#usach

The system has been contributing for years to the survival experience, and now shows its worst side, confronting the government leadership, defying their competence. As a chilean person this is not a new feeling, is a ceasless headache in a political representative crisis, in which a pandemic only enhanced the usual predicaments, and the current social crisis shared with the rest of southamerica.

Chile, as other third world countries, does not have egalitarian policies in matters of health, economy, education, and so on, which added an element of difficulty in the dystopian experience we are trapped in. If it was challenging before, the pandemic manages to complicate things more, especially for those who are less fortunate. The new normal implies wearing masks, lockdown for months, health cordons, and hand sanitizer to minimize the risk of contagion among citizens. However, regardless of the latter mentioned features we have incorporated into our lives, the surviving feeling is triggered by the current trials and tribulations stacking inside our minds.

Surviving means existing in spite of hardships, but it also means continuing to function, enduring, and live through a situation. The pandemic prompted a feeling of weariness and numbness, hijacking the pleasant experience of life, making difficult to even survive. Working from home has become a burn out ordeal, often forcing people to work after hours to achieve the perfomance of a day; regarding schools and universities the situation replicates. According to psychologists, the lack of time to adapt to the situation causes stress, anxiety and distress but nothing seems to stop for the ones in charge, disregarding personal tragedies. Protocols and formalities continuing to apply in what the youth have defined as “the end of the world”. In addition to this, the usual burdens of life like paying bills, housework, and buying groceries represent a new level of diffculty, alongside the fear of becoming a biozahard danger. Weekends, designated to unwind and relax, no longer serves its purpose cornered in your home.

The survivor in ourselves comes to play when our parents’ uneasy attitude warns us that not everything is right, when you are feeling the stress soring your body, when the blue light filter no longer helps your sight, when the walls around you overwhelm the senses and the buzzing of the nonsensical news in the tv are feckless. Subsisting now means trying to not lose control, overcome panicking over what is already been piling up, clutching your stomach with an anxiety knot, and nervous perspiration in your hands, while studying, working, or even just breathing. Salvaging your mental health at the same time as your physical.

Survivor mode, as I have been calling it, does not imply solely negative outcomes, notwithstanding the feeling can be tiredsome. Discovering talents, spending time with your pet, creating a new bussiness, watching the tv show you could not watch before, can create positives experiences that were postponed before the lockdown. Grounding people, make them stop to observe what is really of importance, conducting them to comprehend where they want to be. I personally believe that the instinct of protect and survive along with our loved ones, drive us towards surmounting challenges that might hinder enjoyment. Hence, it is important to gather collective strenght, supporting each other, staying close even in the distance, finding a light within your people.