Isolation
The world is experiencing a crisis.
International leaders are suggesting that people self-isolate; businesses are closing, schools are cancelling, and every store everywhere is out of TOILET PAPER. For many, isolation means financial insecurity. For some, it means some unexpected vacation time. For more of us, isolation is a problem for a completely different reason.
I have a tendency to self-isolate by accident when I’m experiencing a period of heavy stress, anxiety, or a mild depressive spell. I work through the motions of a “daily routine” before locking myself in my room with my phone on silent and sad music playing that I may or may not actually be paying attention to. I have to put in an extra amount of conscious effort to talk to people or go outside. Some of these days, I struggle to even do so much as watch Netflix or play a video game. It compounds further and further until I reach a point where my mental state has spiraled so far that my own existence comes into question.*
What do you do when no volume of music, no level of escapism can cover up the sounds of panic from inside your own head? What do you do when reality starts to split apart at the seams and the walls of your own home, the space that’s supposed to be safer than any other, start to close in around you and force you to shut yourself off to a point that the laws of physics become nonsensical and the current timeline no longer feels like the real world?
Ahem.
What I’m trying to say is this: the COVID-19 situation is going to be difficult for everyone for a period of time that we really can’t determine yet. There are many of us who are going to struggle with pre-existing mental conditions that definitely do not benefit from being alone. Remember to take care of yourself, and reach out to friends and family that you know are going to have a hard time with this. Send a text that just says “hey, hope you’re doing alright”, or offer to go with someone to make a supply run (avoiding physical contact and washing your hands immediately afterwards, of course).
As for me, I’m going to play multiplayer video games, spend time with my brother and girlfriend, and get some schoolwork done with some free time I seem to have come across.
I’m also going to enjoy a bottle of Scotch that I really shouldn’t have bought. YOLO.
*I am by no means suicidal. I spent a lot of time last year working with a therapist, and my current mental condition can be summarized as “anxious but stable”.