Posts tagged coping
This Old Dag
on being a grown-up
Things We Can Do: A Partial List Written Mostly To Calm Myself The Fuck Down.
(file under hashtag coronavirus anxiety)
2. Tell yourself it’s ok to feel panicked one moment and totally fine the next. We have no recent experience in this country dealing with major shit like famine, war, pandemic, or anything which drastically alters how we go about our daily life. It’s going to make us feel unsettled, whiny, paranoid, scared, frustrated. Ok. But not forever. This is temporary.
3. Keep shopping locally, even if it means doing it online. I’m planning on going to my local bookstore today to peruse the shelves and find some cool Poetry books. I’m going to place an online order at my friends’ bookstore WORD. Our finances aren’t being negatively impacted (yet?) and so I will dip on my pocket and try to look out for neighbors and friends and nearby businesses. If you are able, keep others afloat, one dollar at a time. This is a big one.
4. Read the news but don’t scroll incessantly or update your feed every 5 minutes because your head will fucking explode and at night you’ll feel your chest weighed down by like a stone and you won’t breathe properly and it will suck.
5. Be upset but don’t lose too much sleep over things like maybe school plays being canceled (postponed?) even though you’ve spent the last few weeks rehearsing with a bunch of beautiful little 10-year-olds, making paper kites and sparkly cardboard signs and ordering costumes and asking amazingly talented friends to paint and build your set. The show - or party, concert, sporting event, trip etc - will go on, just maybe not now and not how you envisioned it.
(See #1)
6. Keep reminding yourself that we are all in this together. WE ARE! Make jokes. I mean, I need jokes. I need to find the laughter or else shit gets ugly. Hypochondria is REAL up in here. So send inappropriate corona memes and gifs my way. Thanx.
7. Wash your hands.
8. Ask your friends how they’re doing. Ask them if they need anything. Check in on older family members. The beauty is even if schools close, and we have to work from home, and family is far off - we have a way of communicating. So yay for that.
9. Eat a lot of junk food? Or work out a lot? Whatever makes your body feel less tightly wound. Whatever makes you feel relaxed, even a little bit. People cope in different ways. These unfolding circumstances affect us in different ways. Some of us won’t care about potential quarantine; Netflix and carry on. Some of us have anxiety issues which escalate morbid fears of somehow dying. Some of us will only worry about food. Some of us have underlying health issues. Some of us are totally alone or already financially strapped. Some of us run businesses dependent on clients and customers. Some of us won’t give two shits either way. Some of us will want to laugh. Some of us will cry. It’s all ok, as long as we take time to be think and be aware of the varying degrees of impact this has/will have on people’s lives.
10. Read the entire article not just the headline. Headlines induce panic.
Ok. I can’t think of anything else right now. But I kinda feel better.