Cast your mind back. The year is 1854, and cholera outbreaks have been sweeping across Europe. A doctor by the name of John Snow plots cholera cases on a map of the Soho district of London, and finds a pattern; the cases seem clustered around the Broad Street Well. Snow theorizes that the well water might be contaminated, and removes the handle from the pump. The cases stop. He was right.
This was one of the earliest examples of epidemiology being used to understand and manage outbreaks.
Since then, the field of epidemiology has come a long way, both in terms of our understanding of the physical mechanics through which contagion transfers, and the complex statistical models we now use to understand how illnesses will spread.
Understanding the physical mechanics of pathogen transfers allows us to make specific interventions like wearing masks to prevent the spread of COVID-19, while statistical models help us predict how an illness will travel through a population, and allow us to respond accordingly.
There is evidence to suggest that epidemiological models can even be used to accurately predict things that don’t involve physical pathogens, like outbreaks of gun violence, spreading of internet memes, and even VHS ownership. [Source: The Rules of Contagion by Adam Kucharski]
So, with this in mind, I would like to propose a new model for understanding a more ephemeral type of contagion: Emotional Sanitation.
What if our modern understanding of emotional sanitation is limited in a similar way to how we used to understand physical sanitation?
It makes sense that we wouldn’t come to understand the science behind this until hundreds of years after we learned about physical sanitation, as this is far more abstract, less obvious, and more difficult to track.
Now, there are certainly holes in this model. I don’t think this creates a perfect, 1:1 map with the mechanics of physical pathogen transfer. But the analogy may still be able to offer us some insights as to how these mechanics may play out.
My theory is that anger is essentially an emotional waste product. Its role is as an alarm clock to alert us to our unmet needs, and once we’ve addressed them it fades away on its own. When we instead discharge anger onto others, we risk creating “emotional infections”
So we’re basically coughing and shitting all over each other, wondering why we keep getting sick.
It’s almost as though we have kind of an “emotional skin” that protects us from the thousands of little “emotional pathogens” we come into contact with every day.
But we become particularly susceptible to emotional infections when something intense breaks our skin, or when an emotional pathogen finds an already open wound such as our insecurities or previous trauma.
So what’s the upshot of this model?
I would advise being cautious about interacting with others from a place of anger. Try to view your anger as a precious gift, your body’s way of telling you that your needs are not being met. When you have identified those needs and taken steps to meet them or, if that's not possible, allowed yourself to grieve them, the anger has served its purpose and will fade away on its own.
Over the last few years, I've paid a lot of attention to how I respond when people are acting in ways that aren't meeting my needs. And what I've noticed is that when I'm coming from a place of balance and clarity, expressing my unmet needs as an opportunity to contribute to my wellbeing rather than as anger and blame, I have been far more likely to actually get those needs met.
Also, to be clear, this is not to stigmatize people who take their anger out on others. Remember, hurt people hurt people, and stigmas around infections tend to increase rather than decrease the spread, as can be seen with STIs. By seeing the anger of others as an expression of their unmet needs, we can hold them with grace and compassion.