With everything going on in the world right now, I am proud of myself of how I have been handling things. I know that I could be doing much better, but I also know that I could be doing much worse. Since this is a new and unique situation, there is no way we can expect to be doing. Some people react to this type of stress in better ways than others. And I think that I have done lots of positive things with my stress. But I can’t be doing great all the time and I have had some really big breakdowns in the past few weeks.
I think that holding it together might be causing these breakdowns to be a bit worse than they should because I’m trying to not be upset all the time. I can usually get over some negative feelings easy and it doesn’t affect me too much. But I think that’s because those negative feelings or bad days aren’t too often. Now, I think that I have moments of negativity every day. It’s not all day every day, but every day I do have a moment that could make me spiral. And it builds up over days or weeks and leads to a breakdown.
I do think these breakdowns can be good because I need to get those feelings (and tears) out. And there are some real worries and frustrations behind those breakdowns. The first time I had one was because I was frustrated that so many of my friends couldn’t relate to how lonely I was feeling. Most of them have a significant other, kid, pet, or roommate with them. So even if they were limited who they could see, they had someone else. I don’t have anyone here and it’s very difficult to not have any in-person human interaction. I feel like I’m alone on my own planet and nobody else is here with me. I know that’s not the case and everyone else is going through this too, but it’s hard when there is nobody else here and the loneliness is much harder than I ever imagined it to be.
And the other breakdown was after I did my errands the other day. I didn’t do all the errands I would have liked to have done, but I limited myself to things that I had to do and couldn’t wait on. Even though I wasn’t doing all my errands, it was the most I had done outside my house in a month and I was so excited to do anything that wasn’t in my house. But then after I got home, I got a bit upset over how I was overjoyed to get to do the most basic things in life and how it was sad that that’s all I had to really look forward to right now. I have no clue when I can do other things that make me happy, but I know essential errands will be something I can do again in the near future. My friend tried to help me reframe my thinking and look at it as a chance to really appreciate all the simple things in life. But I kept going toward thinking how sad it was that all I had to enjoy was going to pick up medication. I’m so grateful that I was on the phone with a friend while having that breakdown because she was so patient with me and trying to help me focus my thoughts on better things. And when I got off the phone I really felt so much better.
I’m sure I’ll have more breakdowns and down moments in the future about this. Isolation and quarantine are weird situations. A friend of mine explained it so well. They said that this is so disorienting because we are experiencing a normal life and not normal life at the same time. I am still in my house. I still have a lot of my usual routine and day to day stuff. But at the same time, everything is different. It’s hard to experience both at the same time and there is no way that we could have prepared for this. All we can do is do our best. And sometimes, our best is allowing ourselves to fall apart a bit because this is scary and overwhelming. And there’s nothing wrong with that.
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