Repression and Jesus

"How are you?"
"I'm fine, how about yourself?"

"How are you doing?"
"Well, how are you?"

What did the four Americans who just exchanged those four brief sentences just do? Did they inquire after one another's emotional status? Did they want to know how you were really, truly feeling on the inside? No. They just said hi. Only they used about 3.5 words on average instead of one.

For all those Dutch people who have used this quintessential American greeting as proof that Americans really are extremely superficial, I will say it one more time: They aren't.
Really.
They just prefer to really truly completely acknowledge you when they see you, and "hi!" just isn't going to do that. So instead they ask you how you are, which just sounds a little more involved than "hi" or "hey". It doesn't mean that all Americans are fakes or superficial. All you could possibly conclude from these exchanges is that they're wordy, and you know, to each their own.

I've had this conversation with friends from not only Holland, but also Germany, Scandinavia, and the UK on a variety of occasions. And whenever I explain that it's just the American way of saying hello, most people will quickly venture into the "Well, OK, but Americans are a lot more superficial (Dutch), positive (German), introverted (Scandinavian), happy (UK) than we are." The bottom line I get from all nationalities is that Americans appear less likely to share their (especially negative) emotions than a lot of Europeans.
Take that, Americans.
Obviously, taking the Dutch and their almost endearing bluntness ("I don't know what you did with your hair, but I liked the old cut way better") as a standard is hardly fair, but even if we were to use the definitely stiff-upper lipped British as the yard stick, I'm beginning to think that all these people are on to something. I mean, at least British people use a well-known code to express their negative feelings, i.e., they may not say something absolutely sucks, but when a Brit calls something "interesting", you know you're in trouble. 

Now when I say they're on to something, I'm not siding with all these painfully honest Dutch people in claiming that all Americans are superficial. First of all, with 300 million Americans, generalization is not just impossible, it's downright ludicrous. Second, I think the Dutch need to do some serious navel-gazing themselves, and write a paper entitled, "The twenty ways in which always being honest is NOT a good life policy". And third, well, there is no third, other than that as a half-Dutch half-American, I think we should all just be nice to each other.

Anyway, the reason I'm starting to believe that America, and the south in particular, could work on acknowledging negative emotions a little better is actually directly related to two experiences I had only recently. The first one occurred at church. As you may remember, we attend the base chapel, and are close friends with one of the chaplains. A few Sundays ago, he started his sermon off on a very promising note. He related how when he and his bagger at the commissary were making small talk on the way to his car, the bagger answered the obligatory "how are you" with a "not really well.". As anyone familiar with the south knows, that sent everyone's eyebrows (including mine) into the stratosphere. Here in the south you pretty much need to be bleeding from the throat in a Friday the 13th type of way before you admit you're not fine. The chaplain tapped into that sentiment, and wondered aloud what could be wrong with someone that they would admit to not being fine. At that point, I got really excited: Where we finally going to address the problems with always pretending everything was fine? With telling people you were "blessed" while you really felt like you were so overwhelmed you might explode at any moment?
No. Of course not.
Much to my surprise, the message from that Sunday was this, "When you know that Jesus died for your sins, how can you ever not be fine?"

Uhm.
What?
Now don't get me wrong, I think the whole notion of Jesus dying for your sins, grace, redemption, yadda yadda yadda is spectacularly awesome. I do. But does that preclude me from ever being not fine? Does that mean I can't ever be sad? Or lonely? Or just freaking pissed off? Apparently so. Jesus' blood took care of all of that. His blood shed for you means that you have no reason, ever again, to worry, or feel depressed. I wonder if his blood can drive me to work when I'm too tired to keep my eyes open too.

But I chalked it up to an overzealous chaplain, who possibly meant to say that with Jesus you can overcome all those things, but in his fervor, got caught up in the whole "sacrifice for you" thing, and I moved on.

Until husband-dear had to do a resiliency training. A what? Yes, a resiliency training. The Air Force, and our base in particular, has really been struggling with suicides, attempted suicides, and an increase in PTSD. In response, the Air Force has not only upped its prevention programs, but it's also created yet another mandatory training. It's what the Air Force does. There's diversity training, sexual harassment prevention training, when don't ask don't tell was repealed, there was training about how to not discriminate/offend people who are of a previously not-approved sexual orientation, and now there's resiliency training.
So husband-dear emailed me the slides, and OMG-my-head-almost-exploded-you're-not-going-to-believe-this, what did they say about how to deal with negative emotions such as sadness or depression? How does the Air Force want its members to deal with that?
You are to repress them.
Yes, if you're in the Air Force and you feel bad, just pretend it's not there.
And why, you ask? Well, apparently, negative feelings spiral you down into more negative feelings.

No?! Really?

So here's the solution for all those suffering from PTSD, depression, anxiety, whathaveyou, just repress everything and you will be fine. Please don't talk about it, or share it with your family, your wingman or your chaplain. Well, I suppose you can talk to your chaplain, as he will just tell you that you have no reason to be sad since Jesus died for you, and how cool! is! that!

It's enough to make me wonder if Barney Stinson has been given an advisory position within the Air Force, "Whenever I'm sad, I stop being sad, and start being awesome again."