Sometimes understanding the nature of the pain is a step towards coping with it.
There is no doubt about it . . . living in the time of recession sucks. I figure that I have lived through four of them, and I will probably live through another four of them in my life time. Four more opportunities to survive the pain.
No amount of cheap platitudes is going to take away the emotional pain of a recession. A recession is a time period where we survive in the very sense of the word.
A recession has the same emotional effect as a dysfunctional Christmas or living in a city on the Atlantic Coast waiting for a hurricane to see if the city will be destroyed. It is all you hear about. It is all that the media seems to talk about, and the music can reflect the time (the group Matchbox 20 has some empathetic and insightful material right now in 2008 and Don Henley's "End of the Innocence" album in 1991 was reflective of that recession). When there is a recession, it is all that people seem to be preparing for or reacting to.
It is just too easy to become overwhelmed or get into a feeling of crisis in a time of recession.
I think that this crisis or sense of being overwhelmed happens during recessions because people become fearful and introspective. They lock themselves up and hide in fear. The goods they buy or don’t buy are in keeping with the times. There is the rumination or dwelling on the regret of taking past risks with credit cards. There is the dwelling on the regret of not saving money of this rainy day. There is the dwelling on the fear of whether you will continue to have a job? Will you lose your house or be evicted from your apartment? Will you wind up out in the street as a homeless person with nothing at all? If you give the fear a chance, it will act like it is your whole world . . . but there is more.
Some of our acquaintances and friends or even family members get hit by the recession through lay offs, closings and foreclosures. Recessions are not just figments of our imagination—they are real!
With recessions we do naturally feel vulnerable. The trappings of our otherwise comfortable environments go away with store closings and factory closings. We feel as if a chunk has been taken from us when a part of our social fabric goes. With every new, negative, news story of economic recession it feels that the fabric tears more and more. When someone we know gets the axe or gets evicted or foreclosed on, the vulnerable feeling intensifies.
If we do lose the job or if we cannot get a good job it hits us where we live and we may feel weak, worthless, or impotent. A hallmark of the economy of the United States is the identification that occupation or vocation gives. Self-esteem demands a good answer to the question: “So, what do you do for a living?”
Furthermore, we feel vulnerable because we get in touch with the ramifications of the debt we have. We can “what if” ourselves to death on the different debts that can be incurred quickly with car repairs or replacement of large appliances or heating and air conditioning or roof repairs.
Also, we have less money in our pockets and purses. We are less able to do what we want to do or what we used to do. Buying power is appreciated the most when we do not have it.
If we really never have the money during good times, we lean on the buying power that credit deceptively seems to provide. In recessions we awaken the truth of our powerlessness.
We tend to feel shame because of our situation and we retreat to our caves. This act of retreat magnifies our feelings of fear and anxiety and vulnerability.
Aside from this feeling of vulnerability and mortal fear, there is the resentment towards the talking heads on TV. The economists and politicians tend to give pat, academic answers in the course of 15 seconds as to what they think has happened? What should happen? And how long it should take for the remedy to occur? The answer as to what happened changes depending on whom the talking head is?
The heck of it is—no explanation on TV or radio really does anything about the pain now? The talking head’s explanation is not going to solve the problem of coming up with the rent or mortgage, nor is it going to soothe the fear of whether or not one is going to get laid off from work.
There is no comfort in the talking head’s explanation. There is only the impression that they can give a cold, intellectual opinion because they are not affected by the recession.
The only ones who really get anything out of the anger is the political party not in power. They can blame the problems on the party in power and maybe they can channel the anger to win the election. Political anger is one healthy way of expressing rage.
One more part of the pain has to be discussed in this imperfect piece—the effect on families. Both nuclear and extended families are non-exempt from the effects.
Will extended family have to double up in single households when one nuclear unit gets evicted? Will older parents have to take in children and grandchildren—creating tense living situations? (The one big happy family may happen, but all things being equal—it suggests that togetherness is likely going to be short-lived before conflict and family drama occurs.)
Money is another family issue. Will there be the pain of being hit up for loans that you would rather make because you need that money for your retirement? Will there be the sacrifice of your own well-being for a family member’s stupidity because you get a royal guilt trip from a third family member who does it themselves and expects everyone else to be like them?
This is only a picture of the pain. There are so many nuances I do not think I can even begin to touch on all of them.
Do I have all the answers? No Each of us will have to make our decisions as to how we are going to cope with the problems and survive the situations that come our way.
There are a variety of choices that can be made to cope and take the edge off the pain. I will explore some of those choices in coming entries.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment