Socialized Dissociation:

Emotion Phobia - The Myth of Contentment

We live in what I call an emotion-phobic society. We tend to treat happiness as the be-all, end-all goal. The holy-grail success. And we treat every difficult or uncomfortable emotion as something that needs to be avoided at all cost – or something that needs to be dealt with, eliminated, or cured. I’ve listened to many people speak about contentment as if it is the only thing they want and the only thing they can’t have. Contentment means satisfaction that there is nothing more you want or need. Which sounds really nice, but not overly realistic. 

Isn’t it a part of the human condition that once satisfaction is reached, it can only last a little while before we find something new to search for or yearn after? Isn’t it that search which gives us the motivation and energy that keeps us out of our depression beds? Isn’t it the realization that we cannot maintain happiness for very long that puts us in depression in the first place? It’s funny to me that there are so many feelings we don’t have words for, but we have a word for this impossible emotion. 

I’m a big believer that emotions, easy or hard or good or bad, are always useful. That there is a reason we have them. That sadness tells us to find rest and comfort. That anger tells us to use energy and stand up for ourselves. That fear warns us about danger. And happiness rewards us for engaging with the things and people that are good for us. We have learned to numb many of these feelings out in order to maintain a sense of control and, perhaps, a close facsimile of contentment. But we cannot numb out one feeling without numbing them all. And if numb out too many we lose the wisdom and authenticity they lend to us. More than that, we miss opportunities to build resilience, emotional maturity, or psychological flexibility. We forget that we can be happy and angry and sad and fearful all at once. That the body is not a one-setting LED. That we shine, multifaceted. And so the point isn’t to achieve happiness at all. The point is to roll with what comes. To make the most of the present moment, whether that means savoring joy or negotiating with fear.

The Consequence of Numbing Out

It has come to my attention, through too many news reports, too many stories from friends, too many personal anecdotes, that we have lost the skill to look tragedy in the face. I am learning, in research and readings and conversation, that our culture has a defense mechanism which disallows us to engage deeply with the world we are creating. And which enables us to continue creating it in its own image, no matter the cost. And I am realizing that this defense mechanism is starting to fail, as more and more of us realize just what kind of world we live in. Just what kind of world we have, perhaps, always lived in. 

I call this faltering coping mechanism socialized dissociation. Dissociation is something the body does, but people and society often behave in surprisingly similar ways. And culture might be indirectly teaching us to numb out -- because so many emotions are uncomfortable. This dissociation isn’t the clinical medicalized version most of us know about. It’s cultural, and political. It’s the opposite of being ‘woke’. It’s that part of you that, when you hear about something terrible and horrific and atrocious, goes 'no, that can’t be true, there must be some mistake.' It says 'the world isn’t so terrible as that, I know it’s not, if it were I would have noticed by now.' It’s the part of us that takes in all the evidence, all the news stories, all the rumors, and decides that it’s not really real. Not the way we are, the way you are, the way your friends and family are. It’s like watching a movie or reading a book; It's sad, but you can turn the page or flip the channel. It’s the part that keeps us from noticing the evidence in the first place. 

It works in direct opposition to the part of you that says 'Of course it’s real, of course it is. That makes so much sense. I’ve heard this story before, told by different people in different places and at different times. And I know, in my genuine self, that the terrible things are true just as often as the beautiful things are.' We don’t like admitting that it’s familiar. Don’t like what it does to us when horror loses its novelty. And we’ve gotten very used to horror being something that only happens in fiction. When horror becomes normal, we grieve. We grieve for the world we thought we lived in and the control we believed we had over it. Horror teaches us that there is no end to terrible things and that we are powerless to stop it. Our culture isn’t very good at grief, it’s grief phobic as well as emotion-phobic. So instead, we shut it out. We look away. We dissociate. Climate change, sexual abuse, human trafficking, mass violence. These things are happening right in front of us, and we cannot see it. We cannot grieve it.

But nothing stays suppressed for long, and so we grow anxious. It’s a lot of work to keep up, shutting out all these terrible things. In many ways it’s impossible. And when we try to control impossible things anxiety strikes. And anxiety can be just as bad as the grief, the depression, the mania, the crises, so we avoid that, too. Avoidance becomes its own impossible task. And around and around we go. Meanwhile, there are very real people in our neighborhoods and on the other side of the globe who need us to stop spinning. And perhaps even more importantly, there’s us, and gosh, aren't we dizzy enough yet?

Hope on the (Very) Far Horizon

Research shows that younger generations report more mental health issues than older generations. But I believe this is a sign of greater resilience, rather than less. Older generations have been relying on numbing coping mechanisms that allow us to disengage from the world’s most uncomfortable problems. Perhaps younger generations have begun realizing that numbing out isn’t a sustainable strategy, that there are consequences (long-term, harrowing consequences) to ignoring a problem. Perhaps, as a society or as a species, we are learning to tune back into ourselves, our environment, and our ancestors. Perhaps we are learning to grieve again. And so, it’s going to get worse before it gets better. We are depressed because the world is depressing. We are anxious because we have so little control over safety and our wellbeing. We are manic or psychotic because that is the effect these problems have on us. Perhaps we are realizing we are not, in fact, the problem. That we are only experiencing the symptoms of a sick system. While letting go of the numbing-tool we are left without something better to replace it, because what we really need is systemic change.