Will This Covid-19 Thing Ever End?

Hi Everyone,

I hope you are all managing during this crazy weird time in our history.  I’ve been feeling quite grateful lately when I hear stories from my clients about their family members, mostly on the East Coast, who have caught and recovered from Covid-19 or, tragically, have lost a loved one to this disease.  But even if we haven’t come that close to this disease, it has affected virtually everyone in the country. I send my thoughts and prayers to those who are struggling more directly with this disease, but even those of us who are a bit more removed are still struggling in many ways. Since I work exclusively with anxiety disorders, I’ve had the privilege of talking to many people in the last several weeks about what sort of issues this disease is bringing up for them and how they are trying to negotiate these difficult times. I thought it might be helpful to summarize some of things I’ve learned from dealing with my clients.

Here are some of the things I’ve thought a lot about while working with my clients over the past few weeks.

Be Careful but Don’t Overdo It

Being careful makes sense, but the problem is knowing how far to go. Certainly, if you have someone who has the virus you need to take every precaution possible to prevent the spread, but for most of us we don’t have anyone in our homes who has the virus so how careful do we need to be? “Where does being careful end and OCD begin?” is a question many of my clients are struggling with. Starting with the Center for Disease Control (CDC) and/or the International Obsessive-Compulsive Disorders Foundation (IOCDF) guidelines is a good place to start. The idea is to select a trusted source and use that as your primary guide for what to do and what not to do. Listening to too many sources, your brother-in-law or Dr Google is likely to lead you astray. 

I think the overall idea is to be careful but also keep perspective. When we struggle with anxiety and especially with OCD we tend to lose perspective and experience threat as being far greater than it really is and go overboard in trying to address this perceived threat. As mentioned above, I think checking with some trusted source is a good place to start, but even there, it’s possible to go overboard and check the sources too frequently. I would recommend checking these sources perhaps once a day for 15 to 20 minutes and then stop. See what they recommend, design for yourself what you think is reasonable or appropriate to do and then follow that and be careful to not go beyond your plan.  If you find that from day to day you're spending more time reading your trusted source, washing your hands more frequently, checking more each day then it’s likely your anxiety/OCD has taken over. The anxiety/OCD will always want you to go beyond and be extra careful and eliminate any possible risk that you could be infected or could infect somebody else.  Set a boundary and then be careful that you don’t go beyond that.

Take Care of Yourself

A second area that is important for my clients is finding a way of operating during this crazy social distancing/shelter in place period in our history. My clients who live by themselves and for whatever reasons haven’t developed a strong social network of friends are, I think, struggling the most.  Self-care is particularly important right now as we seek to negotiate this difficult time. 

Part of self-care is having a daily schedule. Our usual daily rhythm has been completely upended at this point and that can leave us feeling at loose ends and adrift. If you are working from home then you have something to focus on during your schedule and if you are not working from home selecting some sort of project, hobby or task that you would like to accomplish would be helpful. If there is some sort of a project, task or hobby that you always wanted to spend time on now’s a good time to focus on that. For example, one of my clients has always wanted to be a writer and so has signed up for a writing class and is devoting several hours a day to taking her writing class and has set a daily writing schedule for herself. Prior to doing this she was getting caught up with Netflix and was staying up until the wee hours of the morning watching movies on Netflix and/or talking with her friends. It’s easy for us to fritter away the time and at the end of the day feel irritated with ourselves for having wasted the time. Having a schedule such as sitting at your dining room table or desk around 9:00 AM and then spending from 9 to 12 working on some work or self-selected task. Then taking a break for lunch and spending several more hours in the afternoon on the same general task. My clients who have done something like this are the ones who are feeling a little more in control and are feeling better about how they spent their time at the end of the day.

Another part of self-care is not spending too much time cooped up inside your home. I have a number of clients who not only are not leaving their home, they are virtually living in one room in their home because they believe this keeps them safer.  I don’t think this is a good idea. While maintaining the recommended 6 feet of social distancing, I’m convinced that getting out every day and going for a walk is an important part of self-care. Getting out of the house is good, exercising/moving is good and getting some fresh air and daylight are all good for you.

Have Contact With Family and Friends

A third aspect of self-care is to find some way to maintain contact with family and friends. If you are uncomfortable or unable to meet in person then arranging at least a phone call, FaceTime call or perhaps a Zoom conference call is better than no contact at all. We are all social beings and need some kind of regular social contact. Some of my clients have arranged regular phone calls with their loved ones/friends and some have even created games (Trivia anyone?) which they play during the phone call, FaceTime or Zoom conference call.

Be Resilient/Flexible

Final idea/suggestion that I have is expressed in the following saying: “don’t wait for the storm to pass, learn to dance in the rain.” If we focus on those things that we cannot change then the situation can feel rather depressing and hopeless but if we do take advantage of those things that we can do something about and take some sort of action then the situation may not feel quite so dire.  Resiliency is all about finding new ways to cope when the old ways aren’t working anymore. If you have to work from home try to make the best of that; if you can’t go to the gym try to find an alternative way to exercise; if you can’t see your friends and family like you used to try to find new ways to connect, etc. Another saying that I like a lot is those trees that are flexible and bend with the wind are the ones that survive the storm, but those trees that are inflexible and stiff are cracked and uprooted by the wind. Be like those flexible trees.

So to summarize:

1. Be careful but don’t go overboard.

2. Select a trusted source for information on how to respond and    spend no more than 15 to 20 minutes a day checking your trusted source.

3. Have a daily schedule.

4. Select a project, hobby or task that you would want to get to and devote time to that project, hobby or task.

5. Get outside every day.

6. Arrange some type of regular social contact.

7. Learn to dance in the rain.

Until next week, stay well,

Dr Bob