“This is a distraction!” is one of most obnoxious phrases I encounter. I find it incredibly annoying as well as a bad phrase.

First and foremost, it's a terrible battle cry because any single arbitration on what issues are indeed a distraction is never going to be accurate for every person. Decisions of what are distractions to the “real” issues are always going to be relative. Secondly, and perhaps just as importantly, distractions are incredibly important the brain. A human cannot be ‘on’ all the time. We can't do it without suffering some pretty serious set backs, like mental fatigue. Distractions are good and healthy, they are an important coping technique. Shaming people for taking mental breaks is really shitty. If you need a less social justice-y analogy to dig this point, I’d point to every single army ever where soldiers take shifts in guard, because fatigue is a real issue that needs to be accounted for.

Could you even begin to imagine the audacity of considering yourself the arbiter of distractions? Would you even want that, if it were a position? To wake up and scan through every single horrible, wretched destruction of every single day and deem some of them to be distractions from the others, or perhaps horrifyingly, distractions of something else unwitnessed. It sounds rough.

I've noticed more than a few social media threads discussing therapists and other mental health providers being pushed to their limits as more and more people struggle with these overwhelming times. Therapists who are saying that usually the issues of the patient and provider being different has been upended. People uncertain how to apply conventional practices in unconventional times. I've even seen troubling discussions of patients giving counsel. There is a collective panic that is manifesting in insidious ways, and it has a very urgent tone that we are hyper aware of and it is wearing us the fuck out. I honestly wish I had some solutions right now outside of naming these things and trying to map them out. It is the first step of an answer, I suppose. I do know coping techniques and distractions are my most valuable players. People are allowed to have ‘distractions’ because that is life as well. We cannot get so wound up in fighting that we forget what we are fighting for. Don't make enemies out of your friend’s shadows.

Don't take any of this as a consideration of discouragement or defeat. Not in the least. That is why I'm here sounding out strategies and saying this isn't new and it is still unacceptable. I'm writing this in part because I have so many thoughts buzzing in my head that I find it imperative to write it out. I strongly suggest writing thoughts out for everyone. Online or offline, give yourself the chance to drain the brain. The amount of shit hitting the fan has definitely increased, and its good to give yourself space to process it. Learn to recognize mental fatigue and pace yourself. Unresolved it can lead to burnout and apathy.