Dealing with Coronavirus anxiety
I feel like most of us have felt the brunt of uncertainty coming from self quarantining, working from home and social distancing as the Coronavirus cases start to increase in the United States. Obviously there are others that are forced to go in to work to make the lives of others easier. Understanding that it’s necessary to keep social distancing that way the spread doesn’t continue to increase at an astronomic rate while trying to keep hospitals from getting crazy busy.
The social isolation is easy as an only child, I’ve had 31 years of experience dealing with having time to myself. This is what my life would be like whenever I have to a depression episode, the only difference is I’m currently not feeling that way and I can’t go for a swim as my mental break / workout. Walking around while keeping a distance has been helpful, just not the same as a one hour swim. Moving around as much as possible is the only way to keep the sanity at bay. Looking at the positives right now is the best thing to look at: the fact that I have a job that allows me to work from home, I’m currently healthy, I have a home to go to every day. Everything else is a commodity, easy to take some things from granted because it’s easy to constantly compare and look at those that are a better place.
The anxiety comes along when the thinking shifts to looking at the worst case scenarios. What happens if I get sick? If I don’t have the symptoms in order to get tested and then the symptoms get worse and then followed by death and then afterwards it’s found out that I had it. This is the issue with a pessimistic mindset when trying to stay optimistic. Having an itchy throat which isn’t one of the main symptoms but constantly being bombarded with constant news of more people testing positive and stories of people not being tested for specific reasons makes it hard to stay positive during these times. I only had a rough case of the flu while I was in college and it was a rough week, obviously I recovered but just trying to keep a calm mindset during the constant dread of a worst case mindset.
Best way to approach this is take it one day at a time, enjoy the blessings of life while you have it. Follow the guidelines that are provided and as the impatient in me hates to say, wait it out.
