When Anxiety is the Norm – Right Now

Hey guess what? Feeling anxious right now is probably the healthiest and most normal response to what is happening around us that you’ve ever had. 😉

Look, I get it, we are in uncharted territory right now and no one is really sure what comes next. We are seeing the number of people testing positive for COVID-19 continue to go up and up, and are constantly being told that it’s going to continue doing that as more tests become available. And every day there are more deaths, and no one can say for sure that any one of us, or someone we love, won’t be next.

If that doesn’t make you feel some level of anxiety, you may not be capable of it.

I feel it, too. And, frankly, if you made a bell curve of the people least impacted directly by this virus, I’d be on that. I already work from home. I am an introvert who doesn’t go out much; I already communicate online. I’m right there at that cross-section of low-risk and low-impact, and I still feel plenty of anxiety. I feel anxious because I know many people are not at that cross-section: quarantined family members, family members who’ve been laid off, and friends whose jobs and businesses may not survive this.

Mostly, I feel anxiety because no matter what I do or who I am, I have zero control over what happens around the world with this pandemic. I’m pretty powerless, and I have no answers to reassure everyone now.

What I can do, however, is set that anxiety aside and control the things I can. I can’t save the world by finding a cure or a vaccination; that’s going to be up to people a lot smarter than me. But I can do what I do and offer help where I can.

For example:

• I can share as many tips about dealing with anxiety and mental health struggles during stressful times as I can find. (If you follow the Sunday link posts here or me on Twitter, Bluesky, or Mastodon, you’ve seen many of those.)
• As someone who has worked from home and even taught online classes, I can offer to share my knowledge about that. If you follow my professional blog and social media, you’ve seen plenty of that as well.
• I can continue to maintain and grow the Child Abuse Survivors Group on Facebook as a safe place for people to keep in touch with other survivors.
• I can participate in Twitter chats and group texts with family, drop in on people I know using Facebook Live, keep sharing random distractions along with educational resources on social networks, use all of this technology to check in on folks and make myself available for others to reach out to online.
• I can try to find ways to make a difference and support each other.
• And, maybe most of all, I can follow the advice in the many articles I share about practicing good self-care.
  • I can turn off the news and take a break from looking at social media.
  • I can go outside
  • I can talk to my wife now that we are both home working all-day
  • I can find fun activities to occupy my anxiety-riddled brain: music, movies, books, heck; there are a lot of things being broadcast online now, bands giving concerts online, virtual museum tours, educational programs, podcasts, etc. There are, in short, plenty of things that you could be doing instead of getting minute-by-minute virus updates.
  • I can follow the advice of medical experts, wash my hands frequently, limit contact with others, take vitamins, eat healthy, exercise, etc.

As you can see, that’s a pretty long list of things I can do, things I have control over, and it doesn’t even include working all day, which I am also doing.

As we go through this strange and dangerous time, we do have a choice. We are all feeling various levels of anxiety and fear about this. That’s normal when faced with so much uncertainty. I can’t change the uncertainty. It’s here, and it’s going to be here for a long time. We always have some level of uncertainty, but this is a whole lot more being dumped on top of all the usual things we are uncertain about, and it’s a rough adjustment. You can allow yourself to be overwhelmed by it, or you can find a way to set aside the things you can’t control and focus on the things you can control, how you can come together, support one another, and take care of yourself.

You can find a way to be a helper in this situation, or you can cause more anxiety for people. You can share helpful information that helps people be as safe as they can be, you can share encouragement and love, you can share of yourself, or you can share your crazy Uncle’s conspiracy theories, unfounded rumors, or your outrage at every single person who doesn’t deal with things exactly the way you do.

Since we can’t control all that other stuff anyway, it’s really our best choice.