A Man and His Dog
The importance of hope in trying times
Recently, someone described to me a metaphor for policy and progress. Progress is a man walking with his dog; as he walks in the straight line, the dog will serpentine next to him and will wander from edge to edge of the sidewalk. The dog represents the push and pull of policy as progress continues in a straight line forward. It would be cruelly dismissive to say that progress has been apparent any time in recent memory, especially as the true consequences for many individuals in the wake of these policies include death, homelessness, and psychological turmoil. However, I have noticed a resounding lack of hope in efforts to fight current injustice or create opportunity, especially in young activists. Although we must hold on to our sense of urgency, we also have to remain motivated without losing ourselves or our lives in the process. There are people who are fully invested in politics as a career and they are hoping that you become too tired to fight injustice or you begin to feel that it is pointless. When we give up on the future, other people get to write it into existence.
Hope is as direly needed as ever. Unfortunately, hope requires faith in something. If you read my previous piece, you know that faith in American institutions is all but gone in the past five years for most Americans. We see the results of our pained society and we tend to segment these pains to specific subcultures. For example, suicide is a national crisis. As you boil down statistics to various groups, there are heart-breaking trends for veterans, LGBTQ+ individuals, older adults, and other marginalized communities. Despite two years recently of decline in suicide rates, it is back on the rise again. I don’t think it’s any coincidence that as isolation from non-digital communities has risen and our third-spaces have disappeared, that suicide rates have hit an all-time high as of 2022. The literature continues to debate how strong of a predictor hopelessness is in suicide research. However, it is clear that a lack of hope is related to negative outcomes like risky behaviors, burnout, and suicide.
Even some of our attempts at helping create harm. Following the creation of the first federal crisis hotline, 988, over 81,000 Americans were involuntarily committed based on their calls or calls on their behalf. Despite activist efforts, 988 call centers — which are contracted across the nation to existing crisis hotline agencies — were given the ability to trace calls via local police for crisis intervention. This is concerning when we acknowledge that the risk of suicide has been found to be 100 times higher at the time of discharge from hospitalization than average, with suicide risk remaining heightened for up to years after the experience.
I am not suggesting that those in crisis avoid the suicide hotline. When you need help, you should reach for any lifeline available. However, I am recommending nuanced consideration of risk for mental health professionals and others when identifying crisis intervention as a solution to suicidality. Ultimately, involuntary commitment has its own risks that community prevention models try to avoid. The tension is that many of these community efforts require the investment of community activists and non-profit workers who themselves struggle with a lack of hope. Even in the formal (and paid) helping professions such as nursing and mental health professionals, secondary trauma is a high risk with up to 85% of professionals developing some level of traumatic symptoms. The general public, even, has been found to be developing vicarious trauma symptoms based on social media and the coverage of violent events. Community activists who are unpaid for their work toward community healing and policy change, and are inundated with videos of violence, are at a high risk for burnout, hopelessness, and secondary trauma.
The first thing we have to note is that history is not created in a linear or logical way. When we look backwards, we often make assumptions that things progressed how they should have. However, when you’re writing backwards, it’s easy to form a narrative that seems deliberate and logical. It’s only when you have a reason to trace a specific issue into its own sociopolitical context, that you realize how much time and place affects the way we think about the issue at hand. For example, the first child rights case in the United States was initially handled by the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA). This is because the United States had the foundation for animal rights prior to rights for children. I will give you a moment to pick your jaw up from your keyboard or lap. However, when you consider the penchant for American politics to prioritize a large (cheap) workforce by any means, this fact seems more in line with history than looking from a standpoint of progress. In addition to being necessary to avoiding repeating history, it is important to know the true timeline of our social issues to humble us in our understanding of progress.
If we familiarize ourselves with what historical activism has required, as well as its formal strategy, we may be better able to cope with our current realities. Efficient activism is as important as passionate activism, especially in a world where our time is limited. Additionally, for the individual focus, finding hope may be a life-saving strategy. This is also a call for mental health professionals who are working with people whose fears are founded in reality, such as housing insecurity, financial difficulties, or climate fears.
Our constant stream of international news as local news has primed us for an age of paranoia and pessimism. We discussed the impact of violent reporting on the mental health of social media users but the impact reaches far beyond that. For example, 2014 marked the lowest rates of violent crime since the high in 1991 and remains fairly low today. Despite this decline in violent crime, major news networks reports on violent crime increased 721%
One of the identifiers away from suicidality is future-focused thinking and hopelessness seems to have a predictive quality in reference to suicide attempts. However, the challenge is that hope is very individualized which can present difficulties either personally or clinically in trying to foster it. Many clinicians will look for a uniform way to instill hope, which for some can look like motivational interviewing. I do recommend motivational interviewing for any clients looking to find a thread of hope since it allows for emotion-based goal identification. However, for the average person, it can be unthinkable to try to find hope in a mindset that’s been devoid of that for any amount of time.
Snyder’s Hope Theory at its simplest argues that there are three pieces of hopeful thinking:
Goals
Pathways
Agency
I would reframe agency as self-efficacy, as it is related to your belief that you can initiate and achieve the goals. Developing goals can be challenging but a helpful and simple technique is the SMART mnemonic: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-based. The smaller the task specified under the goal, the more likely you are to achieve it. So if you have a goal for wellbeing that you’ve identified, see if you can break it down into three smaller steps and set a time-frame.
Additionally, outside of the news cycles and activism efforts, it is important to focus on the connection you have in your life. Gratitude cannot single-handedly overcome a loss of hope, but it can be helpful. I recommend 5 gratitude statements per day, at a designated time. This is a simple exercise where out loud or in written form, you state 5 things from the day for which you are grateful. Even as simple as being grateful to be here or to see a funny movie can be sufficient. In conjunction with this exercise, I like a designated Worry-Hour. This is where you identify a half-hour or hour per day where you are allowed to worry. This can help you stop the overwhelm of anxious thoughts throughout the day because there’s a time for it and it isn’t right now.
I often tell people, when the world is burning down and you think about your life’s value, are you going to be remembering the efforts you put into advocacy or are you going to be thinking about the nights you spent having dinner with the ones you love? For some the answer might be advocacy but the things that re-energize us are the ones that afford us the capacity to work on efforts for activism. Through fulfilling moments, whether through connection or creative arts or personal self-reflection, we gain energy and hope to reinvest into our political work.
Additionally, it’s important to remember that no one person alone can accomplish the widespread change for which many of us are fighting. Our connection to others creates a network that lends more hands to the same fight. There’s a quote I often return to in tough times:
“It can be overwhelming to witness/experience/take in all the injustices of the moment; the good news is that *they’re all connected.* So if your little corner of work involves pulling at one of the threads, you’re helping to unravel the whole damn cloth.” - @ladyofsardines, twitter, 2/3/2022
This quote applies tenfold when you have a community of people with a common goal. Hope is a slippery concept, especially without reminders. Although for some a vision-board would be enough to keep a hopeful mindset, others may need a more intensive exercise. The first thing that I recommend is identifying people that can help remind you of the good in your life, even if that good is just the next tasty cheesecake slice or a song that moves you to your core.
Additionally, limiting the amount of exposure you have to painful news to the best of your ability is important. Check in with your mental and physical state to try to identify when social media is turning your mood. Social media is meant to be an additive tool in your life. Even if you are using it primarily for organizing and connecting with others around a common social issue - it’s key to recognize when you have reached your daily or weekly limit. Especially given that we know it can create legitimately traumatic responses.
For anyone though, I can recommend completing the exercise below in written form. Place this completed exercise somewhere you will see it regularly - a journal you work in daily, on the fridge, on your phone, or on your nightstand.
Set a specific goal for yourself that follows the SMART outline.
Identify 3 people you can call, text, or message when you are feeling disconnected; include their contact information.
List 10 simple things that you can do to put yourself in a better mood.
Complete the following statement: “If things work out, the future could…”
Write 3 gratitude statements about things you’re grateful for across your life, no matter how small.
Write “I believe in myself,” follow this by listing three things that you like about yourself.
In the remaining space on your paper, draw your best picture of you and your favorite people together. It does not have to be pretty! It just has to depict a gathering that you would feel good about.
To be clear, this is not an exercise to counter suicidality. If you are in need of support for an acute crisis, please reach out to crisis hotlines, a therapist, or other options for help. This is a simple way to start framing a new mindset for hopeful perspectives to counter the constant stream of negativity or perceived losses.
In addition, there are some recommended readings below. These are just two options of many to add more positivity into your life alongside structuring a healthy mindset. Two things can be true at once: 1) the injustices in the world can be horrible and 2) we need you in it and hope despite the losses is part of what keeps you here. You are the man walking along the sidewalk, the circumstances you face are the dog pulling you each direction. Still - you walk forward. Not radical, but refreshed.
Recommended reading:
Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression and the Unexpected Solutions by Johann Hari
https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/