My COVID memories

Remember when the Boston area first began to quarantine for COVID? Personally, I was taking classes, working multiple part-time jobs, and I was pretty busy. I think we were all just moving along, running through our long task lists, not really sleeping enough, drinking a fair amount of coffee, and trying to squeeze in some exercise and social stuff.

I remember that first week in lockdown where I had to cancel all my in-person client sessions because therapists were considered "non-essential" and many mental health agencies had not yet figured out how to offer remote telehealth sessions (okay, we knew how technically but there was a lot of regulatory and organizational confusion preventing us from doing so). In the broader working world, some people were able to start working from home, as they were fortunate enough to have some kind of home office set up. At this point, we were all hoping we would only be out of the office for a couple weeks. Also, let's not forget about all the essential workers who were still required to head into work, which was a pretty scary place to be at that time.

As time went on, the realization set in that we were going to have to adjust to this quarantine environment for some unknown period of time and we had to figure life out not only for work but also for our families and communities. Some of us began to order groceries for home delivery and bought a lot of stuff from Amazon. Some workers were furloughed while their employers tried to predict the future and implement new solutions; some received relief income and some did not. It was a time of big change for a lot of us. While it is not pleasant to think about this uncertain time, it's strange how so many people seem to have forgotten how scared they were before vaccines became available. People were worried about getting sick or about our loved ones getting ill. Of course, we weren't just worried about getting sick - many did become ill and some people did not survive.

During this time, most people were stuck at home, not able to socialize with friends or go anywhere besides the grocery store. I know that some of us made attempts to socialize on group calls and drop off groceries for high-risk family members but a lot of people became isolated. While spending time alone can sometimes be relaxing, feeling isolated because of a dangerous health crisis is not relaxing, and many of us spent a lot of time stuck in our heads thinking negative thoughts.

Slowly, we began to adapt. Companies adopted policies and set up online meetings (a LOT of meetings) and workers adapted to this new environment. Some restaurants started to figure out new ways to feed us (like delivery and takeout services) and many others did not, and went out of business. When vaccines started to become available, local municipalities began to roll out programs to reach residents, with some bumps in the road. There was a lot of resistance to these vaccines and companies had to implement social distancing policies and vaccine mandates in order to attempt to return to pre-COVID life.

Is it over?

I dunno. Well, at this point, it seems to me that COVID is here to stay but that there are now ways to cope. I imagine that there will be additional variants and people will still be at risk but I am more optimistic that the healthcare system and society in general know how to cope. Could I be wrong – sure. However, I know that I can’t continue to function in fear like I did before there were any vaccinations and I was sitting slumped over my desk at home with my dog in my home office.

Why am I now anxious?

Post-COVID anxiety: I never used to feel like this. This is just a blog post and not a diagnosis but I have seen some common themes.

Cognitive Distortions

I share my experience during COVID because I am not comfortable writing about my clients’ experiences (remember confidentiality?) but a lot of folks had some version of my story of feeling nervous, worried about family and friends, and way too much time alone. Our brains still crave interaction even when external stimuli is limited, and, when we are isolated such as when quarantined, we are spending too much time alone with unhealthy thoughts. In the world of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), this kind of thought is called a “cognitive distortion” and there is a long list of common cognitive errors that we are prone to make that end up making us unhappy. One of my personal and professional enemies is “mind reading” or what I call filling in the blanks.

Filling in the blanks

This happens when we are trying to make sense of a situation or interaction and we don’t have all the information. Tell me you haven’t done this – you text a friend to make plans and they don’t respond immediately. You want to make plans and you were expecting them to be sitting there, waiting for your message, and then they respond telling you what you want to hear immediately. When things go silent, doubt creeps in. You wonder if they are mad at you or if they have other reasons for not responding. You then find yourself reviewing the last interaction to see if you could have said something insensitive or if there was any indication of a problem. You are a little worried, feeling guilty that you may have mistakenly hurt someone’s feelings and not been aware enough to notice. You tell yourself you are not good with other people, have poor social skills, or that your friends just seem to not like you anymore. You are left feeling down in the dumps, and your self-esteem suffers a little damage. Eventually, the person responds, and they agree to make plans, with no indication that there was any kind of a problem. I call this self-inflicted damage. All that feeling like crap about yourself was completely unnecessary because you completely fabricated the whole sad story and there was in fact no evidence to support it.

CONTINUED in next week's blog post

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