This crisis the world is experiencing at the moment is beyond unusual, unique and frightening. As the death toll keeps rising daily, most of us are locked away, at home, hopefully safe and sound.
While we are all so grateful to our essential workers around the world for being out there and keep our world turning around for us all, we can't help but think and fear for their safety. Some of these everyday heroes may even be part of your family or dear friends, which makes the agony even so much more personal and close to home.
When this all began here in the UK, my first experience with it was while doing my regular weekly food shop on a Saturday morning, to realise that, at 9 am, there was barely anything left in the shop! No canned food, no frozen food, no pasta, no rice, no bread, no gluten free stuff apart from lasagna sheets, no toilet paper. And I thought to myself, "what a bunch of selfish and irresponsible idiots!" Photos in the media of elderly people facing empty shelves literally broke my heart. This panic buying, I later realised, is well beyond being utterly selfish (even though I still think it is) - it is also for some people a coping mechanism in times of crisis. Loss of control will bring a hyperaction in areas of your life you CAN actually control, to counterbalance the equation, leading to this type of compulsive behaviour.
A week after this happened, I started working from home for a couple of weeks, which I was quite lucky to be able to do, as my buses were being reduced to one per hour. During this time, I avoided going outside, only for cash and food shop. I did go one morning to my local park for a short run, which felt great, but learning that you spread more germs in the air that way really put me off, especially when there were people walking their dogs - which they have to do. It didn't seem fair on them.
I was then off on holiday for a week, and my days followed pretty much the same pattern. After my holiday, I was put on the furlough scheme, which I was quite grateful for, because, in these circumstances, my head just wasn't with phoning customers to get sales or sorting out purchase invoices. So furlough for me was a complete relief.
I am a natural indoors person and have many hobbies and interests that are indoor-orientated so, I have to admit, staying home does not bother me; it gives me the chance to do what I usually struggle to find time to do on normal weeks. I genuinely feel for outdoorsy people, being stuck at home, feeling trapped, almost claustrophobic. I know many people like this and, having spoken to some, all they want is go back to work, even if it means exposing themselves to risk, so they can be out of their house.
This is when mental health plays an essential part. Their habitual mental health preserving techniques are all mostly based on outdoors so it is a dangerous pitfall, and I am not surprised to hear people falling into depression on top of being scared about the situation of our world and people's health.
As I have plenty to do to entertain myself, I felt for quite a few weeks that this crisis hadn't affected me too much in that respect. I have Netflix, Amazon Video and Now TV, so plenty to watch (even though, apart from following my regular shows and binge-watching season 3 and new season 4 of The Last Kingdom, I haven't really watched TV that much). I started de-cluttering my living room - still a long way to go -, finished an online course I was studying, started a new one, journalled A LOT to get it all out of my system rather than bottling it all in, homeschooling my teenage son on things I have no clue about, reading, exercising regularly as part of my morning routine, and started SoulCollage. So I definitely haven't been bored for the last 5 weeks of furlough.
But, between the very real threat to our lives, the conflicting information from the media and our leaders' ways of handling the situation, it has brought to me feelings of fear, worry, uncertainty, anxiety, sadness and sometimes anger. I have had in the last few weeks more nightmares that I ever had in my whole adult life and I know that this is because of it all. Our worlds have been turned upside down and, while you would hope that when this is all over we would build societies and a world much better, kinder, compassionate, tolerant and fairer than we've considered "normal" all these past decades, you can't help but wonder when and how, and what in the meantime? The newly-established routines that now support me, will I be able to maintain them when I go back to work and the business of life from before? These are big questions that we currently find very hard, almost impossible to answer. An additional source of stress and worry.
I have managed to somewhat preserve my mental health by keeping busy, doing things I thoroughly enjoy, some less as they are necessary, journalling
a lot (if you are new to journaling as I was, despite numerous attempts in the past, I HIGHLY recommend
Jennibellie's free class "7 Day Journaling Journey"), resting when I needed to and keeping some kind of routines. I have also used
BlessingManifesting's prompts and affirmation graphics on Instagram and Patreon, as well as her self-care and mental health worksheets. I have not necessarily used them the way they're meant to, but just reading the prompts and affirmations and thinking about them was often enough to support me in my mental health journey through these scary and unstable times. Meditation and relaxing music from the Insight Timer app have also helped me find my centre and my peace, as well as Wim Hof Method breathing exercises.
Having my son with me and my cats is definitely my basic support system as I truly don't know how I would have handled all this on my own if my son had been on lockdown at his dad's. That would have more than likely been a very different story.
I've had plenty of good days, for which I am ever so grateful and feel blessed, some OK-days when I felt I didn't accomplish much, and also a few bad days. Yesterday was from the latter category. Probably one of the worst I've had since it all started. I did my morning routine as usual, watched a couple of Youtube videos, had lunch then, BAM! - massive headache. I battled through the early afternoon but, to be honest, it seems very foggy to me. As I am prone to debilitating migraines, I decided to listen to my body and went to bed with a book and relaxing music. I just couldn't focus on the words, I couldn't rest and in the end I just decided to have a nap at about 4 pm. Woke up at about 7.30 pm, all groggy, feeling drained and past my dinner time for optimum digestion, and I knew it - feeling extremely frustrated and defeated. My evening routine was out of the window and that made me feel even worse. Internal ANTs (automatic negative thoughts) crawling around my brain. I went to sleep 2 hours later and woke up twice in the night with nightmares, in a state of fright and panic. Not a good night at all.
Today, I still got up normal time with my alarm and feel a little bit better but still sensitive. I will have an easy day and if that means that the dishes and the laundry will stay exactly where they are all day, and that lunch and dinner will solely consist of cheese and ham toasties, nuts and fruits, then so be it.
Now more than ever, it is essential to listen to your body and not fall into the guilt-trip if you had a "lazy" day. When I plunge into this guilt-trip with everything I've got, I always remind myself that the natural state of our bodies is to move AND recuperate, and the natural state of our mind is rest, peace, bliss. Your "lazy" days are actually your "recharge your batteries" days and are vital to your well-being, both physically and mentally.
Take care of yourselves, nurture yourself to maintain a healthy mental and physical health, and stay safe.
Much love to you all x
