Psychological stuff

I'm sure we've all lived in that no-man's land of Bad News Approaching. What I mean by this is that you've been told by someone that something is coming and it is going to be bad. It isn't quite here yet, but the first winds and waves are making it obvious that whatever it is will indeed be bad. Think hurricane warning, think "the baby's not moving," think chemotherapy, think downsizing...that sort of thing.

What is interesting is that for our mental health, we have to come to some sense of dynamically tense relationship with that reality. We don't like it, but we still have to make dinner, pay bills, refill prescriptions, explain the facts of life to our kids, while this monster waits in a room off the hall of our mental living room.

And then. Then someone walks into your house and flings open the door of the room where the monster lives and starts screaming and yelling and freaking out about it. And suddenly the monster is back in your living room terrorizing you and your loved ones, bigger and more unavoidable and fucking SCARY than ever. So the whole crew starts shoving the monster's legs and arms and butt back into its hiding place, hoping it all fits since it's about 30 times bigger than it was 10 minutes ago. And eventually, it all fits, although it may mean knocking out walls to make the room bigger.

And the relationship, the "management plan" you've developed, is suddenly shown in its real light: a stopgap, a shred of gauze. So you go about rebuilding the levees and walls around the monster with the ever-present feeling that it isn't going to work, the monster WILL eventually come out and need to be dealt with face-to-face.

And who has time to fight with monsters?