Post-COVID anxiety: I never used to feel like this, Part II
Rachel Sykes | I Work with Stressed Out Professional Women | Licensed in Massachusetts
Post Covid anxiety: Help Me Stop These Cognitive Distortions
…Continued from last week
There are a fair number of techniques to deal with cognitive distortions here but I will share a few that I find particularly helpful.
Catch yourself
When you find yourself in a negative thought spiral, try to "catch yourself" before you inflict too much damage. Don’t beat yourself up, most people engage in this harmful indulgence sometimes but accept that it happens but catch yourself earlier in the process. So, you will probably still have the distorted thought but the goal is to "catch it" earlier each so you can shut it down. Practice!
Look for evidence
Look for evidence
Photo by Kamran Abdullayev on Unsplash
It’s natural to look for answers. However, when people don’t respond as we expect, self-doubt can creep in. I wish I knew for sure why we are all so prone to imagine that we are the ones at fault in any problematic situation. I suspect that it’s a habit that sets in during childhood when our cognitive processes are still developing and maybe we implicitly believe that things are our fault, and therefore it seems natural that we have somehow made a mistake. However, it is more constructive to use our grown-up brain and look to our life experience and stay open-minded about cause. Look for evidence that supports your first thesis, for example, that you have committed a social gaffe and your friend is upset with you. If you find no such evidence, then perhaps you can look for evidence to the contrary. For example, maybe during your last interaction with this friend, they told you how good it was to see you, and they smiled throughout the night. Maybe there is in fact more evidence that you are not at fault, and you can stop that hurtful and inaccurate thought spiral earlier in the process, leaving you feeling less down on yourself.
It’s not all about you:
This is a phrase I find useful and my clients have, as well. The reality is that most of my friends have families, jobs, dogs, households, and other obligations that occupy their thoughts. As much as I want to be important, they don’t spend all their time thinking about me. This is probably a good thing, as being the primary focus of their attention would feel pretty intense. It makes me chuckle at myself to think I am so important that my friends are spending all their time thinking about me, and the humor helps the fearful thinking to pass. It’s great when you can amuse yourself!
Unprocessed grief and trauma
Grief and loss; Photo by K. Mitch Hodge on Unsplash
Another possible reason that you are still feeling a little weird after COVID may be that you are pushing away your painful memories of that time because you don’t like remembering how scared you felt, that you have grown apart from once-close friends and family, or that you may have lost some loved ones. I have been struck by how many people have a poor memory of that time, maybe shying away from the feelings of loneliness, fear of the pandemic that killed so many people, or even of those who were incredibly sick and weren’t sure they were going to survive. Maybe you lost a loved one to COVID and it is a real loss.
Unfortunately, I don’t have a few high level techniques for reframing your thoughts as I did to suggest ways to stop negative thinking. Grief and other unresolved feelings such as fear can be more complicated to address. However, that is no reason to ignore the problem, as failing to find a way to come to terms with traumatic experiences tends compound over time. As a therapist, I do have faith that difficult experiences like this can be processed in a way that makes it a little less of a burden to carry around. One way I heard therapy for trauma described was to provide a new context to the traumatic experience, and that seemed to resonate with me. I suggest that you find a trained professional to assist you in this process.
Why am I so socially awkward?
Again, as I mentioned before, I am not sure why YOU are socially awkward but I can offer you some professional observations.
Reason 1:
This is what you were desperately wanting – the ability to socialize without excessive fears of sickness and loss. Maybe part of you remains afraid that reports of illness will increase and that we will have to sequester ourselves again. Sometimes, even just having such an insight offers relief. Sometimes just by acknowledging one’s fears, we can commit to moving forward nonetheless, and the conflict that fueled our unease begins to dissipate.
Reason 2:
You have been spending too much time alone with your unhealthy thinking: Most people are not like Siddhartha in Hermann Hesse’s novel of that name, where he
Feeling awkward?
Photo by charlesdeluvio on Unsplash
spends his life in meditation and sacrifice seeking spiritual enlightenment. Many of us struggle when alone for a long time. Often, we develop this ego-centric way of inferring causality where again, it is all about us, especially the bad things. If the main voice you hear is your own and it’s whispering unkind and likely untrue messages, it’s no surprise that you are not feeling the love of your friends and colleagues.
Reason 3:
Your social skills are a little rusty. After spending so much time alone, it seems hard to get out the door with real pants on (not comfortable and forgiving yoga pants). Maybe you are less aware of your impact on others, as there haven’t been so many others around lately. I recently took the commuter train into Boston and a young woman was talking to a friend—loudly—on speakerphone. Sound familiar? I tried to find ways for her to annoy me less, such as having empathy for someone who seemed oblivious of her impact on others, as I was imagining that she has a difficult time with relationships. One idea for your consideration would be to focus outwardly rather than inwardly. I don’t know about you, but I have spent more than enough time thinking inwardly, and it can be constructive to focus on having empathy for others, and it might help you remember some of the things you can do to help others be more at ease. See what that does for your own social ease.
Contact me
Are you interested in seeing if I may be the right therapist for you?* I suggest you check out my website, request an appointment or call/email to ask for a free 15-minute consultation.
email: Rachel@rachelcsykes.com phone: 617.804.6471
* I am licensed to work in Massachusetts.