I’m sick. No, not with Covid-19. I’m fairly sure it’s not that. How? Because I don’t have any of the symptoms for it besides exhaustion. As I tweeted:
Never thought I’d be so happy to think, “At least it’s a very wet cough.”
— Minna Hong (@asiangrrlMN) May 18, 2020
It’s a VERY wet cough, meaning there’s gunk clogging up my throat. My throat is also raw and sore. My nose feels as if there are tiny needles pricking it, and my head hurts. It’s not migraine-level, but I’m keeping an eye on it. I don’t have a temperature because I just checked. 97.5 per yooz. Also, I am pretty much a hermit these days, so my chances of catching it are minimal. Our state did a loosening of the Stay-At-Home orders (sigh), and my brother said, “Let’s do lunch!” I said hell no, and he said we could bring the food back to my house. I said and sit ten feet away from each other? Yeah, no. Not going to happen. Nothing magically got better because ‘Stay-At-Home’ became ‘Stay Safe’.
I’m not happy to be dealing with sinus problems, but I will say that it’s the first of the year, and I haven’t had any issues in the past two months–which is a first for me in quite some time.
I want to talk more about how I’m less anxious during the Covid-19 than I was before. Or rather, I’m equally anxious, but it looks like less because I’m doing better than many people. It’s been very strange to me because I can freak out over the smallest thing, and this huge thing? I’m not really freaking out about it. Yes, I’m anxious and scared as is everyone, but it’s not nearly as bad as I would have thought it would be. I mentioned that my new doctor had said several of her patients with anxiety were doing surprisingly well, and I have said that since my baseline is worst-case scenario, I’m oddly more stabilized because the outside environment is matching my continual internal environment.
There have been anecdotal ‘data’ online that many people with anxiety disorders are feeling similarly and how it can be difficult to keep it to oneself (because it’s really not nice to rub it in the faces of others who are having a harder time). I was reading a post on AAM about nosy managers that touched on the issue, and the OP said something that stuck with me. Here is the whole comment by her, but the money shot is near the end. “Plus, now seems like a bad like (time) to be like, lol, Bruce Banner style, my secret is I’m always upset so no worries, I got this.”
I loved that she adapted my favorite movie quote to fit the current situation re: anxiety. It seems obvious once I read it, but I had honestly not thought of it in that fashion. I just say it’s part of my PTSD that I’m better at dealing with crises than I am at, say, walking across the road. Someone in this post mentioned that there have been studies suggesting that people with chronic anxiety are coping better overall during these strange times, but they did not leave any links. I’ve done some Googling, but I can’t find anything that isn’t about how to lessen your stress during the Covid-19 or how people are more stressed now. I’ll poke around a bit more later, but I did find a few articles about individuals discussing why they’re feeling less anxious during these times. I don’t completely agree with their reasoning (for me, I mean, not them), but both are interesting, regardless.
The first is Sarah Menkedick. She wrote an article about how her normal anxiety eased during these times because she realized how silly they were. Sunscreen? Who cares? She says that in a time of real fear, her anxiety just seemed futile. She also pointed out that anxiety is about uncertainty, and it’s a way of trying to control it. I agree with the latter part, but I don’t agree with the former. Not completely, anyway. My anxiety tends to be over more philosophical/emotional things (meaning of life, why am I here, etc.), and not the concrete, “Sunscreen! I forgot to put it on.” I think it’s in part because she’s a mother and her anxiety started when she gave birth. I’ve had it all my life or at least for as long as I can remember, and it stemmed from some pretty deep family dysfunction.
I’m not explaining this well, I know, but what I’m trying to say is that this isn’t the reason I’m feeling less anxious now. Also, I would say that Menkedick isn’t feeling less anxious–rather she’s feeling a more appropriate (for lack of a better word) anxiety. And it’s not as unremitting as it was before. She also talked about it with Noel King from NPR. Both are interesting, even if it doesn’t totally pertain to me. Especially the part about connecting with others (which a lot of professionals mention, to be fair).
I’ve come to the conclusion that I just need much less interaction with others than most people. It’s not an introvert/extrovert thing. It’s a stimulation thing. I have a problem with almost all stimuli, especially if I’m not in control of it. Lights, sounds, textures, etc. Emotionally, I am an empath, and while I’ve gotten better at it, my shields aren’t holding quite as well during this pandemic. It’s probably because my sleep is all over the damn fucking map, and I sometimes don’t know if I’m awake or sleeping (not really, but it feels that way). I woke today convinced it was Wednesday (it will be by the time this posts), but it’s not. It’s Tuesday. I know that’s not uncommon during these strange times, and I’ve been reading over and over about people having issues with time. Not in the sense of getting somewhere on time but as in what month is it even?
The second article I read by Wendy Syfret, she mentioned that she was thinking about cancelling her therapist appointment because she had nothing to talk about. She also mentioned that she was still feeling terrified, fear, etc., but that she had went from being self-obsessed to placing herself in the context of the world at large. She concluded by saying that living in the current times made it seem like therapy in every interaction rather than having to stuff it into an hour-long session in a small room every week or whatever. It’s interesting, too, that she’s not necessarily feeling less anxiety in general, but that she’s placing it in a greater context. She also touches on how the personal anxieties seem frivolous in this time, and how she’s able to look at the bigger picture now.
I’m not like that at all. Or rather, that’s not my own experience with my own anxiety at all. Both of these narratives are very American in nature in that there’s the compulsion for the lesson learned by the end and the uplifting outcome (after overcoming personal shortcoming) narrative. There has to be a moral to the story, otherwise it’s not a story worth telling. I’ve mentioned before that one of my favorite movies is Once, which is an Irish movie made on the cheap in seventeen days. The whole time I was watching it, I was wondering how they would make it so Guy and Girl (their names in the movie) ended up together. I didn’t see it happening, and I was worried it would be shoehorned into the movie. If it were an American movie, it would be Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie in the main roles (back in 2007), and they definitely would have ended up together. In this movie, it was Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova, musicians and not actors, and they wrote all the music. They did not end up together, and the ending was very fitting–and I couldn’t help thinking how it would never had happened in an American movie. In fact, my three favorite movies all have if not unhappy endings, certainly not happy ones.
It’s the same in these articles. The moral of the story and the happy outcome is that both women realized they were a part of something bigger and that it’s better not to sweat the small stuff. I’m not saying it’s not what they went through, obviously, but it just so perfectly fits with the American ethos. My own personal story is that PTSD is pushing me through this. It’s the same when I got into a minor car accident–I was deadly calm during the whole thing. I didn’t break down later, and I was back driving in a week. My mother remarked at how impressed she was that I was able to get back to it so suddenly, but it wasn’t as if I had a choice. In addition, I did suffer some consequences such as tensing up if someone passed too closely to me, but it just never really affected me.
It’s the same now. In the article I just mentioned, she quoted Marc Maron as saying this was the marathon he’d been training his whole life for. I’d read variants of this sentiment by other people suffering from anxiety, and I have to agree. It’s not sexy and it’s not uplifting, but this is my life coming into focus. In addition, I am suffering in smaller ways; I’m just surprised that it’s not out of control the way I assumed it would be.
I’ll take it, obviously, but I would like to find some research as to the reason why this is so. I have a feeling I’ll be waiting a long time for that.