Learning to Surf in a Time of Collapse

By: Rebecca Roveto, MA, LMFT, PhD

Let’s begin with honesty: I don’t have answers.

There’s no ten-point plan here to protect your mental health during a fascist takeover. I don’t have a tidy list of evidence-based interventions to prevent burnout while the world feels like it’s coming undone. I can’t chart a guaranteed path to success for your work, your values, or even justice itself.

What I do have are questions. And maybe, with you, I can explore what it means to stay human, stay awake, and stay connected in times when all three feel increasingly difficult.

Lately, I’ve been grappling with a sense of overwhelm so complete it feels paralyzing. Maybe you’ve felt this too. From that place, I find myself asking: What can I do? Where can I put my energy?

It’s a question I keep returning to—and I know I’m not alone. But to begin to answer it, we must talk honestly about energy itself. Energy is finite. And there are entire systems—institutions, even—that depend on us forgetting that truth.

The disorientation many of us are feeling—the anxiety, dread, and desperate urge to do something—these are not just reactions to events. They are crisis reactions. When the state keeps us constantly reacting, it robs us of the ability to respond. And without the space to respond, we lose our capacity to reflect, to plan, to choose. Living in reaction mode is not sustainable. It’s a fast track to burnout—not just for individuals, but for entire movements. Manufactured crisis after crisis isn’t a malfunction of the system; it is the system. It’s a tactic. The real challenge before us then, isn’t just how to stay informed or safe, it’s how to stay human.

In this state, when the pool floods, we have a choice: thrash and drown—or learn to surf.

Surfing means you ride the wave. You fall off. You try again. You rest when you're tired. And crucially, you let others share the ocean. Some days, the wave will crush you. Other days, it will carry you toward joy, clarity, or solidarity. But you cannot surf if you treat every wave like the one that will end you.

Which brings us to grief.

Back in 1969, psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross introduced the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. These were meant to describe what happens when someone is facing their own death. But over time, we applied them to the living—those left behind—and in doing so, we turned grief from a process into a problem.

But here’s the thing: when the dying grieve, they are preparing to leave. When the living grieve, we are preparing to stay. That is a fundamentally different kind of work.

Grief for the living isn’t about resolution—it’s about transformation. It changes how we see the world. It makes way for fierce remembering, deeper love, and a willingness to carry forward what matters.

So what if we named the grief happening now honestly?

What if democracy as we’ve known it—flawed, unequal, riddled with contradictions—has been given a terminal diagnosis? What if it’s lying in the ICU, and we are its loved ones sitting by the bedside, watching the monitors, praying for a pulse?

In that room, the question isn’t “How do we save this?” but “What do we do now—in the wake of what is dying—so that something worthy can still live?”

That brings us to local engagement—not as a strategy or a hobby, but as a mental health practice. As medicine.

Because in overwhelming times, the world feels impossibly large. But your community—your block, your neighbors—they’re not. They’re right there.

To survive—not just physically but psychically—we need to re-anchor ourselves in what’s real and immediate. This means shifting the questions we ask. Instead of “How do I fix this?” or “Why is this happening?”, we ask: “What is happening?” “Where am I needed?”

These aren’t questions born of fear. They’re rooted in curiosity—and curiosity opens the door to connection. And connection is what keeps us whole.

Let’s not pretend: there is real harm in the world. Injustice, cruelty, and decay exist, and they can break your heart. And—and—the world is still astonishingly beautiful. The earth spins. Babies are born. Neighbors bring each other soup.

To live fully awake means holding that dissonance. To feel awe and rage in the same breath is not a sign of failure—it’s a sign of being alive.

So what do we do?

We become ecologists of the soul. We look to systems that regenerate life in toxic conditions. We practice grief, not collapse. We respond, rather than react. We channel our energy—not because we can save, but because we can serve.

This work won’t look like your five-year vision board. It won’t come with applause. It may feel like a burden. It will not center you. But it will be centering.

As Samuel Beckett once wrote: “I can't go on I’ll go on.” That’s not a contradiction—it’s a spiritual truth.

So here’s a place to begin:

• Get local.

• Know your neighbors.

• Attend a city council meeting.

• Join a mutual aid group.

• Ask someone, “What do you need?”

• Bring food. Offer rides. Show up.

Be part of a community code that says: We don’t lie. We don’t sneak. We don’t manipulate. We ask for help. We say, “I don’t know.” We share.

This is village-mindedness. It doesn’t put you at the center. It puts us at the center. And in that shift, there is healing—not because it will fix everything (it won’t), but because connection makes survival possible. Because solidarity is a balm. Because belonging, even in grief, may be the most powerful antidote to despair.

So rest when you need. Get back in the water when you can. Let others share the ocean. And together, let’s keep learning to surf.