The stress of a disaster can bring people together. It even has a name. It’s called crisis bonding and it describes the human bonding that can occur in situations of extreme strain.
I experienced my own version of crisis bonding in the past few years. The stress of dissenting against authoritarian covid policies and ultimately losing my job over it brought me into contact with other dissenters. And we bonded.
The covid restriction adherents (jokingly called “Covidians” in the Twitter-sphere) think of themselves as community-minded folks who bonded together in a difficult time, in their unwavering kindness and care for others. They sang and danced and masked. And scolded the rest of us to be kind and just stay home. And sometimes advocated for us being fired from our jobs or sealed in our homes.
They believe that those of us who pushed back or simply questioned the onerous restrictions are unkind, uncaring and selfish.
My experience in bonding with covid dissidents contradicts the Covidians’ demonizing assertions about our character.
My newly formed crisis bonds, which began in the summer of 2020, were forged in rejecting and pushing back on the restrictions. It was a lonely time. Not only were we all “sheltering in place,” but those of us who questioned lockdowns were outcasts in our communities for daring to challenge the efficacy and safety of these never before imagined, extremely isolating policies.
We were ostracized by friends, family, colleagues and our communities. We were dragged across social media by people we knew and people we didn’t know. And for those who spoke up early, we found each other fast. There weren’t many of us. We were easy to spot. And when you got a direct message from a like-minded questioner, you answered, desperate for connection with a person outside of your household.
We supported and consoled each other, we laughed together and provided counsel — about how to stay sane, how to write an op-ed, how to navigate the ever changing restrictions in a way that gave our children as much normalcy as possible.
We discussed the rallies we led, who to invite and how to drive turnout when our announcements posted to Facebook were removed. We supported each other when we nervously considered speaking at school board meetings or running for school board. We talked about our kids and how they were doing (often, not well), we discussed what it felt like to be ousted from our social circles, we raged about not being able to visit family in the hospital or not being able to have a funeral service for a friend. We lost parents and loved ones and didn’t get to say goodbye.
We also ranted about how we wanted out (or were booted out) of our long time previously established social circles because we were required to attest to our vaccination status and give a rundown of every place we’d been and who we’d seen before being permitted to dine outdoors in the cold with these interrogators/soon-to-be-former friends.
The list of ways we helped and supported each other goes on. And on.
I’ve been fortunate to be a part of all manner of email and direct messaging groups that served the function of friendships for me. Given that I lost many of my friends because of my covid dissenting views, these groups were a lifeline. And in many instances, these virtual friendships evolved into real life friendships.
My husband and I have met up with “Team Reality” members in San Francisco, Austin, New York City, San Diego, Los Angeles, Denver, Washington D.C. and Chicago. We’ve met in large groups. We’ve met one on one. I know about their children, health woes, marriages, politics, and religious beliefs (or lack thereof). If you can meet your future spouse on match.com you can certainly meet new friends on Twitter/X.
We come from all manner of backgrounds. We are atheists and believers; we are Catholic, Evangelical Christian, Mormon, Jewish, Muslim, atheist and agnostic; we are doctors, lawyers, academics, writers and teachers and a gazillion other things including cancelled corporate executives; we are childless, expecting, we have families — large and small; in some instances our children have graduated and are living on their own; some of our children are transgender; we are Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians and hard to say anymore; we are gay and straight; we are black, white, Latino, Indian and myriad other backgrounds that it would take too long to list.
It wasn’t all serious talk. We made each other laugh. The number of times I laughed out loud — cackled really — at something someone wrote are as numerous as the times I’ve cried in frustration during the past 3 years. My phone was my friend or I should say, the people who lived inside it were. And are. For the most part.
Now that we have largely moved on from the madness, we find ourselves straying into other territory more frequently. And — unsurprisingly — we find ourselves more conflicted.
There has been disruption, arguing, and even self-extraction from some of these groups, when it gets too heated. In some instances, we find we don’t like each other much and we only came together because of our covid views.
The crisis bonding was real. Now we’ve come up for air and, sometimes with some people, we realize we just don’t have much in common. No crisis, no bond.
And that’s ok.
But what is frustrating to me — and kind of sad — is that we came together in praise of openness, dialogue and respectful dissent. We pledged to listen to understand. We hoped for the same in return, when we took our views into the world. We rarely got it.
We acknowledged that some of us were pro-choice, some of us were pro-life, and we simply didn’t care at this moment in time. What united us mattered more. Many seem to have lost that magnanimity that we kindly offered each other while in crisis mode.
I’m in a direct message group of writers. Or I was, until recently. Many are academics. All are smart. Most are religious. I’m an outlier in that I am not a person of faith.
It seems a belief in the human soul is a through line for many — not all — covid dissenters. As an avowed atheist, I came to respect this view as a respect for our basic humanity. One that I share, in non-religous form. A secular humanist might be an apt description or the label most commonly used to describe my outlook.
I do not believe in God or the Holy Spirit and I don’t take the Bible to be the Word of God and a guide for how I ought to live my life.
I also do not believe we are machines or cogs, that can be moved through a model to achieve an outcome. We are people, individuals, with human needs and wants and desires. We are not cars or objects that can be fixed with just the right mechanistic prescription.
Our essential humanity cannot be ignored, paused or simply set aside. It’s inhumane to treat actual people like inputs in a model. Which is how we were all treated by public health for the past 3+ years.
I ejected myself from this writers’ group about a week ago.
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