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Created: April 14 2003
Latest Update: April 14, 2003
jeannecurran@habermas.org
takata@uwp.edu

Comfort food and nightmares. Comment by Jennifer Glass.

Site Copyright: Jeanne Curran and Susan R. Takata and Individual Authors, April 2003.
"Fair use" encouraged.

On Friday, April 11, 2003, Jennifer Glass wrote:

Subject: Effects of the War

Jeanne,

I found the article about an anxious nation turning to comfort foods very interesting. It is unbelievable how much of an impact the war has on us without our realizing it. It wasn't until a couple nights ago when I had a nightmare that I realized how much it is affecting me. In my nightmare, I was fighting in the war with my friend. I was inside of a room curled up in a corner crying because I was scared to leave the room and fight. Then some Iraqi soldiers came in the room, and we shot at each other, and my friend got hit. I was trying to carry my injured friend out of the building so that I could find him some medical help, and then I woke up. This dream really disturbed me and it made me realize how much the war is affecting me. It is affecting me just like those who are turning to comfort foodduring this time of anxiety.
Jennifer Glass

On Monday, April 14, 2003, jeanne responded:

Good point, Jennifer. Lots of people are talking about having nightmares. Young people particularly are having trouble with this. As a sociologist, and NOT as a psychologist, I want to remind you that the social bonds with your friends, like the one you were trying to help, are an important part of the structural context of your life. That means you need to feel them in the full scope of your feelings, including being scared for them and for you. To do so will help you understand the many stresses that you are all going through.

Now, I'm going to put up some more advice about how to cope, but please bear in mind that I am not asking YOU to adjust to a WORLD where people are NUTS for KILLING EACH OTHER. That's my quarrel with the psychological advice. Sometimes even paranoids are smart to be paranoid. There's nothing wrong with you. There's something wrong with the crazy world we live in. Bearing that in mind, try some of the strategies, even comfort food. They might help you feel better, though I'm convinced that loving those, including cats and stuffed animals, who love you is one of the best reality therapies we're ever going to find. It's about that interdependence stuff from postmodernism again.

A retreat from war: On the home front, there are simple ways to get a little R&R from the daily news. By JUDY STARK, Times Homes Editor. © St. Petersburg Times, published April 5, 2003.

love and peace, jeanne

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