Katniss Everdeen’s story in Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games trilogy is one of survival, perseverance, and complex trauma. She grew up in an oppressive dystopia where the rich overindulged, the poor fought each other for scraps, and twenty-three children died every year as punishment for the rebellion of their ancestors. She took her sister’s place and survived her Games (losing a beloved ally and friend in the process), only to be sent back as punishment for inciting another revolution. She fought the war and won, but in the process lost the people she was fighting for. And when all was said and done, Katniss was expected to return home and live a peaceful life.
But how could she? After so much pain and suffering, after living a life where peace was impossible, how does anyone live such a life? How do you pick up the pieces after so much loss?
Everyone comes up with their own answers. Some drink to forget the pain, and some strive to honor those lost. Some go on a path of destruction, and some go on to rebuild as much as they can. Katniss’s road to peace is slow, filled with hunting and PTSD episodes and collecting mementos of the dead. The books end similarly to the movies, almost word for word:
“I make a list in my head of every act of goodness I’ve seen someone do. It’s like a game. Repetitive. Even a little tedious after all these years. But there are much worse games to play.”
–Mockingjay, pg. 398
I missed the last two deadlines on my blog. I planned to write about President Snow and the scene that made him a fantastic villain, as well as Muppet Christmas Carol as an adaptation of the Charles Dickens classic. But it’s been a rough season. Parts of my life have been stressful, and I found myself overwhelmed by how much I needed to do in order to fix it all. I’m still not out of the woods just yet. And I think it might be a while before I can say I am.
In times like that, it’s tempting to roll my eyes at people gushing over what they’re thankful for or how they’re so hashtag blessed. When all I can see is my own fear and sadness, it’s easy to see someone else’s happiness and call it fake or naive. I see people on social media bragging about their opportunities or how easy life is for them, and I want to tell them to shut up and go away. Then I imagine them accusing me of throwing myself a pity party, and that makes me feel even worse.
It’s also incredibly easy to abuse the concept of gratitude. The whole idea of the Thanksgiving holiday came from a myth, crafted by Lincoln to encourage unity between two enemies in the aftermath of a civil war. If you’re wondering, the real story of the first Thanksgiving feast is far more complicated than they taught us in school. And that’s nothing to say of people who watch protestors taking the knee or going on a worker’s strike and calling them ‘ungrateful’ for bad wages and police brutality.
But practicing thankfulness can also be a good tool for self-care and keeping hope alive. And it wasn’t until recently that I realized why.
This past year, I was practicing two journaling exercises for therapy. One was writing down the things I was proud of myself for. Another was writing down the things I was grateful for. I took those practices for granted back then because, while I wasn’t where I wanted to be, I felt optimistic about where I was going. But a lot has changed since then. And it’s harder to be optimistic about where I’m going when I can barely see one week in front of me.
One morning at work, I hid in my car and cried until I was numb. I felt like I was standing on the edge of a cliff, caught between a burning forest behind me and an ominous whirlpool down below. If I stayed on the edge, the inferno would consume me. But if I jumped, the undercurrent would drown me. I could see no clear path to survival, no way to escape the fire and navigate the waters.
When I got back to my desk, I worked in a daze. I couldn’t think, I couldn’t feel. All I wanted was to go home, bury myself in blankets, and do nothing else. At some point, I was reminded of the gratitude practice I had tried and forgotten about months ago. So I tried again. I wrote down a dozen things I was thankful for. Some were serious. Some were silly. Some were big things no one should take for granted, and some were little things I found myself craving more than food. It didn’t cure me. I still felt dazed and numb and sad. But I was no longer spiraling.
I realized that by reminding myself of what I’m grateful for, I was also reminding myself of what I’m fighting for. What it felt like to hope for a better future. And it was easier to look at the fire behind, and the whirlpool below, and think to myself, “it’s scary, but I think I can survive this.”
Like Katniss said, it’s like a game. It gets repetitive. Tedious, even. But there are worse things to think about.
