It seems that melatonin doesn’t work particularly well for me. I had been having such trouble sleeping because of my personal-carelessness sunburn that I took a melatonin to help me fall asleep… and then woke up at 2:30 and couldn’t fall back to sleep. Obviously, 2:30 is when my brain does its best work. And by “best work” I mean cycling through all the things I could possibly worry about and over which I have no control at an increasingly frantic pace/tenor.
It strikes me that as we enter this new period of the pandemic – “re-opening” – that I am feeling the same kind of Fear of the Unknown and Abject Terror I was feeling in the early weeks of Coronavirus Has Reached My Country And Things Are Falling Apart.
Maybe it’s even worse, now? I’m not sure. Am I MORE stressed now than I was then? It’s hard to say. My stress levels have certainly been getting a workout over the past few months, though. So I decided to chart them. For posterity.
This chart begins, for me, in the last week of February; the news was covering coronavirus all the time at that point, but we hadn’t yet discovered it/confirmed its presence here in the U.S. I was putting extra flour and ground beef in my grocery cart. I bought an extra package of toilet paper, even though we had a big package at home already. I felt a little silly, but the CDC was recommending setting aside enough supplies for two weeks of quarantine, so… Anyway, that’s where this starts for me. And now I have just completed Week 12 and I feel like I’m back where I was in early March, stress/panic-wise.
This chart has flaws; there are no call-outs for “distance learning is going to kill us all” or the sharp punches of Anger at People, Specific and General or the surprising spikes of happiness when I found myself spending a delightful day with my family. I think there should be an overlying chart that shows a steep rise in Comfort Eating that has since plateaued at the highest level; alas, my chart-making skills/desire have failed me. But overall, I think it represents the passage of time pretty well.
How are YOU? Are you feeling the anxiety ramp-up as the country starts to experiment with re-opening? Have you, too, experienced an Online Shopping phase?
Man, that 2:30 wake up and worry is the WORST! I hear ya on the ups and downs for sure. Happy Mother’s Day to you
We are in Phase One of re-opening over here and I am in a near constant state of terror and am waiting for the second wave – I hope I’m wrong, but the way the folks in this town are flocking to stores like Marshall’s, I’m convinced that there will be one here.
Other than that, I’ve actually come to terms with staying home. And, as I told one of my co-workers that called to catch up, at this point I’m good with just staying here. Curbside and online shopping is my new way of shopping – probably for a good long time.
Treasure those spikes of happiness! Happy Mother’s Day!
Yes, to the mounting terror and anxiety as everyone else seems to think that a quick jump to “back to normal” will be a right choice… My family and I are going to continue the online shopping/delivery/curbside experience until it is much more reliably a smart idea to open places back up. This is one time when I’m more than content to be a “late adopter” — of rather let someone else test out this new thing first, let them find the fuses, and when it is really, really good, then I’ll join in. Also feeling very, very thankful that I have the financial circumstances to sit back and wait for others to go first on this.
I love your chart so much. Little house style determination/spunk made me laugh out loud.
I hate not having clear rules and direction. We are….making choices, I guess. Are they the right ones? Who knows!! Gah.
Well, I seem to be in a tight loop of Boredom/Eating all the things/New Normal which, if repetitive, is at least sparing me the Terror phase just now. Either way, I’m feeling vaguely institutionalised and that simply can’t be right… I think that for most of us it’s the huge Unknown factor that’s actually the worst thing – not sleeping properly, of course, never makes anything any better though. All of the social media memes about cancelling 2020 altogether seem increasingly correct (as do the ones about eating your own weight in baked goods most days!).
I am feeling OK. Staying home is working for me, other than the stress of having a grown child who is incredibly disruptive. Good weather is my saving grace. We do our shopping at off peak hours when we can and wash our hands afterwards and wear our masks. I am not really worried about getting sick, but just try to follow the directions to rid our area of this as soon as possible. I have a few family members who need some clothes, and I got excited today about shopping online vs not shopping in forever.
I wish you were here. Things are opening up but with a lot of rules in place. For example, J is going to see the orthodontist, thank you god, but I got a big email about how it is going to work, he needs to wear a mask, we phone when we get there and they come to let him in only, and only when they are ready to minimize people. So, I feel better about things. My mom is going to the hair salon next week (really, Mom, you couldn’t wait?) and there are many detailed rules involved with that as well.
I had two nice days in a row– Mother’s Day and my birthday– so I’m wavering between feeling residual happiness about that and then thinking, oh, now there’s nothing to look forward to.
Different country, same feelings 🙁