When the World Is Breaking Your Heart

The other week, my husband and I were driving home after visiting a beloved family member who is struggling with the excruciating pain and to-the-bone weariness of cancer. As our car lugged down the highway, I thought about the ongoing cruelty of our world: the ravages of disease and war, the current pandemic, the never-ending inhumanity, inequality, and brutality, as well as the general disregard to our earth and the innocent creatures who are clinging to survive on it. (And, yes, I do realize that I’m just as guilty as the masses in spewing out pollution by the simple fact that I drive a car). I held back tears, and then took a deep breath as I told myself I was spiraling (which I’m sure you can tell from the above train of thought, I’m apt to do when facing a personal crisis).  And then it happened. A horribly common occurrence (according to a 2010 article in Psychology Today, it takes place more than one million times a day on roads in the United States alone). An innocent animal was plowed down without a thought. My husband had managed to swerve our car around the poor bird with a willowy neck (who might have been a Pintailed Duck) as the fledging froze between lanes in utter confusion and wide-eyed fear at the mayhem of 65-mile-per-hour metal beasts bearing down on him. Then… in the review mirror, my husband saw that the driver behind us crushed him without pause — and what looked like intention.  I lost it. I utterly lost it. All the sadness of our worl...
Source: World of Psychology - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Tags: Death & Dying Depression Grief and Loss Inspiration & Hope Personal Cancer Optimism Source Type: blogs