How Illness, Emotion, and Human History All Run a Little Hot – Temperature
Temperature isn’t just a number on a thermometer. For individuals in Maryland and DC, this reflection explores how heat, physical or emotional, reveals what’s happening beneath the surface.
I remember being a little kid and feeling sick. Mother, of course, got out the thermometer. You had to hold the thing in your mouth for a few minutes. As a kid, that is not easy. First, you don’t want to do this at all. I am glad they now have that “gun”-looking thing that you point at the forehead, and it reads your temperature. Second, the time you have to hold it in your mouth seems like an eternity. Kids are not good with eternity. You fidget and want to escape.
Germs do not care who you are or what you have planned for your day. They attack in their own time frame.
Remember that class trip in elementary school when you were excited to go with your friends for an overnight? Remember the measles that kept you home? Come on! Measles? Really? Where did that come from? Probably Richard W.—he seemed to carry every germ known to man.
Of course, illness is not the only thing that can jack up our temperature. Get a group together and throw out a controversial topic, and the room gets hot pretty fast. What are your hot buttons?
Our neighborhood has a hot topic traveling around the listserv. Someone wants to change the rules so that multi‑unit dwellings can invade this quaint neighborhood of individual houses. That is raising the temperature of most, if not all, of the homeowners. Think about the scene. Your three‑bedroom rancher, and on the neighboring lot will stand a four‑story high‑rise with eight apartments. The zoning will change to allow a tiny setback and no yard on the front, back, or sides of this brick monster. Clearly, the neighborhood will soon be filled with these smaller apartment buildings.
Where does this desire for an individual dwelling come from? Is it just a modern phenomenon? Not really. Humans have been building individual dwellings since 400,000 BC.
The earliest evidence of individual dwellings for families comes from a region of France where hunter‑gatherers built shelters or huts for their families. The desire to huddle together as a family runs deep.
Want to explore more about emotional triggers, community dynamics, and how our brains respond to stress? Visit Psychology Today’s reflections on emotional regulation and Greater Good’s research on belonging and human connection.
If this reflection stirs thoughts about stress, boundaries, or emotional temperature in your own life, therapy can help. Learn more about individual therapy in Maryland and DC or explore therapeutic approaches that support clarity, grounding, and emotional resilience.
By Dr. Gloria K Vanderhorst
