Why it's common to regress in the pandemic

Working as a Marriage & Family Therapy Trainee at The Center for Professional Counseling, I clearly remember the words of my supervisor - whose thick accent and provocative metaphors might lead you on more than one occasion to mistake her for Esther Perel - as we young counselors were faced for the first time with the question of how on earth to provide therapy amidst a global pandemic: "This is a time that we all regress." 

A bold statement; and yet it hit the nail on the head.

I imagine at some point you’ve traveled home for the holidays, only to find yourself acting like you've somehow time-travelled back to the not-so-mature human you once were in middle school? It's a common response to stress, and can also be a product of the triggers and dynamics crafted by our environments. Given the right circumstances, and you know just how quickly it can happen.

But in addition to during stressful moments like going home for the holidays or even planning a wedding, regression can also be a common response to trauma. And - as I'm sure you've by now heard it said - everything we've been recently going through - from a pandemic, to racial and political uprisings, and fires and severe weather - are all part of one huge, complex mess of a collective trauma.

The thing to know about trauma is that it violates our sense of safety and our understanding of how the world operates. Maybe it was our understanding that the world is safe. That our job was secure. That we'd always have those national parks in our backyard. Trauma literally rattles the stability of the absolute earliest of our developmental stages and our most basic needs: trust and safety. And therefore oftentimes we find that more than one stage becomes impacted and we must eventually rebuild starting all the way from the bottom up.

Let's consider Erik Erikson's psychosocial stages of development as a reference point:

1. Trust vs. Mistrust
2. Autonomy vs. Shame
3. Initiative vs. Guilt
4. Industry vs. Inferiority
5. Identity vs. Confusion
6. Intimacy vs. Isolation
7. Generativity vs. Stagnation
8. Integrity vs. Despair

Here you can see that regression might not just look like going back to a more childlike state. If the sense of trust in the world you mastered as a child becomes challenged, you can lose faith in the idea that the world works fairly - you can lose the sense of hope you once had in the future. Your sense of autonomy and industry might also become broken. You lose confidence in yourself and your abilities, where once you felt comfortable taking risks and taking initiative. Regression might also simply look like frustration over lost progress. Perhaps you grew or changed in certain ways over the past several years, only to find yourself reverting to the previous coping mechanisms you thought you had overcome. 

Even beyond current circumstances, you can probably traces breaches in several of these areas back to other traumas, such as a bad breakup, the loss of a job or a loved one, or even the last Recession.

If you find yourself feeling like you're "regressing" in certain areas of your life, consider the following few things:

First, name it. What is its age? What are its triggers? What is it trying to communicate? 

Then, give yourself a break. While many of us have found ourselves adjusting and adapting in extraordinary ways, many of our not-so-great feels and not-so-great responses right now are still a result of a pandemic. For many it's heartbreaking, it's stressful, and we are all coping the best we can.

But finally, I believe one of the most important things we can do is to remember that it is still temporary. Because trauma shakes our worldviews so significantly, it's important not to become caught up in a faulty narrative. Instead, recognize that the feelings you might have - such as losing faith in humanity or feeling like you'll never get a job, find a partner, or be successful again - are all filtered by a difficult but impermanent experience right now. Our black-and-white thinking can easily lead us to feel hopeful when times are good, and completely hopeless when times are bad. But the reality is life is always going to be a mixed bag of both. There will be ups and there will be downs. The more we can rebuild our broken understanding of the world and accept this duality, the more objectively we can move forward, and perhaps the less we need to regress in response to it.

I'll leave you with a quote I came across this week that seemed to capture the essence of stepping back from the throws of the back and forth:

"It doesn’t matter whether this is the worst time to be alive or the best, whether you’re in a good job market or a bad one. What matters right now is right now. Focus on the moment, on what you can control right now. Not what may or may not be ahead." - Ryan Holiday