I don't think I really need to say it, but 2020 was not a good year for anyone on earth. Humanity experienced a collective trauma due to years and years of negligence and poor policies coming to a head, and we're still in the thick of it now. As someone who's experienced trauma (like, unfortunately, most autistic people have), there's some very important advice I need to give you all right now.
Talk about it.
For whatever reason, we're taught to hide and suppress our trauma. We're told to bury it and carry on as usual; my biggest gripe with "positivity" culture is that it doesn't allow space for people to feel and process negative emotions, which we all have! If you're telling people that they can only have "good vibes only!" and that they need to practice gratitude, you're also telling them they can't be upset when bad things happen in their lives, and that's not right. That is absolutely not the right attitude to deal with a collective trauma like a pandemic.
Many, many people are currently suffering from mental illness without access to treatment. I have OCD and I often wonder how many people realized due to the pandemic that they have a contamination or a harm subset for the first time and now have no resources. The necessary isolation required to save lives has a side effect of depression. People like myself, who are following the rules, are dealing with a lot of anger over those who flout the regulations and make things go on longer and sicken and kill others by being flippant. Essential employees - medical workers, grocery store employees, mail carriers, and many others - are putting themselves at risk every day for not enough pay, and many of them are shell-shocked. Some have even committed suicide.
This is not the time to sweep this under the rug. This has affected everyone on earth.
A collective trauma can be difficult to comprehend. Other events in the past, such as the Shoah or slavery, traumatized populations on such a massive scale that the descendants of those involved have possibly inherited trauma. Historically, our understanding of mental health was not where it is today, and since we have the knowledge we now have we need to use it responsibly. We cannot be silent about what we've experienced this past year and will continue experiencing in 2021.
I'm very open about what happened to me in the past for a number of reasons, even though it was very personal. I sincerely hope that no one else experiences a friendship like the one I endured, or the bullying I survived as a child, and speaking about those experiences increases awareness of how to handle them. More importantly on a personal level, however, is that talking about my trauma actually helps me heal from it. If I bring it up in conversation, it's not me being stuck on my past and reliving things - it's me being open about what happened to me and showing that I've actually come to terms with it. I prefer to own my past and my trauma rather than hide it or bury it away. It's mine, I survived it, and I'm empowered by my survival. I came out of it a changed person, but we all do. In my case, surviving the things I did actually turned me into an advocate for disability and mental health issues because I realized through my experiences that things needed to improve.
If we want to end the cycle of passing trauma on this way, we need to face ours directly and deal with it, and the best way to do that is by being open about it. I've accepted that I had a friend attempt to use me as a replacement goldfish for her deceased mother and repeatedly forced me into situations I was uncomfortable with to meet her own emotional needs instead of going to therapy. It's what happened to me. There's no reason for me to hide this. Sure, I'm not going to tell people about it when we first meet, but people who know me well and know I experienced this usually understand that if I mention it, it's because it's relevant to the conversation and isn't me just harping on my past or being stuck on something that ended ten years ago. I just don't see a reason to keep suppressing it. It's unhealthy to do that. Sometimes, to move on, you need to stop burying things and accept that they're a part of you.
I'm anticipating a lot of people burying their trauma from the pandemic, and I'm not looking forward to what that's going to do to them internally. So if you see this, I want you to promise me something: that you won't hide how difficult this has been for you, and you won't be afraid or ashamed to ask for help if you need it. Nothing can replace a good therapist, but accepting that things happened to you instead of running away from it is a good place to start. Suppressing it does nothing but make you more unstable.
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