What I Did When My Jenga Of Pandemic Rage Came Crashing Down
Written by Catherine Connors, mom of two, creator of the award-winning blog Her Bad Mother, former Disney executive, writer, and advocate.
A couple of months ago, I hit an emotional wall — hard. The surprising thing was, it kind of seemed to come out of nowhere.
I wasn’t experiencing anything more than the usual late-pandemic stressors, and in fact felt like I was supposed to be feeling optimistic: Vaccines were being rolled out efficiently, school was ending soon, summer looked promising, everything seemed to be pointing in a reasonably positive direction. Especially relative to the last year. There was no presidential election, no attempted coup on the horizon.
Compared to the “new normal”, there seemed no reason to be hitting a wall now. But hit a wall I did, and I crumpled. I had literally zero emotional strength left. All I wanted to do was hide in a dark room, lay on the floor, and cry or scream or both. (I did both.)
What I realized after I gave myself some space and permission to reflect upon what happened was that it was, actually, not surprising in the least. That wall was the build up of many months of anxiety, grief, fear, and rage. It was a massive, teetering stack of emotional baggage that I’d been diligently shoving away in a spiritual closet, hoping to just ignore it until it somehow — I don’t know — took itself out to Goodwill. When it finally spilled out and formed a towering wall of NOPE, I wasn’t prepared for it.
Forgive the mixed metaphors, but it was like a skyscraper-sized Jenga of pent-up pandemic rage. A piece for every one of the extra household responsibilities that accumulated over the months and months at home. A piece for every cock-up with remote schooling. A piece for every dude who couldn’t manage to put the mask over his mouth and nose. I’m still not sure what nudged it out of it’s precarious balance — I actually don’t think that the what or why matters. But when it came crashing down, it was like 18 months of little blocks beating the sh*t out of my spirit. Again.
Dealing with it was messy and painful, but I did learn some valuable things about how to deal with it — and how to prevent it from stacking back up again in a precarious tower of frustration, slights, anger and just plain resentment. Especially as a woman.
We’ve all been under an extraordinary, possibly unprecedented amount of emotional pressure. Four years of democracy under attack, rising tides of racism and sexism, a global pandemic that isolated us and strained our resources (material and emotional) — it’s no wonder that many of us have been feeling a spiritual strain. It’s no wonder that we’ve all accumulated massive piles of emotional Jenga pieces. And we’ve just done what women do: tidied them into neat stacks. Neat stacks that will topple over if we don’t supervise them carefully.
Which is why it’s tough to get excited about ‘hot post-pandemic girl summer’ — we’re completely emotionally exhausted, even traumatized, not just from the emotional stacks, but from the work of trying to keep them from toppling. How do you drink pina coladas by the pool and pose for selfies when you are trying to keep that tower from crashing? You don’t. You have to deal with the tower first.
What we all need is a reassuring, socially supportive space and opportunity to work through that emotional exhaustion — to process the anxiety, grief, fear, and rage — and to exercise our emotional muscles in such a way that (gently) makes them stronger and more resilient. A kind of Red Door spa for emotional wellness. Rehab for rage. The feelings that make up that Jenga tower are real and legitimate, and if we don’t find a way to acknowledge them — even love on them, dare I say — and deal with them, they will eventually come crashing down.
That’s why I’m leading a four week workshop for unpacking that tower of feelings, called “Rage Rehab: From Nope to Hope in Four Weeks.” It’ll cover mom rage, race rage, patriarchy rage, and pandemic rage, and give you tricks, tips, and proven therapeutics to help recognize, reconcile and dismantle your tower before it crashes down on you. Together, we’ll put all those pieces back in the box. This is a small group of phenomenal womxn, and we’ve got five slots left. Even if you have never done a Chairman Mom class and don’t know me, you will find a home in this group.
You aren’t alone and this isn’t you. Let’s work through this together, instead of throwing on a bikini and an Instagram filter and pretending the last 18 months didn’t happen.
Want to learn more? I’ll be talking about this on Clubhouse with Adimika Arthur and some other amazing women on Tuesday, July 6, at 4pm PST. Join us while we explore what it can look like to unfuck our feelings and start fumbling from nope to hope.
