🌊 Reflections on Survival Mode

A perspective that is helping me give myself more grace

Winston, after surviving a long bout of play :-)

I’m excellent at coping with hard things.

I’m less excellent at realizing just how much coping I am doing.¹

Surely I’m not in “survival mode”?

I generally think of myself as a highly privileged and resourced person, and in many ways, this is true. I’m a white, educated, middle-class woman living in America with healthy children, a husband with a good job, a comfortable house, and many other privileges. I’m smart, efficient(ish), and skilled in lots of ways.

I’m highly aware (being naturally prone to empathy) that I don’t live in the kind of serious “survival mode” that way too many people in the world endure, even some people in my own geographic area (rural-ish West Virginia). My heart is always breaking for suffering that I see and hear about, and I’m continually thinking about how I can help. (I’m actually working on a song about this, that I’m hoping to record and post whenever I get a chance…)

And yet…

Maybe I am in survival mode

An Instagram post I saw recently helped me realize that there’s a sense in which I am actually in survival mode way more often than I think.

I’d never seen anyone online saying these sorts of things before, and it was a blast of fresh air: thank you, @chaoswithcara, for your generosity in sharing these perspectives.

Essentially, her point in the post was this: if you see other moms online saying things like, “I just wake up before my children, so I have time to do my exercise and morning chores…” then that means they have certain resources (in her case, a partner who helps her with the kids’ bedtime process so she can go to bed early) that you may not have—so don’t take that expectation upon yourself, if you don’t have the same resources that make it possible.

I hold myself to very high standards and then feel like a failure for not achieving them; I compare myself to some ideal of perfection and urge myself to do better. Why can’t I keep our house tidier? Why can’t I get us places more punctually? And on and on…

Not-just-imaginary difficulties

Thanks to that Instagram post, I understand better now that despite my many privileges, I actually lack some crucial supports that others have, and I have some legit special challenges (that I’m not just imagining, as my inner critic suggests):

• I have (diagnosed!) autism, ADHD, and Generalized Anxiety Disorder

• I’m recovering from religious trauma (and other sorts of developmental/mental health difficulties).

• I have chronic health problems (including recurring mono/EBV and Hashimoto’s thyroiditis).

• I have twins—which I think is always a particular, extra challenge—plus a younger kid.

• My kids have autism and ADHD as well, which increases the parenting challenges.

• Literally everyone in our house has ADHD, which means that our house is constantly cluttered with unfinished projects, play objects, and random things in random places.

• My husband, though contributing to our family in other crucial ways, does not share equally with me in the mental load of parenting and housekeeping.

• I do not have close, nearby family and friends who can reliably help me very much with childcare and other things.

Looking at it this way, I realize that I am, in fact, very often in survival mode—just trying to get through each day, dealing with whatever things are happening as best I can. I’m trying to keep us all going in relatively/subjectively difficult conditions. That is why things feel hard so often…not because I’m just not doing a good enough job!

Mercy in the meantime

Realizing that I, too, am living in survival mode broadens my perspective in a way that makes me more inclined to give myself grace—and to keep reaching harder for self-care, rather than for perfection. “Mercy in the meantime,” as my friend and I say (as we communicate mostly by voice memos emailed back and forth).

I know this is a season of life, and someday down the road, I’ll likely have much more time at my disposal to write, read, take care of myself, hang out with friends, and do all kinds of other things that I can’t seem to squeeze in much right now. And, yes (as people seem to enjoy informing parents of small children), of course, I’ll look back on these days and miss them.

But right now, I’m in survival mode! “It’s not the time” (as I wrote in my “Hard Time Song”) “to high achieve / or solve big problems / they will keep. / For right now / hold on and breathe…”

It’s the time for self-compassion: reaching for what supports and met needs I can find, while giving myself and my loved ones bucketfuls of grace. 💗

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poem connection

I wrote this reminder-poem after seeing that Instagram post I mentioned:

You look at others flourishing,
and you feel like a Muggle.
But you don’t see what helps they’ve got
and don’t see how they struggle.

You’re doing fine just as you are.
You’re working your own magic.
Just take your time along your path.
You’re trailblazing, not tragic.

(I previously posted this as a “Serenity Splash” poem)

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1. I have heard that this is common with trauma survivors—we get used to life’s feeling very hard and to not getting our own needs met very well. We feel it as normal.

In fact, I’ve been writing about this more directly in my “Serenity Splash” poems lately (such as “Nervous System Mending”): it seems to me that trauma survivors in recovery have to acclimatize our nervous systems to accept, and feel safe with, getting more of our own needs met. So I’m hoping to work toward this…stay tuned!