Depending on where you live in the United States, this past Monday brought historic levels of snow fall. Here at Compassionate Counseling Company, we saw record levels of snow. Many people lost power, streets are still widely unusable, and many people are snow bound. In a lot of ways, it can mimic how many people feel when struggling with a mental or physical illness.
Being snowed in
Many of us are stuck in our homes right now. It can be isolating to not be able to really leave the house, engage in our normal routines, or be able to see people easily. For those who have lost power or WiFi, it’s extra isolating as they’ve been cut off from the other avenues they would have to contact people.
People have been disconnected in many ways due to the snow. The isolation can be hard, especially if they’re stuck in their homes with individuals who could be harming them somehow.
Shoveling and cleaning up the snow can leave us sore, in pain, fatigued, and make it difficult to muster up the energy or motivation for other things later in the day that may need to be addressed.
The Parallels
For many people around the world, this snow bound experience is similar to their everyday lives, regardless of the weather. Many mental illnesses can interrupt someone’s daily routines, making it difficult to engage in normal activities. It can also be very isolating, either because the individual self-isolates or because the people around them don’t really understand what’s going on.
Instead of the power being out, it’s cancelled plans with friends or friends who stop texting or calling. The end result is the same: isolation and furthering mental health decline. Instead of fatigue and pain related to shoveling snow, the pain and fatigue is rooted in the mental illness or in a chronic physical illness.
The Takeaway
At the end of the day, while many people can relate to chronic illness and mental health illness, many people also can’t. There is still a lot of stigma in our society around chronic illness and mental health concerns. Maybe thinking about the ways this incident has affected our current everyday lives can help to remind us that there are people out there where this is their normal. If we can remember that when speaking to someone with a mental illness, especially when we’re getting frustrated, maybe we can tap into more empathy and really extend community to individuals around us instead of judgement.
