Goldtent TA Paradise

ASHAMED ?

1. Fullgoldcrown says:

   December 27, 2021 - 9:21 am at 9:21 am

   In a remarkable article that unintentionally gives the game away, last week the Washington Post published this remarkable headline: “Thousands who followed the rules are about to get covid. They shouldn’t be ashamed.”

   The article begins with an anecdote about “Aline,” whose name was anonymized to protect her from … something … maybe other pro-vaxxers? Anyway, after explaining that Aline did everything right, took her jabs, wore her masks, and distanced, she STILL GOT COVID. And she’s not too happy about it:

   “I feel very embarrassed and dumb,” she says, and upset that she’s causing her family stress. “It’s eye-opening that I feel so much shame from it. I’m realizing how much judgment I was secretly harboring against people who got it before.”

   Well. At least she’s developing some new self-awareness. But the point is, and this is a really important point, pro-injection folks feel SUPERIOR until they get Covid, and then they feel ASHAMED.

   The WaPo quotes a clinical psychologist, Jessica Stern, who explains how the game was set up from the beginning to punish non-compliance:

   “Because the narrative is so closely connected to our behaviors, I think there’s this implication, or this assumption, that if you get sick, you must have done something wrong to bring it onto yourself.” That’s not true, she stresses, “but unfortunately it’s inherent in the way we’ve been thinking about and talking about covid.”

   Read that carefully. Psychologist Stern isn’t saying that it was WRONG to make people feel ashamed to get sick. She’s saying that’s just an unfortunate side effect. In other words, it’s unavoidable collateral damage.

   Stern defines “shame” as “the combination of embarrassment or guilt and identity — one of the most visceral emotions.”

   So this shame they’re feeling isn’t just a transitory or fleeting unpleasant emotion, a passage through one stage to another. Instead, the shame undermines people’s basic identity, their core recognition of self and their place in the world.

   The Washington Post blames this tragedy on misinformation: “Some people have misunderstood the role vaccines play in preventing illness, believing that they protect against any and all infection.”

   I wonder where people could have gotten THAT misunderstanding, the crazy idea that the vaccines were supposed to stop any and all infections? Maybe from Rachel Maddow? https://tinyurl.com/yrkakkvf. Or, from Fauci, Biden, and Walensky? https://tinyurl.com/2p95s672. Dangerous misinformation! Misunderstandings!

   The article quotes Lyn Bufka, described as a “senior director” of the American Psychological Association, and a clinical psychologist — meaning she treats patients. The WaPo says Bufka follows a twitter thread memorializing people who died from Covid. The Senior Director told the WaPo that, while she is looking at the faces of the deceased, it’s “easy” to start judging: Was that person vaccinated? How and why did they get sick?

   It’s easy to judge.

   Finally, the WaPo wraps up by offering ashamed Covid-getters some practical advice. We can’t just leave them hanging out there. They used to be one of us! One of the clean ones. So here’s what WaPo suggests:

   1) Acknowledge you were feeling judgy and perfectionistic: “it makes sense that you might be feeling, well, mortified at the idea that others will think you behaved carelessly.” It makes sense! To the WaPo, anyway.

   2) Don’t hide your condition. Comparing getting Covid to getting HIV — a recurrent theme throughout the article — the WaPo says you still need to get proper treatment even though you can’t stand the idea of telling anybody that you got Covid.

   3) Don’t try to talk your way out of it. Psychologist Stern says you probably feel overly defensive, but nobody wants to hear all your excuses. You got it, deal with it. Instead of rationalizing, try to deflect with humor, saying something like — and I am not making this up, this is what the article really suggests — “I’m super careful, but it got me!”

   4) Learn from your mistake; quit partying so much; mask up. You screwed up, okay? But the important thing is, what can you LEARN from your mistakes? WaPo says — again, not making it up — “As psychiatrist Sue Varma puts it: ‘Maybe not going to the nightclubs anymore, right?’”

   Or, and I really wish I was making this up, ORDER MORE MASKS:

   “Bufka suggests: Go online and order a whole bunch of masks, and then ‘put them everywhere’ — in your car, in your purse, in a coat jacket, on the table where you set your keys and mail.”

   Now … why would you order more masks if you ALREADY HAD COVID??? The issue of immunity — the ACTUAL bright side of their shameful infection — never ever comes up in the article. Not once. Fascinating, isn’t it?

   5) Turn your shame inside out. Use your shame as a new reason to feel prideful about yourself. “It could be that you’re very diligent and very conscientious, and that’s why you’re taking this so hard,” Varma says. “That just means you’re a thoughtful, considerate, caring human being trying really, really hard.”

   See how easy it is? Just substitute one reason for feeling prideful for another.

   Finally, way, way down at the very bottom of a very long article, in case somebody reads the whole ridiculous thing all the way through, the WaPo assures its shamefaced readers that “you’re not a failure!”

   Can you imagine living in a state of mind where if you catch a cold you think that means you are a FAILURE? Failed at what exactly? Mask wearing? Jabbing? Hand washing? What exactly about the idea of “bending the curve” somehow morphed into a kind of class-signaling virtue of avoiding illness? When — how? — did they start thinking Covid was like HIV? That you can only catch it if you do something unclean or socially unacceptable?

   I’m thinking the psychological fallout from this pandemic — the media-generated version of the pandemic — is going to last a long, long time. If you are looking for a new career with bright prospects, consider counseling.

   Thanks, experts!

2. Chartsmaster says:

   December 27, 2021 - 10:20 am at 10:20 am

   No one should feel ashamed for getting sick. What they SHOULD be ASHAMED of is believing the lies of their govts. and CONTINUING to do so!