Coping with today’s political stress is no leisurely stroll through the jungle. Chances are, over the last few years of community tension, you’ve noticed changes in 
others. You may also have picked up on changes in how you yourself feel, or how you interact with others.
This is because our gut brains are on constant high alert. We are too uncertain about what might be coming next. Our feelings and choices of behavior reveal this regularly.
Why Cogjam Really Is a Disaster
But does that really ramp cogjam up to disaster status? Here’s how Chapter Two of my upcoming book, The Cogjam Effect – and the Path to Healing Divisive Community and Fractured Science, justifies identifying cogjam as a disaster:
“What makes cogjam a mental health ‘disaster?’ For that matter, why is anything defined as a disaster? We hear those ruled by black or white thinking use the term to describe anything they find at all unfavorable.
For the purpose of this discussion, the definition of disaster is the one established by emergency management and other groups who step in when communities are in distress.
Disaster is an adverse incident that significantly disrupts community functioning. It results in material, human, infrastructural, environmental, and/or other losses that go beyond the community’s ability to cope by way of usual means. Addressing vital needs and getting day-to-day functioning back to normal usually requires assistance outside of usual community resources and practices.[1]
Disastrous incidents can be naturally caused—such as hurricanes, floods, pandemics, wildfires, earthquakes, and tornadoes; or manmade—such as bombings, explosions, releases of hazardous materials, and arson activity. Note that manmade does not necessarily mean intentional. War, mass shootings and the like, yes. But much of manmade disaster is purely accidental, unfortunate by-products of our fallible humanbeinghood.
That’s what cogjam is about: a man-made disaster, but for the most part unintentional. Yes, there could be abusive sociopaths out there who purposely try to perpetuate it. It would certainly be a good way to keep others sufficiently traumatized so as to be able to manipulate them.
But the majority of cogjam more likely stems from communitywide struggles to cope with multiple conflicting perspectives, generated by so many advanced cerebral cortices.
Cogjam therefore fits within the definition of disaster thusly:
- It has released a landslide of mental health impact on our communities.
- The resulting stress or trauma has excessively challenged most individuals’ ability to either cope well with or overcome it.
- It disrupts and at times overwhelms community functioning.
- Exceptional effort is needed to overcome its breadth of impact, beyond usual means of coping and mental health resources available.
The gut brain can’t ignore the uncertainty, frustration, and fears generated by such a huge amalgamation of conflict. But the gut brain is the wrong tool for surviving cogjam. So we suffer similarly to those living through other disasters—not because of lost homes, lifestyles, loved ones, physical health, or neighborhoods, but as a result of the nationwide drop in sense of wellbeing, both jointly and individually.”
. . . Yet We CAN Overcome Its Effect on Us
Escaping the impact of today’s version of political stress takes active, focused effort–not to try to change the world in one fell swoop, but by:
- Assuring our gut brains that we are indeed able to cope.
- Making a difference in our own corner of the world, one human interaction at a time.
- Employing compassion and understanding with those around us who struggle, rather than withdrawal, groupthink, defensiveness, or retaliation.
- Aligning ourselves with common humanity, and in so doing reap the rewards of social connectedness and post-traumatic growth.
Like all other disaster survivors, we are resilient.
[1]FEMA (2017). National Disaster Recovery Framework. Retrieved from http://www.fema.gov/national-disaster-recovery-framework.
which the fight or flight response was intended. We’d never know it, though, considering how politicians so often let gut reasoning take the lead. But look at it from their perspective. As far as their careers go, opposing political opinions may well represent life or death. Given the complexity and expense of election campaigns these days, our representatives no longer simply look out for the interests of their constituencies. They are in the unenviable position of also needing to satisfy those who finance their campaigns, which usually isn’t individual voters. Plus, they need to walk the line of party affiliations.
The needs and aims of these three factions may not coincide. The resulting conflicts of interest hack away at politicians’ increasingly precarious stumps. It’s a no-win situation, and probably terrifying for any elected official who values staying in office. The temptation to give in to gut reasoning must be profound, indeed. And as long as the status quo for election campaign practices continues, it’s a safe bet that cogjam will always be riding shotgun. 
th fear-based behavior, interpretations and conclusions drawn when we’re all worked up may or may not be our best. When battling through the heat of the moment, the temptation to accept a logical hypothesis as reality rather than something to be checked out can be powerful indeed. But putting the cart before the horse in this manner is actually a form of rationalization.
Chapter 13 – “Healing the Herd”: