As a therapist for over 30 years, I have met with, time & again, people who are doing well that suddenly self-destruct. Subconsciously, they don’t feel like they deserve their success. Or they feel like their lives have become meaningless. The self-destruction serves a purpose, to create a situation where they feel like they have a “cause” again, or a problem to solve. It’s a very big mistake and the negative consequences can be lasting, taking years to reverse.
It occurs to me that if an individual can do this, so can a society. Millions of us who want to thrive, prosper and be happy are now forced to live in the economic and social wreckage created by millions of others who would rather find some warped sense of meaning and purpose in a self-generated disaster, such as turning a troubling yet survivable virus into some kind of faux, overstated pandemic.
It’s unsettling, more than words can express, to wake up each day now in a world where millions of your fellow citizens are this disturbed and irrational. But they tolerate and even seem to welcome the destruction. So do their elected leaders. Sick. We have got to find a way to fight them, and save ourselves. Their psychopathology has ruined life for everyone, and we cannot let that continue.
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