Tag Archives: COVID-19

That Time When the Weeks Disappeared

28 Saturday Mar 2020

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“One day here is just like the others,” I wrote to my daughter, whom I was trying to invite for dinner. And truly, I feel as if I have fallen into an early agricultural sort of rhythm here: I have a task list, for which I am grateful, and a good bit of almost entirely unstructured time, for which I’m trying to be grateful. The temporal pillars of my life have crumbled, and I admit to sometimes feeling as if I am now drowning in the unchecked sands of Time.

I’m something of a worker bee, getting my strongest pieces of validation from job activities, and I can have little spasms of workaholism. My daughter has ordered me to take time off when I have it, but somehow things are different now.

I’m having the hardest time remembering the day of the week. I spent part of Tuesday morning prepping for a Zoom group I was facilitating–on Wednesday. Moreover, I have realized that the days of the week came with feelings, feelings I no longer have.

For example, I was supposed to be happy it’s Friday, because it’s my break from my challenging Wednesday–Thursday bloc. But Wednesday didn’t happen (no work, no daughter, no actual physical choir with all that deep breathing), so the only fallout from the resulting Thursday fatigue (still got to bed late, thanks to a Zoom meetup) was getting a sleep hygiene lecture from my therapist.

I made my own appointment calendar this year. I drew careful lines separating the days, and now all that ink is being erased in realtime, as one day fades into the next. I’m all about going with the flow, but something about that feels scary: What would happen if I just did what I felt like whenever I felt like it? For a lot of people, I daresay that would be a healthy and stress-free option, but I don’t work that way. It probably has something to do with being INTJ.

Something inside me says enough is enough, and I need to put myself on another schedule, one which embraces the home time and the weirdness and the whole schmeer that we’re floating in right now. (I have ADHD, and we do much better on a schedule, which helps fill in for our vacationing executive functions.) Right now I need to try to focus on intentionality, it being Lent, which is for me a time to do that anyway. A Lent with a very different sort of Easter at the end! I just hope I remember it’s Sunday when it gets here.

Awaiting the Big Bad Wolf

16 Monday Mar 2020

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Of course I’m scared. Of course you’re scared. And by now, I’m willing to bet the rent that you know the basics re hand washing, interpersonal distance, and staying the sheep at home. What’s the point, I ask you, of obsessively watching statistics and endlessly surfing for more information? Do you think it will keep you well?

It won’t. In fact, by adding to your anxiety load, you’re stressing your immune system, silly. Stop doing that.

I am pretty peeved right now. My often useful neighborhood listserv just ran a scare blog by a local woman (married to a physician) who is losing her sheep. I feel bad for her, and am grateful my own Huge Hospital employer sent my folks home as non-essential personnel. But nothing on earth would persuade me to “forward this post to all of [my] networks.” Who does this sheeping sheep think she is, the Director of the WHO?

So–pause and check for helpfulness the next time you’re about to hit post. Remember that many of us already live in a dark and threatening world beset by the the brambles of trauma and misfortune. Then, maybe hit delete and go do something else. Something which will enhance your life without increasing the panic.

Unless it’s a squirrel video or something. Dark humor is also OK in small doses. But for heaven’s sake, take those cleansing breaths.

Just don’t breathe too close to me. 🙂

Panic and Anxiety

13 Friday Mar 2020

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I’m on Xanax. Been on Xanax for a while now. It helps me sleep, so I take one at night with the rest of the handful in my cocktail. Every so often I have a random panic attack, and I take one then. Soldiering on, so it goes, etc. But yesterday was different.

See, my generalized anxiety disorder tends to not get triggered at work, because I’m too busy to live in my head. But yesterday felt like a movie. You know what I mean, I betcha, because you’re starring in one too. It’s the Doomsday movie with the mysterious virus which decimates the human population.

Because talking about our feelings is not only OK but encouraged at staff meeting (I’m a peer specialist), I admitted to feeling just plain scared–of what, I don’t know. And others agreed. As the day wore on, and we poured ourselves out upon the two or three people who made it in, it was hard not to notice the deserted halls. Panic hung in the air like an impending thunderstorm, with the same sense of pressure on the soul.

The coup de grace came when our director came in and announced that as of Monday, we would be closed until further notice. The phone support line folks can come in, but not those of us who do face time. Instead, my boss and I will spend some quality time doing some overdue things like writing an employee manual. Hi-ho. I’m trying to look at this as a weird Lenten vacation, sort of like Spring Break, only without the cheerfulness.

This is not the first pandemic H. sapiens has endured, and it won’t be the last. 9/11 showed us how cohesive our society is, and so far the 1918 Spanish flu makes this viral reaper look like a pitiful tryhard. So have some faith, beloveds. My hope is that the survivors take some lessons to heart, primarily that once expressed by the old saw “Man proposes; God disposes.” I expect to be one of the survivors, but I’m high risk, so time will tell. We are now all on an adventure; I am hoping the treasure at the end is an increased mutual trust and compassion.

Which is all very well, but my anxiety level is through the roof. (It didn’t help the bing-bing-bing that I was out of my ADHD meds yesterday.) So I have messaged my shrink like a good girl, and I am about to start applying all the non-allopathic tools I’ve assembled: Meditation, art, writing, breathing (I was probably on the edge of hyperventilating yesterday from all that deep oxygen intake), listening to music, and *sigh* processing my feelings.

Which sucks as a general thing, but fear is an old, old friend.