Do You Suffer From Post Covid Outbreak Anxiety Syndrome?

The new normal.

As I’m writing this we are in the early stages of the world reopening. It’s been almost 2 months that New York and New Jersey have been pummeled by the Covid-19 Novel Corona Virus. The country and world came to a complete halt. I’m absolutely positive there is no point in going into details because no matter when you may read this, today or a hundred years from today, if there is still an internet you’ll be able to see every last detail. The whole thing seemed to just blind side us all and come out of no where. One day things are great and you hear rumblings of a virus in China. The next thing you know people are dying all around with no place to put bodies. Conspiracy theories aside, not because I don’t subscribe but because they are irrelevant at this point, it all has been so much to absorb. Mentally and emotionally there is trauma. All around. Everyone. Show me someone who says they aren’t effected and I will show you a liar. Even those that are hanging on to opinion that the whole world is over reacting are still being effected, they’re still fighting for life as they knew it.

Balance is needed to teach the littles safety while not allowing them to absorb the anxiety that is all around.

What I’ve never been shy about is admitting I’m a walking mix of issues, including a diagnosis of PTSD last fall from a combination of current family trauma including but not limited to my husband’s brain cancer and old trauma of sexual abuse by a family member. What happens when you put someone already battling PTSD in another traumatic situation like a pandemic? Is there a Post Traumatic Stress with Added Stress Syndrome? No there’s not but I just coined the anagram PCOAS, Post Covid Outbreak Anxiety Syndrome… you get the point. As with many anxiety suffers my anxiety level goes off the charts immediately after a traumatic experience. Side note: I’ve recently been told that people can live their whole lives without a traumatic experience. I had no idea my life of multiple traumas wasn’t just the way things are. Anywho, I’ve had enough traumatic experiences to realize my MO is to have extreme anxiety for an undetermined time after. Strangely enough I didn’t expect it in this instance. We’ve been sheltering in place. My family is home together, all healthy as far as Covid is concerned. I would say the circumstances have posed need for serious action as far as staying safe and keeping my parents safe also but I really thought I was handling it well. Until last week. My son and daughter that still live home are working and still occasionally going out and I’m not able to think of anything but them being in car accidents. I’m can’t sleep from having dreams one of my children dying. I’m nervous my daughter, who has severe allergies, will not only be in an accident but she’ll be taken to the hospital and be given something she’s allergic to and go into anaphylaxis. I literally ordered her a medical ID bracelet two nights ago at 2 am. The root? This pandemic came so suddenly with absolutely nothing we could do to stop it. Like a tsunami we never saw coming. So the subconscious says, “What else do I not see coming?”

The one I’m trying to keep safe and one of the sources of my anxiety!

So what is the remedy? The suggestion from my therapist is to keep a worry journal. A little different from my usual gratitude journal. List all my worries and then leave them. Leave them to leave the subconscious in peace, to sleep in peace.

I’ve been thinking about this for a few days and am going to start today. Here. This is what I’m working with tonight.

Tonight's Worries

Covid-19 is a huge reminder that we have extremely limited control, if at all, over life.

After listing tonight’s worries, well not all but the top three, my immediate thought is that I heard it said somewhere that anxiety is an indulgence only the privileged can partake of. As you look at my top 3 worries tonight do I, an American, who’s family is not effected by job loss during Covid, who’s refrigerator is full, am I being indulgent in my worries? I do believe every person’s ailments, illnesses, experiences, and feelings are as valid as anyone else’s. And my worries are valid; they are very real possibilities that exist. However, is there a line of sanity that is crossed by this type of anxiety, anxiety based on hypothetical possibilities, when there are people literally dying? Even in my own family my husband’s brain cancer, my mother’s metastatic cancer, they literally are in danger of loosing their lives. Yet even still, they are stable NOW. Why live paralyzed by the what and miss the now? So as I’m working this out in my head as I type I now see what people who “don’t believe in anxiety” see. It is so counter productive and has an element of self involvement that boarders on indecency. Yet while you can read many opinions that say anxiety is only a behavioral issue, the Mayo Clinic says, “Having an anxiety disorder does more than make you worry. It can also lead to, or worsen, other mental and physical conditions.” So it is a mental disorder but not always, it can also be a symptom of a physical ailment or side effects of medication. You can read their post about it here.

What I’m realizing is the worry journal goes hand in hand with the gratitude journal. The gratitude journal completes an exercise that the worry journal begins. The worry journal puts the worries in proper size. It’s like in your head your worries are being seen in a fun house mirror, a thousand times their actual size. The worry journal helps you to gain perspective. Then if you go to the gratitude journal you take the good, which is in the mirror in your head that makes things smaller, and make them the actual size; which is more than likely way bigger than the now smaller worries. Does it make anxiety go away? I doubt it will for me, but it will let me have control over my anxiety and not let my anxiety control me.