I had the realization this morning that I need to deal with things differently. what we chose to spend time thinking about often shapes our reality. It certainly changes how we respond to bad news and stressful situations. So, I am making a very conscious choice to start to focus more on positive things than negative things. Don’t get me wrong – I still think it is very important to keep up with current events so that if the Federal Government were too start rounding up civilians in unmarked vans we would know about it. (Oh, wait, that is actually happening.) But, even thought we know what is going on, we are not focusing out energy on those things unconstructively.

A very good friend of mine has made it a practice on social media to post what she is grateful for daily. She does it everyday. Sometimes she posts one thing, and sometimes she posts a list of things. But she is consistent with her gratitude practice. I absolutely love that idea.
Instead of posting about what I am grateful for, however, I think that I am going to start a series of posts called “Things that Make Me Happy.” I may change the title, and I am not promising to write everyday. But, I think that this will provide me an opportunity to focus on positive uplifting things even in the darkest of times.


As Albus Dumbledore said, “Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.” – Albus Dumbledore, The Prisoner of Azkaban