When Up Is Worse Than Down

Text written by: Vildana Efendić, Gestalt psychotherapist and psychologist

Taken from the Gracija.ba portal

When survival becomes our only way of life, our nervous system learns to shut down. We have collectively “learned” learned helplessness. Those up there taught us. When corruption overtakes rage, hope becomes naive.

I remembered this lesson about accents, and I wonder how much we have burned out and been scorched together with the pensioners in the high-rise in Tuzla. How much worse is it to burn up high in a skyscraper than when you burn down below?

How much worse can it get for us down here, from everything that has befallen us since the 90s onward

Men starved, men killed, women killed, children killed by sniper fire and shrapnel, women raped, children raped, police corrupt, police officers paedophiles, politicians paedophiles, parking attendants, ministers who are TikTokers, ministers who are abusers, killers kill women live on social media, people living buried in a dream under a hail of stones that rolled down the corrupt route. Three workers for 185 pensioners in a home that is not a home, but a hotel it has “uščuli”. Three cars follow one politician, and one persona non grata delegation is followed by 3 vans of special forces, blocking the entire city so that not a hair on their heads is harmed.

Institutions are rotting from within. Something is rotten in a state that has fallen apart, that stinks of sweat, of blood, of decayed cavities, of worn-out paedophile jaws, of dirty beds where girls are raped who have no choice and cannot call anyone. They have no parents, no police, no one older they can trust. Of dirty beds, dampness and mould in the old bathrooms of the ancient high-rise in Tuzla. Burnt corpses stink. We all stink. We stink of disappointment since the 90s onward. Everything has become “uščuli”. And the smog is outside. They won’t let us air it out.

And the cafés are full, the streets are quiet, we scroll and sigh, perfumes more and more often, and stronger and stronger.

Until some wonderful singer dies. Then we gather, we mourn, and suddenly nothing stinks. Those candles we lit wonderfully masked the stench.

How is it that we as a people know how to mourn so beautifully for Halid, but don’t know how to scream for children? For the children of Palestine, Sudan, Bosnia? For the powerless grandfathers and grandmothers who stand desperately at the window, gazing into the lowlands?

Frozen Pain

Our collective apathy is not emptiness but frozen pain. We learned to push on, to get by, to not stop, rather than to heal. That is what our parents told us. We learned to survive, not to trust. And when survival becomes our only way of life, our nervous system learns to shut down. We have collectively “learned” learned helplessness. Those up there taught us. When corruption overtakes rage, hope becomes naive. That is why we gather around a symbol, around Halid. Because he is a symbol to everyone, not an action. Music lets us mourn without consequences.

APATHY, OR NUMBNESS, BECOMES OUR WISDOM. APATHY IS OUR WAY OF SAYING “ENOUGH!” WHAT LOOKS LIKE LAZINESS IS A DEFENSE AGAINST DESPAIR

We can feel together, but we don’t know how to act together. And as long as that grief does not become anger, as long as the feeling does not meet responsibility, our Bosnia will remain a place where the living are not heard, where those who burn up above are not heard, while down here more and more oxygen disappears from us. Although they say that BURNING UP THERE, BURNING UP THERE, BURNING UP THERE, BURNING UP THERE is worse than OUR BURNING UP HERE BURNING DOWN HERE.