Today, January 6, 2021

 I get a really uncomfortable anxious feeling when TV is on non-stop, especially when no one is actively watching anything. It’s even worse if I wake up to TV being on first thing in the morning.

I notice it when we spend time with extended family – they like watching sports and sometimes just leave the thing on. They also give green light to kids turning on and watching TV as soon as they wake up. And I go into a hyperventilation mode.

It took me a while to figure out what was going on. It wasn’t like it was anything bad on TV – just baseball, or football, or cartoons. Yet I was having such a disproportionately negative reaction to it – it really truly freaked me out.

Do I have a strong dislike of sports? OK, maybe, but not really. I even watched a football game once with my husband last year – no panic attacks, quite on contrary it was quite fun (although I kept bugging my husband and kids with 1001 questions because I had no clue what was going on).

Do I have a strong dislike of cartoons? Yes, Disney makes me gag, but, seriously, it’s not that.

It’s deeper.

Tension. Stress. Uncertainty.

I remember, as a young child, one day when my parents were glued to TV. I felt ignored and lonely. I was hoping to watch a cartoon (Thumbelina!) but it was cancelled, and instead, my parents were sitting in front of the stupid TV and asking me to please be quiet. There was this palpable tension in the air. Whatever was on TV seemed extremely boring, but, clearly, very important to my parents. There were people talking, talking, talking. And my parents, staring, tense, and anxious. Brezhnev died. It was not clear who was going to come to power next. It was not clear what sort of a turn life in USSR was going to take. If things would go back to the time of Khruschev or Stalin, or if it would be something else entirely.

As a teenager, I remember watching TV with my parents when Lithuania, then Latvia, then Estonia declared independence. I remember scary stories of OMON (soviet special militsia unit).

I remember being glued to TV when GKChP took over during the putch, promising (threatening) to send army to bring Latvia back. Then watching TV as Soviet Union as fell apart. Then, a year or two later, watching squabbles for power in Moscow, involving army tanks going through the streets. I remember, watching in disbelief, the government building being fired at.

Yes, we had TV going non-stop. Because that was the only way to get at least some idea as to what was going on.

Fast-forward a bit, then a bit more. 9/11. TV on all the time.

So well yeah, no kidding: waking up to blaring TV freaks me out. Because TV on means something bad is happening, that I have no control over the situation, and all I can do is just watch.

I am going to go and turn TV on. Because mob is in Washington DC, storming the Capitol.

This is just like Russia. This is just like the USSR. All I can do is turn the TV on and watch in horror and powerlessness. I have no idea what I am going to tell our kids.