Holding ourselves together while the news keeps breaking
Grieving and raging over the floods and more with my friend Pooja Lakshmin
The worst news my mom received from overnight camp in the Adirondacks was a letter I scrawled late one night from Raquette Lake:
Mom, I hate it here. The girls in my bunk are snobby. They say Westchester, Pennsylvania isn’t the “real Westchester.” I’ll be waiting for you on Visiting Day with my duffel bag packed and will be ready to go back to Philly with you guys. P.S. If you’re having trouble reading my writing, it’s because so many tears are falling down my face and blurring the ink.
I remember the letter word for word—my mom had it framed and hung on my bedroom wall as proof of how my ten-year-old self found a way through those last eight weeks: new friends, a counselor I could actually talk to, and some fresh coping tools we came up with on Visiting Day (since I was not, in fact, brought home that night). Eventually, it became a family joke. (I also came to realize my true people were over at French Woods, the musical theater kid haven.)
The worst news parents received from a Texas summer camp this month: their young daughters—just eight, nine, and ten years old—were swept away in a flash flood and died. It’s devastating. Children who will never come home, whose families will never get to laugh about camp drama long after summer fades. Grieving parents, in the cruel irony of Bereaved Parents Month.
If you’re anything like me, you couldn’t look away. The headlines kept coming, the number of fatalities in the region kept climbing—84, then 109, then 135—while dozens remained unaccounted for. I found myself caught in a cycle: doomscrolling, hoping for a miracle, bracing for more heartbreak, getting increasingly furious as details emerged about failed and nonexistent alert systems and vanishing budgets and local politicians on European vacations.
You’ve likely read countless responses to this devastating news. It took me a little longer to share mine. Normally, when I’m overwhelmed, I write. This time, I found myself retreating—processing in silence before finding the words.
As a relative newcomer to Austin, my first alerts didn’t come from the news or social media, but rather from a parent WhatsApp group suddenly flooded with urgent, frantic messages: “They don’t know where X is.” “Y was evacuated from his boys’ camp and is safe.” “Z came back from her session last week.” “I was a counselor there for years. My ‘home’ is gone.” Thankfully, our family was not directly affected. But nearly everyone we know knows someone who was—including our kids’ friends.
When the world cracks open, it’s natural to feel the impact—even from afar. You don’t need to have a personal connection to feel the weight of tragedy; simply being human is enough. This ache you’re carrying? It’s called collective grief—a response to the suffering we witness in this shared thing called the world.
Collective grief extends to our daily lives: Double-checking the weather forecast every time your kid heads to day camp, even if it’s sunny. Feeling a wave of guilt for complaining about something small, like traffic or work stress, when others are experiencing unimaginable loss. Instinctively scanning for exits or high ground whenever you enter a new space, even if you’ve never worried about that before. Suddenly remembering someone you lost years ago—and feeling that grief surge back, fresh and sharp, as if the floodwaters carried it right to your doorstep.
And then there’s the confusing guilt of feeling joy when so much is not okay. I’m writing this from the lush mid-July Berkshires, where we spend part of the year. The summer has been pretty wonderful. I spent a month in Europe with my family, based in Barcelona but with frequent visits to the Costa Brava and also several days of hiking and cheese overload in the Austrian Alps. I caught the printed version of my TIME article at Smith & Son in Le Marais (a delightful moment, below). I cycled through the Laurentians and had a Saint-Viateur bagel straight out of the oven in Montreal. I saw Audra in Gypsy and Pirates of Penzance with one of my best friends and am catching Sutton Foster and Kelli O’Hara at Tanglewood tonight—come if you’re nearby. I ate at Borgo. My kids might be having their best summer yet. They’re safe (I hope) in their own camp bubbles—mercifully unaware of the news I dread sharing. I know it could all change on a dime.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed, helpless, guilty, or untethered right now, you’re not alone. (And it’s not just Texas—there isn’t enough allotted Substack space for it all, most recently including my heartbreak and rage over Colbert, the planet’s Head of Calling Out Truthiness). In moments like these, we can honor our emotions and extend empathy outward. But we also need—and deserve—to find ways to function, even thrive, in daily life. Grief and steadiness can coexist. The question is: how?
The most meaningful way I’ve found to process these feelings is by talking with my people. So last week, I called my friend
, bestselling author of Real Self-Care. From her home in Austin, she was also doing her best to hold it together—while preparing to give birth to twins any day (joyful update: they’ve arrived!). Pooja’s advice is always thoughtful and grounding, and I hope you’ll find something helpful in what she shared:Pooja, please tell me to put the phone down. I can’t seem to stop doomscrolling late at night. Maybe because it feels like a form of bearing witness. As though if I look away, I’m somehow abandoning those who are suffering.
Look, there’s something to be said for bearing witness. But a couple things to think about. One is that the dance between holding boundaries for your mental health and bearing witness is just that: a dance. What we can and can’t partake in is going to be in constant flux. Because of the terribleness of the world and the fact that we have 24/7 access to the news cycle, we have to make peace with that fact that we cannot bear witness all the time and that we have to find a way to live our regular lives while also holding that fact that at any given moment, people close to us or far away from us are having the worst day of their lives.
I like to think of it as more of an emotional stance — one of being in touch with your humanity — as opposed to having the burden of forever being tapped into every detail of what’s going on.
So many of us are already tapped out emotionally from our own versions of grief. How can we differentiate between emotional avoidance and necessary self-preservation when the world feels like it's collapsing?
Self-awareness and habits are key. In my book I present a concept called the Real Self-Care thermometer. There are three levels: red, yellow, green. Green means you have extra to give, yellow means you’re running low but surviving. Red means you need to slow the f down because you are at zero.
How do you know you’re at red? With my patients it normally shows up as anger, irritability, flying off the handle at the smallest thing. That’s a sign that mentally and emotionally, you need to slow down.
When it comes to self-preservation versus avoidance, it takes time to figure out what works for you. I like to say: collect data. Pay attention to how things feel. You’ll sometimes avoid or tune out—and that’s okay. It’s all part of the experiment, which doesn’t include morally beating ourselves up. Most people I know are spending too much time beating themselves up.
I’m stockpiling tiny, doable rituals that I can incorporate into my day to reset my nervous system—especially when I can’t unplug completely (as many can’t because of work, caregiving, or advocacy). Any tips here?
Anything that gets you out of your head and into your body. I personally love getting up and going for a short walk around the block (I work from home). Stretching or a quick YouTube yoga class is great. Cold popsicles as snacks.
I also keep a list on my Notes app of “good things.” It could be anything from a picture of my son to a nice moment with a patient. I normally read that note several times a day. It helps me ground and reset.
I like the Dharma Seed app for lectures and meditations from various teachers. Insight Timer is also good for this.
I’ve been texting with a lot of friends who are therapists and social workers. How can they or anyone in a supporting role avoid burnout or compassion fatigue when they're personally impacted by the same tragedies as their clients?
Ever since Trump was elected the first time and I sat with my patients in my Washington, DC office and cried together with them, I’ve understood that my role as a therapist was going have more moments of showing my own humanity. That doesn’t mean I bring my traumas or issues into the room with my patients. But it does mean I disclose things like “yes, it’s been a really hard week,” “I’ve been sad about this too,” and “here’s something that helped me.” I think it’s okay to show that we are in this world and are impacted by the trauma and tragedies while also holding professional boundaries.
Okay, so neither of my kids are aware of what happened in Texas yet and I’m truly not looking forward to those conversations, as prepared as I might feel for them. For parents who are grieving themselves while also trying to support kids who may be scared or confused by the news, is there a grounding practice they can do together that supports both the child’s and the adult’s emotional needs?
Love this. I think coming back to what’s good and what matters can help. So maybe at dinner time (if you have older kids), going around the table and naming one thing you did to help someone today. Or one thing that gave you hope. You could also do a version of that at bedtime.
What about the anger? Is it scary to name it out loud when a lot of the noise around you is focused on sadness?
Of course we are angry. Naming it and letting it be there are important. When someone names the thing and speaks truth to it, it helps diffuse it for me. Where I see people get into trouble is when you try to avoid or dismiss it. That’s when it comes out sideways. We all need practices to let out the anger in the same ways we need grounding practices. Maybe it’s a weekly run. Maybe it’s getting to a concert once every month or too. Channeling anger usually requires something active and also being with others to help hold it. You’ve gotta find ways to channel it so that it doesn’t come out at, like, your kid’s soccer game.
You live in Austin. Between the emotional weight of the headlines and the physical weight of two additional humans growing inside you, how have you been handling your own ‘what in the actual hell’ moments lately?
Just like everyone here, it’s very much a work in progress. I try to create the small rituals for myself that I mentioned above and also pay attention when I’m veering into “red” on the thermometer. But as the pregnancy has progressed and I’m getting less mobile, I can’t go for walks or do yoga anymore or meet up with friends. It’s been a lot of reaching out to friends virtually (like you, Rebecca): texting, voice memos, even phone calls, even though I’m an elder introverted millennial who hates talking on the phone. Writing helps me process what I’m feeling — I’ve been working on a book proposal about change and transition.
And really, just understanding that I am going to be less productive. Sometimes I “lose” days and I’ve made my peace with that. Efficiency is a poor marker of humanness.
Want to help?
If you’d like to feel useful from afar, consider donating to the Kerr County Flood Relief Fund, to one of the many GoFundMe pages out there, and to use that powerful voice of yours by calling your representatives to demand adequate weather forecasting and alert systems for all communities.
Much of this post spoke to me.
I appreciate this post. It's a relief to see evidence that others are trying to figure out self-care and helping others in these difficult times.