by Nicholas Hack, Psy.D.

WHEN SPACE COLLAPSES

Throughout the last year my patient has been unable to tear their eyes away. They’ve followed the news closely, watching the now-former president ignore a worldwide pandemic and deny help to millions of Americans suffering from COVID-19. They’ve watched wide-eyed and shocked — but not surprised — as the president ridiculed a resurgent movement to end police brutality and told White supremacists to “stand by.” As the election ramped up, as the stakes ramped up, the vigil became even more intense. 

The election came … but it didn’t go. Their fantasies of swift justice were disappointed. Even more upsetting, when the final numbers came in there was no clear repudiation of the madness, the egomania, and the aggression. To the contrary, they saw an abuser double down on lies and threats.

***

Until recently I’ve been able to keep a semblance of potential space in session. Despite the crushing avalanche of reality, therapy has been a place where I’m able to hold open room for the “as if” aspects of their experience.

Yes, they’re witnessing unchecked narcissism and aggression … AND (part of them) is no longer a child living in terror of a dangerous, personality-disordered father. Yes, they’re seeing a deep perversion of and attack on reality … AND unlike their family’s response, this man has been told to leave the building. Yes, there’s so much happening that tuning out for even a second may cause them to miss something critical … AND unlike in the past, such intense vigilance won’t allow them to avoid the perpetrator. On the contrary, when fists are swung through the media, obsessively following sound bites actually keeps them in harm’s way.

This has helped us keep some fraction of distance, for my patient to feel less overwhelmed and hopeless. Yes, this is scary, but it’s not the same scariness that they’ve already survived; that breakdown has already happened.

And then something changes. We both watch scenes of a president whipping a rally into a mob that overruns the Capitol. We both see clips of police simultaneously opening riot barriers for and running from people trying to stop the certification of our nation’s votes. We both see people with Confederate flags and QAnon shirts hunting in the halls of Congress.

The space collapses.

There’s no more “as if.” The distance between us — between our experiences and reactions and the meanings we make — rapidly shrinks. This is new, and it’s horrifying to both of us in a very similar way. Desperately seeking containment, I come up with links to the past, but for all their sound of accuracy, they feel tenuous — they feel ephemeral and weak. I don’t share them because I realize that they’re more for my benefit than my patient’s, more for my containment than theirs. I want to be there for my patient, and yet I’m not sure how to be there for myself.

***

I write this from within the first moments of this maelstrom, and because of that, I can’t end this article with something that wraps it up cleanly. In the collapse that’s happened I can’t make clear sense of the many layers and meanings in play. But having this place, this community, helps me. I know that the conversations that will happen with my peers, in consultation, and in my own therapy will allow me to start thinking-about-thinking again, and to begin separating what is mine from what is my patient’s, what is about the past and what is fully about the now. And maybe that faith is the kernel of space I need to regrow what has been momentarily lost.