$5 gas and collective trauma: How the Russian invasion of Ukraine hits home for Petalumans

For Petaluma native Danielle Venton, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has been “anxiety-inducing and infuriating.”

“I recently became a mom, and ushering a new person into this world has made me feel like every human life is uniquely precious, like we should treat all lives as if they were our own kids,” Venton said in an email last week. “After hearing about a kindergarten getting shelled in Ukraine I started crying with anger.”

Venton, 40, said she feels a deep connection to the conflict. She’s traveled to Russia twice, meeting a number of warm people along the way. And she has friends and co-workers with loved ones in both countries.

Venton is not alone.

From a variety of angles, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, taking place more than 6,000 miles away, has hit home for local residents, resulting in higher gas prices, shaken consumer confidence and mounting trauma. Experts in mental health, policy and the economy say those impacts will likely grow as the conflict continues.

“The Ukrainian conflict has added a critical layer of anxiety to what we psychologists call ‘Collective Trauma,’ already generated by the current pandemic,” said Joy Fillman, a psychologist with offices in Novato and Petaluma. “This is a trauma that affects an entire society, which then experiences shared anxiety, depression and grief.”

Local residents, weary from dueling disasters of fire, flood and COVID-19, are once again experiencing a that collective trauma as the world watches the attack on Ukraine play out on network news and social media, sparking another, all-too-familiar round of anxiety and helplessness.

But Fillman called social media’s ability to connect people a sort of “saving grace” amid the ongoing war, enabling “Ukranians to reach out to the world and the world to reach back.”

“There is comfort in person-to-person communication via social media that pushes back on a tendency to isolate, so often a maladaptive result of trauma and also unfortunately driven by COVID,” Fillman said.

When dusk came Monday night, the Healdsburg Memorial Bridge was aglow, bathed in yellow and blue light as an offering of solidarity for Ukraine one week into the Russian siege that has killed hundreds of civilians.

Jill Silverman, psychologist and owner of the Petaluma Counseling Center, said the two most significant ways to cope with crises like the Ukrainian invasion include accepting what we cannot individually change, and then take what she calls “effective action” to not only help oneself alleviate feelings of hopelessness, but to help others who are experiencing the same journey.

“Things like talking to other people or going to a vigil that occurs for the Ukrainian people,” Silverman said last week, before offering a bit of caution. “Sometimes people obsessively watch the news or scan social media to try to feel some sense of control. But unfortunately those things tend to have negative consequences that don’t really help people cope with the actual crisis that’s in front of them.”

Still, there are many things beyond our control, including the rising gas prices, well over $5 per gallon in Petaluma, that are edging toward the type of sticker shock not seen since 2008, or the early 1980s.

Former Petaluma City Council member and political analyst Brian Sobel said the conflict will likely have cascading effects.

“Clearly, there are going to be downstream local impacts to gasoline prices, to commodity prices, to things in the grocery store,” Sobel said, citing President Biden’s remarks the Americans should be prepared for ongoing consequences. “They’re not going to be felt immediately. But they’ll be felt the longer this crisis goes on.”

Robert Eyler, an economics professor at Sonoma State University, raised the specter of a self-fulfilling economic downturn, particularly at a time when the North Bay region is once again emerging from a wintertime spike in COVID-19 cases and the associated economic restrictions we’re leaving behind.

Eyler said societal angst, which could turn people away from buying cars or homes, or generally keep people hunkering down at home more than they otherwise would, might slow the region’s recovery in the short term.

“Some of this depends on if (the conflict) resolves itself in the next couple of weeks,” Eyler said. “If it doesn’t, you talk about global problems – selling wine, global tourism travel…How much that will slow down hiring more regionally because the economic outlook darkens a little.”