Well, the world is ending — again — and we are being told to hoard our medicine. This is not going to work out very well now, is it? This is what author Andrea Phillips had to point out on Twitter, for example:
https://twitter.com/andrhia/status/1232446448869863424
As someone who is taking prescription medication for anxiety and post-traumatic stress, with brain zaps being one of the more tolerable side-effects of withdrawal (as far as I’m concerned), the coming COVID-19 pandemic is already presenting unique challenges.
Again, the lunacy of our profoundly broken healthcare system is butting up against the harsh reality of our very biology, psychology, and society. We are vulnerable, and highly social creatures. We are constantly on the go. We need sensible solutions to what’s happening, instead of, “Just lie to your pharmacists” and “Sure, get tested for coronavirus while there is no affordable testing available — what do you mean you don’t have $3000 lying around?” and “Stay home if you’re sick, so you can get fired in a second.”
Of course, I sadly can’t solve any of these current issues, except for voting with my conscience. Voting aside, I am a chronicler and an observer.
It’s interesting to observe mental health in this country as panic slowly sets in. What are the sane, rational responses to the virus and what are unhealthy coping mechanisms? Frankly, everyone seems to have their own definition.
One friend is urging me to invest in a dried food bucket. Another one is asking me if I have a gun. A third one is telling me to fucking relax. Should we stop all non-essential travel? But what is defined as non-essential? And how on earth does one truly, I mean truly, learn to stop touching their face?
My own short-term solution has been to turn the dial up on my Slavic fatalism and start falling in love. I realize that seems pretty idiotic, all things considered. But, let’s face it, I am the mother of an 8-year-old child. No matter how much we learn to sanitize our hands and no matter how much we practice not touching our faces, the truth is, this household is much more likely to get all sorts of viruses, let alone something as mysterious as COVID-19. So we will practice all of the usual safety measures while also being realistic.
So here I am, falling in love. I won’t tell you if it’s with a person, or with multiple people, or with people as a whole. I won’t tell you if it’s with a place, or with an idea. What I will tell you is that allowing yourself to feel deeply again even as the world careens closer and closer to some terrifying breaking point is a very interesting undertaking. It makes me feel like a pirate scanning the horizon — wondering just what the hell will happen next. And trust me, every girl wants to be a pirate under that tight bodice of hers.
The United States of America is a solutions-based society. It’s one of the reasons why we value STEM so deeply and scoff at the humanities. It’s one of the reasons why mental health care in this country, when it can actually be accessed, is driven by the notion of concrete, observable results.
But we are also the country of Bob Dylan and Lady Gaga. Of David Lynch and Edna St. Vincent Millay. A country that is cruel, irrational, beautiful, sparkling. Having fought for and gained access — however temporary it may be — to medication and therapy, I am discovering this country again, again a participant in both public life and personal connections that shape the time we are living in. It’s wonderful. It’s frightening.
The ongoing joke online is that as civilization collapses, we will all just post memes until the bitter end — self-medicating in the only way we know how. There is something about that sort of gallows humor that I really like, but as you’re going through your own struggles, I also urge you to consider the bigger picture, the idea that you must not forget how to love. Even in the time of coronavirus. Especially in the time of coronavirus. To love is to be brave — after all, without love, even death loses all intrinsic meaning, which says more about the former than it does about the latter — and we will need all the courage we can get in the days to come.
And for God’s sake, don’t wear yourself out with rumors on the internet. We are all active participants in our own mental health care routines, and stress is worse for our immune systems, not better.
Image credit: Ben Kerckx