June 22, 2025 • 23 mins
Capitalism Stole Your Support System
In this episode of PsyberSpace, host Leslie Poston digs into the emotional ramifications of systemic abandonment by protective institutions, especially in response to the US's recent unprovoked attack on Iran. The discussion explores the psychological effects of community collapse, the lack of a communal safety net, and the individualist culture that exacerbates feelings of powerlessness and disconnection. Drawing on political and developmental psychology, this episode examines issues such as civic trauma, emotional gaslighting, and moral injury while proposing ways to rebuild a sense of community and shared grief. It calls for collective action, mutual aid, and solidarity as psychological and practical responses to ongoing societal crises.
00:00 Introduction and Overview
00:30 Unprovoked Attack on Iran
01:43 Emotional Impact of Government Actions
03:37 The Breakdown of Community Support
05:33 Psychological Effects of Isolation
09:47 The Pandemic's Lasting Impact
15:06 The Power of Grief and Community
20:19 Steps Towards Rebuilding Community
22:51 Conclusion and Final Thoughts
References
Aknin, L. B., De Neve, J.-E., Dunn, E. W., Fancourt, D., Goldberg, E., Helliwell, J. F., Jones, S. P., Karam, E., Layard, R., Lyubomirsky, S., Rzepa, A., Saxena, S., Thornton, E. M., VanderWeele, T. J., Whillans, A. V., Zaki, J., Karadag, O., & Ben Amor, Y. (2022). Mental health during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic: A review and recommendations for moving forward. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 17(4), 915–936.
Beckes, L., & Coan, J. A. (2011). Social baseline theory: The role of social proximity in emotion and economy of action. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 5(12), 976–988
Bion, W. R. (1962). Learning from experience.
Boakye, P. N., Prendergast, N., Bailey, A., Sharon, M., Bandari, B., Odutayo, A. A., & Anane Brown, E. (2025). Anti-Black Medical Gaslighting in Healthcare: Experiences of Black Women in Canada. The Canadian journal of nursing research = Revue canadienne de recherche en sciences infirmieres, 57(1), 59–68.
Bucaktepe, P.G.E., Akgül, F. & Çelİk, S.B. (2024) Evaluation of the effects of pandemic-related fears on anxiety and depression: the mediating roles of traumatic stress and loneliness. BMC Psychol 12, 388
Burstow, B. (2003). Toward a radical understanding of trauma and trauma work. Violence Against Women, 9(11), 1293–1317.
Crosby, D.B. (2025) Authoritarianism in the Unites States: A Death Knell for the US Refugee Admissions Program. Social Sciences. 14(2), 57.
Doka, K. J. (2002). Disenfranchised grief: New directions, challenges, and strategies for practice. Research Press.
Erikson, E. H. (1959). Identity and the life cycle. Psychological Issues, 1(1), 18–164.
Fernandes-Jesus, M., Mao, G., Ntsontis, E., Cocking, C., McTague, M., Schwarz, A., Semlyen, J. & Drury, J. (2021) Frontiers in Psychology. 12, 716202
Hirschberger, G. (2018). Collective trauma and the social construction of meaning. Frontiers in Psychology, 9, 1441.
Iacoboni, M. (2009). Imitation, empathy, and mirror neurons. Annual Review of Psychology, 60, 653–670.
Lewis, T. (2024) Outrage Fatigue Is Real. These Tips May Help. Scientific American.
Litz, B. T., Stein, N., Delaney, E., Lebowitz, L., Nash, W. P., Silva, C., & Maguen, S. (2009). Moral injury and moral repair in war veterans: A preliminary model and intervention strategy. Clinical Psychology Review, 29(8), 695–706
Olawa, B.D., Idemudia, E.S., Omolayo, B.O. & Azikiwe, J.C. (2023) Loneliness and happiness in the face of the COVID-19 lockdown: Examining the pathways through somatic symptoms
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Leslie Poston (00:11):
Welcome to PsyberSpace. I'm your host,
Leslie Poston. This week, we'retalking about what it means to
be emotionally abandoned by thevery systems that are supposed
to protect us and how thatabandonment is shaping our
response to war, injustice, andeach other. Over the weekend, in
The United States, presidentTrump launched an unprovoked
(00:34):
attack on Iran. No approval fromcongress, no legal
justification, just a unilateralact of violence from a president
who's pulling political stringson behalf of ego and outside
interests and testing theboundaries of law and power.
There was a gut punch to many ofus here in The United States,
(00:54):
and yet as we try to make senseof what we're feeling, anger,
fear, confusion, exhaustion,it's clear that something deeper
is at play. We're not justreacting to a war we didn't ask
for. We're reacting to years ofliving in a country that sold
off our collective safety netand told us we're on our own, a
(01:16):
country where every form ofprotection, from health care to
housing to education and food,is mediated by wealth, leaving
us all scrambling to survive,let alone process national
grief. In this episode, we'llexplore the psychology of
community collapse, theemotional weight of living in a
(01:36):
fractured society, and what itmeans to rebuild the village
when the system has burned itdown. Whether or not you follow
politics closely, there's avisceral emotional reaction when
your government bypasses therules.
It's a breach of trust. Itundermines the sense of shared
(01:56):
reality and fairness that helpspeople feel psychologically
safe. That sense of safety isnot a luxury. It's foundational
to emotional regulation. Whenit's pulled out from under you,
the response is often a mix ofnumbness, rage, anxiety, and
dissociation.
(02:16):
And this isn't just about Trump.He's just one man acting within
a system currently weighted downwith multiple power hungry
people and systems. It's aboutthe pattern. We've seen
misguided and unprovokedmilitary interventions before
from The United States. Whatmakes this moment feel more
psychologically destabilizing isthe context around it.
(02:41):
We're already carrying theweight of years of political
disillusionment, a pandemic thatshattered our collective norms,
and a social fabric that'sbarely holding together. When
something like this happens,when a leader acts like a
dictator and no one stops him,it taps into an unresolved
trauma of powerlessness, thatcollective feeling of what can I
(03:05):
even do? Research in politicalpsychology has a term for this:
civic trauma. It happens when asociety's foundational
institutions fail to act in theinterest of the public good. It
doesn't just breed cynicism.
It breaks people down, makingthem less likely to engage, less
(03:27):
likely to trust, and more likelyto retreat into survival mode,
exactly the opposite of whatneeds to happen in this moment.
When people feel powerless inthe face of war or injustice,
the next question is often,where do I turn? Who helps me
process this? And here's thething. In The United States, we
(03:50):
don't really have an answeranymore.
The emotional response to eventslike this is compounded by the
fact that most Americans nolonger have a village, a
community. We live in a countrythat systematically dismantled
community structures andreplaced them with market
transactions. Need therapy? Payfor it. Need food?
(04:13):
Hope you can afford groceries.Need elder care, child care,
housing, education, health care,or just someone to talk to?
That'll cost you. What was oncehandled by interdependent
community has been carved up andsold back to us in pieces, and
not everyone can afford theprice. This shift didn't just
(04:35):
break down support networks, itchanged how we view each other.
Other people stopped being partof our emotional ecosystem and
started becoming competitors.Others we were taught to view
through a lens of suspicion,envy, or transactional utility.
Capitalism trains us tointernalize systemic failure as
(04:57):
personal failure. If you'restruggling to cope with war,
injustice, burnout, thenarrative says, Get more
therapy. Meditate.
Drink water. Hustle harder. Itdoesn't tell you to look around
and ask, Where is my community?Where is the shared response?
Because that would reveal therot in the system.
(05:18):
The result is emotionaloutsourcing. Instead of grief
circles, we have mindfulnessapps. Instead of community
action, we have self careinfluencers. We're told to
regulate ourselves while theworld burns. Let's talk more
directly about how this shiftplays out on a psychological
level.
(05:39):
When community breaks down,people lose not just practical
support but mirroring, thepsychological reflection that
comes from others validatingyour emotions. When someone dies
and no one shows up to mournwith you, your grief becomes
distorted. When injusticehappens and no one affirms your
(05:59):
anger, you start to questionyour own sense of right and
wrong. This is emotionalgaslighting on a societal scale.
Studies on collective trauma,especially post disaster mental
health research, show us thatpeople fare better mentally when
recovery efforts are rooted incommunal activity, shared
(06:20):
rituals, and mutual aid.
But our current system isolateseven that. We grieve in private.
We recover in private. Even theway we consume our news is often
solitary, processedalgorithmically rather than
communally. That fracture is notjust understanding but identity.
(06:41):
You stop feeling like a citizenand start feeling like a
consumer of tragedy. This isespecially hard on people who
are already marginalized. Blackand indigenous communities,
disabled folks, queer people,poor people, because those are
the groups who rely most heavilyon community to survive the
systems that routinely targetthem. When the community is
(07:05):
forced to fragment undereconomic pressure, the most
vulnerable are the ones leftmost exposed. One reason people
struggle so much with grief andanger in The United States is
because they've been sold themyth of the self reliant
citizen.
Our media loves to tell usstories about bootstraps and
(07:26):
lone heroes, but this story is alie. No one builds a life alone.
No one processes national traumaalone. The entire psychology of
the human brain is relational.We are literally wired for
connection, pattern recognition,and shared meaning making.
(07:49):
In fact, developmentalpsychology tells us that even
our earliest sense of self formsin the context of others. Even
as early as the fifties,psychologist Erickson argued
that identity isn't somethingdiscovered in isolation but
constructed throughrelationships and cultural
systems. Neuroscience backs thisup. Research on mirror neurons,
(08:13):
social baseline theory, andattachment theory all show that
our brains expect connectionemotionally, cognitively,
physiologically. When we'redeprived of that connection,
especially in moments of crisis,the body registers it as a
threat.
It's not just unpleasant. It'sdysregulating. The problem is
(08:35):
individualism has been sothoroughly baked into American
culture that people oftenmistake communal needs for
personal weakness. They feelshame about needing help, shame
about struggling, shame aboutnot having the answers. This
shame isn't natural.
It's taught, and it's used tokeep people from building
(08:56):
solidarity. When something likean unauthorized act of war
happens, the individualistnarrative tells you just stay
informed, vote, keep calm, bereasonable, and be nonviolent.
But what it doesn't tell you ishow to metabolize that into
something you can carry,something that won't break you
(09:17):
apart. And that's what communityused to do. It held the
container, helping us processcollective fear, anger, and
uncertainty so they didn'tspiral.
Without that community ascontainer, every emotion spills
out sideways into rage, apathy,or despair. That's not a
(09:39):
personal failure. It's a nervoussystem doing its job in the
absence of shared meaning. Let'stalk about the pandemic or more
accurately pandemics. COVIDnineteen didn't just devastate
families and take lives.
It also revealed in brutaldetail just how much we're all
(10:01):
our own. The federal and stategovernments gave up on
meaningful protections years agobefore this continuing threat
was over. People were forcedback to work too soon. Kids were
sent back to school without anymitigations for clean air. Those
who were vulnerable have beensimply left behind.
Even now, we're in the earlystages of a bird flu outbreak
(10:24):
that public health officials areworried about. Measles cases are
rising. Tuberculosis is back incities where it had once been
controlled. But there's nomeaningful infrastructure
established in The United Statesto protect us, not because we
don't have the resources, butbecause prioritizing public
health cuts into profit. From apsychological standpoint, this
(10:48):
creates a collective exposure towhat trauma theorists call slow
crisis or chronic societaltrauma, the kind of trauma that
doesn't have a clear endpoint orresolution.
It lingers, accumulates, andquietly erodes our emotional
resources over time. Unlikeacute trauma, which is often
dramatic and visible, chronicsociopolitical trauma works in
(11:11):
the background, creating abaseline of unease, vigilance,
and exhaustion. And here'swhat's most haunting to me as a
psychologist. We never reallygrieved what we lost, not
collectively. There was nonational day of mourning, no
public acknowledgment of howmany families are still
(11:31):
shattered, no reckoning with thetrauma of living through a mass
disabling event that's stillongoing.
Grief was rushed, privatized,and hidden. We were told to move
on for the economy. Thisdisenfranchised grief is a grief
that isn't acknowledged orvalidated by society. When grief
(11:51):
is invisible or shamed, peoplesuppress it. But suppressed
grief doesn't disappear.
It manifests as irritability,numbness, emotional
disconnection, or even physicalillness. Left unprocessed, it
becomes a psychological burdenthat quietly warps how we see
(12:12):
ourselves, each other, and theworld. And that's The US
template now. Tragedy happens,people suffer, and the system
denies it ever mattered. Thiscontinual emotional erasure has
a cost.
When something new, like anillegal war, comes along, it
reactivates all that unresolvedgrief and betrayal, and once
(12:34):
again, we're left to carry italone. This is known as
emotional reactivation orassociative trauma response.
Your body and mind remember pastharms even if you're not
consciously aware of theconnection. New crises tap into
old wounds, and without acollective framework for
healing, people are leftreliving pain without meaning or
(12:56):
resolution. There's somethingespecially cruel about how the
end of pandemic protections wasframed.
Instead of a slow, thoughtfultransition out of emergency
mode, we got slogans like getback to normal, even though
normal never worked foreveryone. We got platitudes
about resilience even asthousands were still dying.
(13:19):
People who wore masks weremocked. Those who asked for
accommodations were shamed.Collective care became
political, and public health wasframed as a personal choice.
This shift mirrors whatpsychologists call moral injury,
the emotional damage thatresults from being forced to
witness or participate inactions that violate one's sense
(13:40):
of what is right. People whotook the pandemic seriously were
not only dismissed, they weremade to feel wrong for holding
on to care. This underminespeople's trust in themselves and
others, and it corrodes empathyat scale. We talked about
empathy in a previous episode.That shift, framing public
(14:00):
safety as individualresponsibility, didn't just hurt
people medically.
It's rewired how we relate toeach other. You stopped being
your neighbor's keeper. Youbecame a potential threat, a
moral failing or a burden. Andonce again, the emotional cost
of surviving was treated like apersonal defect. This kind of
(14:21):
structural gaslighting where thedominant narrative denies the
lived reality of suffering leadsto widespread self doubt and
alienation.
People begin to second guesstheir instincts, minimize their
needs, and feel shame for askingquestions. In the long run, this
undermines not only mentalhealth, but also the capacity
(14:42):
for collective action andsolidarity. There was no place
to say, I'm still scared or Ilost someone or I've changed and
the world hasn't caught up. Andwithout that space, those
feelings calcify. They turn intobitterness, alienation, and
disconnection, exactly theopposite of what we need to
build solidarity in the face ofongoing harm.
(15:07):
Let's talk a little bit moreabout grief, but this time,
let's focus on it power. Wedon't usually think of grief as
political, but it is. Not justbecause we grieve the outcomes
of political decisions, butbecause how grief is permitted,
framed, and policed tells us whois allowed to be fully human and
public. Grief is disruptive. Itslows down productivity.
(15:32):
It demands care. It interruptsthe flow of what capitalism
calls normal. That's why publicgrief over systemic violence,
whether it's war, pandemicdeath, police shootings, or
climate collapse, is oftensilenced or redirected. You're
told to keep it private, moveon, and get back to work. But
grief doesn't move on.
(15:53):
It transforms. And the way ittransforms depends on whether
it's shared or isolated. Whengrief is held in community, it
can turn into care, intosolidarity, into acts of mutual
protection. When it'sacknowledged, it reconnects us
to others and helps us rememberthat we're not alone in feeling
(16:15):
like something has gone terriblywrong. When grief is made
visible and ritualized, even insmall ways, it becomes a quiet
form of resistance against thesystems that would rather we
stay numb.
But when grief is denied orhidden, it calcifies and hardens
into numbness, festers intoquiet rage. Psychologically,
(16:37):
that's what happens when there'sno outlet for mourning. The loss
gets internalized as alienation,shame, and sometimes moral
fatigue. If that happens atscale, it becomes easier for
institutions to maintaincontrol. And that's the real
danger.
When we lose access to sharedemotional language, we become
(16:59):
easier to fragment andmanipulate. We stop saying
things like this is wrong and weall feel it. We stop seeing each
other's pain as connected to ourown. If we want to rebuild our
village, we have to reclaimgrief not just as a feeling but
as a public practice. That meanscreating spaces, physical,
(17:20):
cultural, and emotional, wherepeople can name their losses out
loud, not just the loss of life,but the loss of trust, safety,
and the futures they onceimagined.
So talk about what you've lost.Invite others to do the same.
Make space where collectivemourning isn't seen as weakness
(17:40):
but as an act of truth telling.When grief is witnessed, it
reminds us what we value andwhat we're still willing to
fight for. There's another layerto this, the way power
structures manufacturehopelessness.
Media coverage of war, like thislatest strike, often works like
(18:01):
a slow sedative. You'll seepundits arguing over tactics.
You'll see maps, acronyms, andmilitary terms, but you won't
see sustained outrage. You won'tsee organizing, and you likely
won't see protest if you're noton social media. The framing
flattens your emotional responseuntil it becomes confusion or
(18:22):
resignation.
Just another headline. Justanother day. This is by design.
There's a psychological term forwhat we experience in moments
like this, learned helplessness.It happens when people are
repeatedly exposed touncontrollable events and come
to believe that nothing they dowill change the outcome.
(18:43):
Over time, they disengage, notbecause they don't care, but
because the emotional cost ofcaring becomes unbearable. This
kind of emotional shutdown is asurvival response, a form of
psychic triage. The brain startsrationing your ability to feel
because feeling too much withoutagency becomes a kind of slow
(19:05):
emotional death. And so webecome spectators to our own
unraveling, not because we wantto be, but because we've been
conditioned to believe thatparticipation is futile. Pair
that with moral injury, thepsychological damage that occurs
when your values are violated byactions you're forced to
witness, and you have a countryfull of people emotionally
(19:28):
paralyzed by contradiction.
We believe in democracy, but wesee it violated. We believe in
peace but see only endless war.We believe in community but feel
completely alone. What we'reseeing is not apathy. It's grief
with nowhere to go, and oftenthat grief tries to speak
through our anger.
(19:49):
But when we try to express it,we're told to calm down, be
polite. That rage ispathologized, seen as excessive,
irrational, or unproductive. Butthe truth is anger is often a
sign of care, conscience, andconnection. It's not something
to be suppressed. It's somethingto be honored.
(20:09):
Anger is what rises when griefrefuses to be silenced. It's not
the problem. It's a signal thatthe problem still matters. So
where do we go from here? Thefirst thing is to stop
pretending that we can regulateour way through this alone.
You can't self care your way outof a war. You can't meditate or
(20:32):
goat yoga away the collapse ofpublic health. You can't journal
your way through systemicviolence. We need each other
desperately. There's power incommunity, real community, not
group chats, friend groups, orshared aesthetics.
In fact, a community that onlyincludes people you like and
enjoy isn't really community, isit? It's a click. People are
(20:56):
rebuilding that community powernow through mutual aid networks,
solidarity collectives,neighborhood councils, and
intentional communities. Thesearen't just practical responses.
They're psychological medicine.
Being seen, held, and helped byothers restores the parts of the
self that capitalism tries tostrip away. When we connect, we
(21:19):
co regulate. That's not a softskill. That's a survival
mechanism. It helps us processgrief in ways that are
sustainable.
It helps us metabolize rage intoaction instead of implosion. It
helps us remember that we'renot, quote, crazy. We're just
reacting to a world that wantsus to feel isolated and
(21:39):
powerless. There are steps youcan take right now. If you're
overwhelmed by what's happening,start small.
Find an existing mutual aidgroup in your area. Offer help.
Ask for help. Share food withyour neighbors in your
communities. Pool yourresources.
Create a grief space wherepeople can talk about what
(21:59):
they've lost, whether that'sfrom war, pandemics, or just the
everyday violence of economicsurvival. Build a resiliency
garden with your neighbors. Getto know each other. Don't stay
silent and isolated. Most ofall, allow yourself to feel.
Your anger is not a failure, andyour sadness is not a weakness.
(22:21):
Your confusion right now, it'snot a flaw. These are signals
that your conscience is intactand your humanity hasn't been
eroded by the system no matterhow hard it tries. In a society
built to isolate us, connectionis a radical act. In a world
that wants us numb, feeling isrebellion.
(22:44):
And in a time when it feels likeeverything is unraveling,
showing up for each other is howwe hold the thread. Thanks for
listening to this specialepisode of PsyberSpace. We felt
that this was imperative torelease today in light of the
news events that happened thisweekend. I'm your host, Leslie
Poston, signing off. I hope thisepisode has helped you.
(23:07):
Until next time, stay curious,stay connected, and don't forget
to subscribe so that you don'tmiss any of the weekly drops.
Welcome to PsyberSpace. I'm your host,
Leslie Poston. This week, we'retalking about what it means to
be emotionally abandoned by thevery systems that are supposed
to protect us and how thatabandonment is shaping our
response to war, injustice, andeach other. Over the weekend, in
The United States, presidentTrump launched an unprovoked
(00:34):
attack on Iran. No approval fromcongress, no legal
justification, just a unilateralact of violence from a president
who's pulling political stringson behalf of ego and outside
interests and testing theboundaries of law and power.
There was a gut punch to many ofus here in The United States,
(00:54):
and yet as we try to make senseof what we're feeling, anger,
fear, confusion, exhaustion,it's clear that something deeper
is at play. We're not justreacting to a war we didn't ask
for. We're reacting to years ofliving in a country that sold
off our collective safety netand told us we're on our own, a
(01:16):
country where every form ofprotection, from health care to
housing to education and food,is mediated by wealth, leaving
us all scrambling to survive,let alone process national
grief. In this episode, we'llexplore the psychology of
community collapse, theemotional weight of living in a
(01:36):
fractured society, and what itmeans to rebuild the village
when the system has burned itdown. Whether or not you follow
politics closely, there's avisceral emotional reaction when
your government bypasses therules.
It's a breach of trust. Itundermines the sense of shared
(01:56):
reality and fairness that helpspeople feel psychologically
safe. That sense of safety isnot a luxury. It's foundational
to emotional regulation. Whenit's pulled out from under you,
the response is often a mix ofnumbness, rage, anxiety, and
dissociation.
(02:16):
And this isn't just about Trump.He's just one man acting within
a system currently weighted downwith multiple power hungry
people and systems. It's aboutthe pattern. We've seen
misguided and unprovokedmilitary interventions before
from The United States. Whatmakes this moment feel more
psychologically destabilizing isthe context around it.
(02:41):
We're already carrying theweight of years of political
disillusionment, a pandemic thatshattered our collective norms,
and a social fabric that'sbarely holding together. When
something like this happens,when a leader acts like a
dictator and no one stops him,it taps into an unresolved
trauma of powerlessness, thatcollective feeling of what can I
(03:05):
even do? Research in politicalpsychology has a term for this:
civic trauma. It happens when asociety's foundational
institutions fail to act in theinterest of the public good. It
doesn't just breed cynicism.
It breaks people down, makingthem less likely to engage, less
(03:27):
likely to trust, and more likelyto retreat into survival mode,
exactly the opposite of whatneeds to happen in this moment.
When people feel powerless inthe face of war or injustice,
the next question is often,where do I turn? Who helps me
process this? And here's thething. In The United States, we
(03:50):
don't really have an answeranymore.
The emotional response to eventslike this is compounded by the
fact that most Americans nolonger have a village, a
community. We live in a countrythat systematically dismantled
community structures andreplaced them with market
transactions. Need therapy? Payfor it. Need food?
(04:13):
Hope you can afford groceries.Need elder care, child care,
housing, education, health care,or just someone to talk to?
That'll cost you. What was oncehandled by interdependent
community has been carved up andsold back to us in pieces, and
not everyone can afford theprice. This shift didn't just
(04:35):
break down support networks, itchanged how we view each other.
Other people stopped being partof our emotional ecosystem and
started becoming competitors.Others we were taught to view
through a lens of suspicion,envy, or transactional utility.
Capitalism trains us tointernalize systemic failure as
(04:57):
personal failure. If you'restruggling to cope with war,
injustice, burnout, thenarrative says, Get more
therapy. Meditate.
Drink water. Hustle harder. Itdoesn't tell you to look around
and ask, Where is my community?Where is the shared response?
Because that would reveal therot in the system.
(05:18):
The result is emotionaloutsourcing. Instead of grief
circles, we have mindfulnessapps. Instead of community
action, we have self careinfluencers. We're told to
regulate ourselves while theworld burns. Let's talk more
directly about how this shiftplays out on a psychological
level.
(05:39):
When community breaks down,people lose not just practical
support but mirroring, thepsychological reflection that
comes from others validatingyour emotions. When someone dies
and no one shows up to mournwith you, your grief becomes
distorted. When injusticehappens and no one affirms your
(05:59):
anger, you start to questionyour own sense of right and
wrong. This is emotionalgaslighting on a societal scale.
Studies on collective trauma,especially post disaster mental
health research, show us thatpeople fare better mentally when
recovery efforts are rooted incommunal activity, shared
(06:20):
rituals, and mutual aid.
But our current system isolateseven that. We grieve in private.
We recover in private. Even theway we consume our news is often
solitary, processedalgorithmically rather than
communally. That fracture is notjust understanding but identity.
(06:41):
You stop feeling like a citizenand start feeling like a
consumer of tragedy. This isespecially hard on people who
are already marginalized. Blackand indigenous communities,
disabled folks, queer people,poor people, because those are
the groups who rely most heavilyon community to survive the
systems that routinely targetthem. When the community is
(07:05):
forced to fragment undereconomic pressure, the most
vulnerable are the ones leftmost exposed. One reason people
struggle so much with grief andanger in The United States is
because they've been sold themyth of the self reliant
citizen.
Our media loves to tell usstories about bootstraps and
(07:26):
lone heroes, but this story is alie. No one builds a life alone.
No one processes national traumaalone. The entire psychology of
the human brain is relational.We are literally wired for
connection, pattern recognition,and shared meaning making.
(07:49):
In fact, developmentalpsychology tells us that even
our earliest sense of self formsin the context of others. Even
as early as the fifties,psychologist Erickson argued
that identity isn't somethingdiscovered in isolation but
constructed throughrelationships and cultural
systems. Neuroscience backs thisup. Research on mirror neurons,
(08:13):
social baseline theory, andattachment theory all show that
our brains expect connectionemotionally, cognitively,
physiologically. When we'redeprived of that connection,
especially in moments of crisis,the body registers it as a
threat.
It's not just unpleasant. It'sdysregulating. The problem is
(08:35):
individualism has been sothoroughly baked into American
culture that people oftenmistake communal needs for
personal weakness. They feelshame about needing help, shame
about struggling, shame aboutnot having the answers. This
shame isn't natural.
It's taught, and it's used tokeep people from building
(08:56):
solidarity. When something likean unauthorized act of war
happens, the individualistnarrative tells you just stay
informed, vote, keep calm, bereasonable, and be nonviolent.
But what it doesn't tell you ishow to metabolize that into
something you can carry,something that won't break you
(09:17):
apart. And that's what communityused to do. It held the
container, helping us processcollective fear, anger, and
uncertainty so they didn'tspiral.
Without that community ascontainer, every emotion spills
out sideways into rage, apathy,or despair. That's not a
(09:39):
personal failure. It's a nervoussystem doing its job in the
absence of shared meaning. Let'stalk about the pandemic or more
accurately pandemics. COVIDnineteen didn't just devastate
families and take lives.
It also revealed in brutaldetail just how much we're all
(10:01):
our own. The federal and stategovernments gave up on
meaningful protections years agobefore this continuing threat
was over. People were forcedback to work too soon. Kids were
sent back to school without anymitigations for clean air. Those
who were vulnerable have beensimply left behind.
Even now, we're in the earlystages of a bird flu outbreak
(10:24):
that public health officials areworried about. Measles cases are
rising. Tuberculosis is back incities where it had once been
controlled. But there's nomeaningful infrastructure
established in The United Statesto protect us, not because we
don't have the resources, butbecause prioritizing public
health cuts into profit. From apsychological standpoint, this
(10:48):
creates a collective exposure towhat trauma theorists call slow
crisis or chronic societaltrauma, the kind of trauma that
doesn't have a clear endpoint orresolution.
It lingers, accumulates, andquietly erodes our emotional
resources over time. Unlikeacute trauma, which is often
dramatic and visible, chronicsociopolitical trauma works in
(11:11):
the background, creating abaseline of unease, vigilance,
and exhaustion. And here'swhat's most haunting to me as a
psychologist. We never reallygrieved what we lost, not
collectively. There was nonational day of mourning, no
public acknowledgment of howmany families are still
(11:31):
shattered, no reckoning with thetrauma of living through a mass
disabling event that's stillongoing.
Grief was rushed, privatized,and hidden. We were told to move
on for the economy. Thisdisenfranchised grief is a grief
that isn't acknowledged orvalidated by society. When grief
(11:51):
is invisible or shamed, peoplesuppress it. But suppressed
grief doesn't disappear.
It manifests as irritability,numbness, emotional
disconnection, or even physicalillness. Left unprocessed, it
becomes a psychological burdenthat quietly warps how we see
(12:12):
ourselves, each other, and theworld. And that's The US
template now. Tragedy happens,people suffer, and the system
denies it ever mattered. Thiscontinual emotional erasure has
a cost.
When something new, like anillegal war, comes along, it
reactivates all that unresolvedgrief and betrayal, and once
(12:34):
again, we're left to carry italone. This is known as
emotional reactivation orassociative trauma response.
Your body and mind remember pastharms even if you're not
consciously aware of theconnection. New crises tap into
old wounds, and without acollective framework for
healing, people are leftreliving pain without meaning or
(12:56):
resolution. There's somethingespecially cruel about how the
end of pandemic protections wasframed.
Instead of a slow, thoughtfultransition out of emergency
mode, we got slogans like getback to normal, even though
normal never worked foreveryone. We got platitudes
about resilience even asthousands were still dying.
(13:19):
People who wore masks weremocked. Those who asked for
accommodations were shamed.Collective care became
political, and public health wasframed as a personal choice.
This shift mirrors whatpsychologists call moral injury,
the emotional damage thatresults from being forced to
witness or participate inactions that violate one's sense
(13:40):
of what is right. People whotook the pandemic seriously were
not only dismissed, they weremade to feel wrong for holding
on to care. This underminespeople's trust in themselves and
others, and it corrodes empathyat scale. We talked about
empathy in a previous episode.That shift, framing public
(14:00):
safety as individualresponsibility, didn't just hurt
people medically.
It's rewired how we relate toeach other. You stopped being
your neighbor's keeper. Youbecame a potential threat, a
moral failing or a burden. Andonce again, the emotional cost
of surviving was treated like apersonal defect. This kind of
(14:21):
structural gaslighting where thedominant narrative denies the
lived reality of suffering leadsto widespread self doubt and
alienation.
People begin to second guesstheir instincts, minimize their
needs, and feel shame for askingquestions. In the long run, this
undermines not only mentalhealth, but also the capacity
(14:42):
for collective action andsolidarity. There was no place
to say, I'm still scared or Ilost someone or I've changed and
the world hasn't caught up. Andwithout that space, those
feelings calcify. They turn intobitterness, alienation, and
disconnection, exactly theopposite of what we need to
build solidarity in the face ofongoing harm.
(15:07):
Let's talk a little bit moreabout grief, but this time,
let's focus on it power. Wedon't usually think of grief as
political, but it is. Not justbecause we grieve the outcomes
of political decisions, butbecause how grief is permitted,
framed, and policed tells us whois allowed to be fully human and
public. Grief is disruptive. Itslows down productivity.
(15:32):
It demands care. It interruptsthe flow of what capitalism
calls normal. That's why publicgrief over systemic violence,
whether it's war, pandemicdeath, police shootings, or
climate collapse, is oftensilenced or redirected. You're
told to keep it private, moveon, and get back to work. But
grief doesn't move on.
(15:53):
It transforms. And the way ittransforms depends on whether
it's shared or isolated. Whengrief is held in community, it
can turn into care, intosolidarity, into acts of mutual
protection. When it'sacknowledged, it reconnects us
to others and helps us rememberthat we're not alone in feeling
(16:15):
like something has gone terriblywrong. When grief is made
visible and ritualized, even insmall ways, it becomes a quiet
form of resistance against thesystems that would rather we
stay numb.
But when grief is denied orhidden, it calcifies and hardens
into numbness, festers intoquiet rage. Psychologically,
(16:37):
that's what happens when there'sno outlet for mourning. The loss
gets internalized as alienation,shame, and sometimes moral
fatigue. If that happens atscale, it becomes easier for
institutions to maintaincontrol. And that's the real
danger.
When we lose access to sharedemotional language, we become
(16:59):
easier to fragment andmanipulate. We stop saying
things like this is wrong and weall feel it. We stop seeing each
other's pain as connected to ourown. If we want to rebuild our
village, we have to reclaimgrief not just as a feeling but
as a public practice. That meanscreating spaces, physical,
(17:20):
cultural, and emotional, wherepeople can name their losses out
loud, not just the loss of life,but the loss of trust, safety,
and the futures they onceimagined.
So talk about what you've lost.Invite others to do the same.
Make space where collectivemourning isn't seen as weakness
(17:40):
but as an act of truth telling.When grief is witnessed, it
reminds us what we value andwhat we're still willing to
fight for. There's another layerto this, the way power
structures manufacturehopelessness.
Media coverage of war, like thislatest strike, often works like
(18:01):
a slow sedative. You'll seepundits arguing over tactics.
You'll see maps, acronyms, andmilitary terms, but you won't
see sustained outrage. You won'tsee organizing, and you likely
won't see protest if you're noton social media. The framing
flattens your emotional responseuntil it becomes confusion or
(18:22):
resignation.
Just another headline. Justanother day. This is by design.
There's a psychological term forwhat we experience in moments
like this, learned helplessness.It happens when people are
repeatedly exposed touncontrollable events and come
to believe that nothing they dowill change the outcome.
(18:43):
Over time, they disengage, notbecause they don't care, but
because the emotional cost ofcaring becomes unbearable. This
kind of emotional shutdown is asurvival response, a form of
psychic triage. The brain startsrationing your ability to feel
because feeling too much withoutagency becomes a kind of slow
(19:05):
emotional death. And so webecome spectators to our own
unraveling, not because we wantto be, but because we've been
conditioned to believe thatparticipation is futile. Pair
that with moral injury, thepsychological damage that occurs
when your values are violated byactions you're forced to
witness, and you have a countryfull of people emotionally
(19:28):
paralyzed by contradiction.
We believe in democracy, but wesee it violated. We believe in
peace but see only endless war.We believe in community but feel
completely alone. What we'reseeing is not apathy. It's grief
with nowhere to go, and oftenthat grief tries to speak
through our anger.
(19:49):
But when we try to express it,we're told to calm down, be
polite. That rage ispathologized, seen as excessive,
irrational, or unproductive. Butthe truth is anger is often a
sign of care, conscience, andconnection. It's not something
to be suppressed. It's somethingto be honored.
(20:09):
Anger is what rises when griefrefuses to be silenced. It's not
the problem. It's a signal thatthe problem still matters. So
where do we go from here? Thefirst thing is to stop
pretending that we can regulateour way through this alone.
You can't self care your way outof a war. You can't meditate or
(20:32):
goat yoga away the collapse ofpublic health. You can't journal
your way through systemicviolence. We need each other
desperately. There's power incommunity, real community, not
group chats, friend groups, orshared aesthetics.
In fact, a community that onlyincludes people you like and
enjoy isn't really community, isit? It's a click. People are
(20:56):
rebuilding that community powernow through mutual aid networks,
solidarity collectives,neighborhood councils, and
intentional communities. Thesearen't just practical responses.
They're psychological medicine.
Being seen, held, and helped byothers restores the parts of the
self that capitalism tries tostrip away. When we connect, we
(21:19):
co regulate. That's not a softskill. That's a survival
mechanism. It helps us processgrief in ways that are
sustainable.
It helps us metabolize rage intoaction instead of implosion. It
helps us remember that we'renot, quote, crazy. We're just
reacting to a world that wantsus to feel isolated and
(21:39):
powerless. There are steps youcan take right now. If you're
overwhelmed by what's happening,start small.
Find an existing mutual aidgroup in your area. Offer help.
Ask for help. Share food withyour neighbors in your
communities. Pool yourresources.
Create a grief space wherepeople can talk about what
(21:59):
they've lost, whether that'sfrom war, pandemics, or just the
everyday violence of economicsurvival. Build a resiliency
garden with your neighbors. Getto know each other. Don't stay
silent and isolated. Most ofall, allow yourself to feel.
Your anger is not a failure, andyour sadness is not a weakness.
(22:21):
Your confusion right now, it'snot a flaw. These are signals
that your conscience is intactand your humanity hasn't been
eroded by the system no matterhow hard it tries. In a society
built to isolate us, connectionis a radical act. In a world
that wants us numb, feeling isrebellion.
(22:44):
And in a time when it feels likeeverything is unraveling,
showing up for each other is howwe hold the thread. Thanks for
listening to this specialepisode of PsyberSpace. We felt
that this was imperative torelease today in light of the
news events that happened thisweekend. I'm your host, Leslie
Poston, signing off. I hope thisepisode has helped you.
(23:07):
Until next time, stay curious,stay connected, and don't forget
to subscribe so that you don'tmiss any of the weekly drops.
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