Life with Covid: Sometimes, there is a monster around every corner
Being on high alert all the time is exhausting; my neighbor's death in a fire adds to my fear
A delivery cyclist made a crazy turn into oncoming traffic right in front of me today, and I nearly lost it.
To be fair, it wasn't a very close call -- I'm a neurotically careful driver, so I didn't even have to hit the brake pedal. Still, my brain went to 11. In the span of seconds, I imagined him flipping over my hood, breaking some bones, suing me and upending both our lives.
I do this often nowadays. Life just seems....that fragile.
A former therapist told me I was prone to "catastrophizing," probably an occupational hazard of being a journalist. Writing about cybercrime as I usually do, people often ask me if I’m paranoid.
“No,” I usually protest. “But why do you ask?”
Or maybe it’s a a cultural hazard. The Irish are "good" at catastrophizing. I grew up in a house where every post-7 p.m. telephone call was met with the question, "Who just died?" I suspect the Irish are not alone in this.
Still, something is different lately. I do this much more often. You probably know why. Since at least March, we have all been fighting a boogyman, an invisible enemy that can jump out from behind any person or thing, and wreck everything. We are all characters in a horror movie, pursued relentlessly by a deadly force we cannot see or feel. Make no mistake, it's a trauma. Worse for some, easier for others, but a primal trauma for all. After a trauma, it's natural to feel unsettled, even hypervigilant.
Like many, 2020 has piled on a bit, and I have an additional reason for my daily overreactions. I live in a condo, and in August, my next-door neighbor died in a fire. One minute I was sipping Starbucks coffee (outside) down the block, the next, my friend was dead, and I was unable to use my home for three months.
I'm very lucky. My personal disaster pales in comparison to many; I had plenty of places to go, I had good insurance, and after repairs and extensive cleaning, I'm back home.
Still, I have a lurking, deep feeling that, well...something might be out to get me. That peace can be broken in the blink of an eye. I see every biker as a potential life-altering accident. Every call might bring bad news. Every brush with a maskless person a potential death sentence. Every tooth pain is a dental emergency (ok, I had a root canal last month -- they say bad things happen in threes...). And chiefly, I don't trust the world right now. It is a dangerously unpredictable place.
I know I’m not alone. Google “Covid stress” and you’ll be stressed out by all the advice you’ll find out there. This piece at TheConversation.com by a Canadian psychology researcher does a good job of summing up the problem.
“In short, more than 50 per cent of the population reported considerably elevated levels of distress specific to the pandemic. Higher scores were associated with things like panic buying, excessive avoidance of public places and unhelpful ways of coping (for example, overeating and overusing drugs and alcohol) during self‐isolation.”
I don't really feel this way all the time. But I can tell this is lurking just below the surface in me, and it doesn't take much for this awful sensation to leap out of my mind and take over my body.
Again, I am lucky. I have experience with several excellent therapists and I'm a believer in self-help books. I breathe. I pray. I rationalize. I play music. And, most important, I am privileged to have some money and plenty of friends to offer me respite.
As Merlin said in the Once and Future King, the best thing for any experience is to learn something, so I'm trying. I'm thinking a lot more about cultural trauma and marks it leaves on entire groups of people. I'm well aware that my Covid experience and my fire -- horrific as it was for my friend and his family -- pales in comparison to the generaltional trauma inflicted by slavery, by the Holocaust, by childhood hunger, by deadly storms, and by a never-ending list of human failures. I know I am lucky enough to have a sense somewhere inside that things will one day "get back to normal;" I can't possibly imagine the pain of living a life where that's not even a dream. I hope I'll gain some measure of empathy through this time.
I also revisited some of the things I've read about hypervigilance -- my nature anyway -- and I've learned a bit about hyperarousal. I'm not going to do that thing where I go down an Internet rabbit-hole and then pretend I really know something. I've written enough about the Dunning-Kruger Effect to know better. Still, I've found that there are great resources to get you started for dealing with grief and other profound emotions online -- mainly those that help you connect with others. Anyway, intellectualizing is an effective coping device for me. We all have to do what we have to do before a Covid vaccine arrives and life does begin to feel normal again.
Everyone -- everyone -- is grieving something right now. From lost loves ones to lost vacations to lost high school proms. And while clearly some people suffering are more than others, there is no competition here. I do believe the more you feel your own grief, the more you can care for others.
I'm not a fan of dear diary writing, and I apologize for this temporary diversion in my Red Tape Chronicles column. But in this case, I fear many of you feel the way I do. Perhaps I can help you start a conversation about these feelings that might be helpful. The last time I indulged in writing about my own life, when my semi-famous dog Lucky died nearly a decade ago, I found many of you shared the same feelings. That story *still* generates emotional responses from other pet loves suffering inconsolable grief; I got one just today. That's why I decided to share. Even if you can't relate, thank you for listening. Because I feel better now.
Here are a few articles I found with some good coping suggestions. I’m all ears for your suggestions.
Bob, this is beautiful. And I think we all need it and it's a great reminder we are together in this very weird and hard time. Thank you for showing it's OK to be vulnerable and also for the great resources.