Corona Anxiety

Two weeks ago I experienced profound anxiety that I have not had in a very long time (since University days - before I really delved deeply into yoga).  It was scary.  I knew I was being over the top and irrational but there was nothing I could do to stop it.  Even yoga. I thought those days of being slightly demented were over but these are unprecedented times.  We are entering unchartered territory and sometimes the mind needs time to get it’s head around things.

I can identify the culprit that tipped me over the edge that week – reading too much news.  It just so happened that we’d booked our first trip away just as a couple in a long time to have a 48 hour ski trip flying into Geneva.  Northern Italy had gone into lockdown and I couldn’t help thinking “everyone is going to be heading to Geneva airport to get to their homes, anything I touch in the airport is likely to have been touched by someone with the virus”. Then I started panicking about getting stuck in the ski resort (ordinarily a wonderful opportunity, suddenly turned into a living nightmare, being away indefinitely from my little boys). Plus I couldn’t live with myself bringing it back but then perhaps I was being melodramatic.  Friends in France at the time said there was no issue with going to the Alps (France hadn’t gone onto lockdown at that point).  The endless possibilities turned over in my head.  I was paralysed.  I couldn’t think straight, all I did was read endless articles, predictions and analyses.  I went crazy.

Part of the problem was that never in peace time have our liberties been so restricted.  Only people who have lived through the war have anything to compare this too and they are few and far between these days.  The closest analogy, a friend’s parents said recently, was during the Aids outbreak when people didn’t know why young people were dying. We are so used to being able to do what we want, see who we want and with two children we learn to live with germs.  This has all been turned on its head. Everything suddenly seems dirty.  I spent all week manically cleaning the house, washing sofa covers that have possibly never been washed and airing the bare cushions outside for extra measure.  The house was freezing as I left all the windows open all day. I invested in surgical gloves, masks, the lot.  Then I thought, is this really necessary? Who have I become in the space of a week? Stress and anxiety can do funny things to people and then it becomes difficult to differentiate between a real risk and neurosis from reading too much media.  I’m not sure, even now, whether I know. Then there’s the question, if I got the virus I might be immune and then could get on with life again, but life has changed irrevocably.

The best thing I did that weekend of the meltdown was to take a long (8 mile) walk in the fresh air along the Purbeck cliffs (less of an option now).  Oh and I saw friends the night before and chatted it through – that was also immensely helpful. Although no one at that point really understood what I was on about, I think now the situation is different and people are recognizing that anxiety attacks are part of the process of coming to terms with this new life (however long it may last).  I don’t think we should underestimate the psychological impact of everything that’s happened. Everyone is dealing with different issues and is at different stages of this (grieving process). It is a grieving process because there is so much loss, possibly (hopefully not) of loved ones, loss of independence, loss of control, quite possibly loss of work and earnings, loss of interaction and loss of an old way of life.  Things are uncertain at the moment but one thing that’s sure is that life will never be the same again.  It’s really a matter of adapting.

I took my kids out of nursery a week before they officially closed and I’ve noticed how quickly they’ve been able to adapt.  The first week they were definitely more irritable, they kept asking about nursery and they certainly weren’t used to spending so much one on one time together so inevitably they fought. Now 2 weeks in, they’re much more settled in their routine, they fight less and they don’t seem bothered about leaving the house.  This is the same house that they usually tear apart after an hour of being home from nursery.  They have adapted.  We will adapt.  We may even enjoy it. A change is as good as a rest they say. Then I found this quote from the ever wonderful Rumi:

  “Try not to resist the changes that come your way. Instead let life live through you. And do not worry that your life is turning upside down. How do you know that the side you are used to is better than the one to come?”

This quote was probably written almost 800 years ago but how true it is even today.  Human beings are remarkable.  Chaos comes before change and that chaos I believe was manifested in my anxiety.  Anxiety has thank god now passed and we can begin with the change. Good luck everyone!xxx