Social Distancing Since Before Times

    I finally found something where my mental health issues are a huge asset rather than a hindrance and that feels weird. In February and March of 2020 the strangest thing happened...everyone was suddenly doing the thing that I had been doing all of my adult life, they were staying home and isolating. Not much changed for me. Well, there were a couple of hurdles, like getting groceries, but in every other aspect of the lockdown, I was eminently qualified for it. 

   

    Suddenly I was the pro at being a hermit and some were coming to me, asking how in the heck I lived like this all of the time. My diagnoses of severe anxiety disorder and PTSD have meant that I already was a hermit. I had been there and done that for years and let me tell you, no one ever thought that being borderline agoraphobic was a good thing until then. My maxi-introvert status meant that I was able to give others a hand with advice, lending an ear, and general pep-talks in a way I'd never been able to before. It was like sharing a cursed expertise that I didn't study for and certainly didn't ask for. It was wild because all of this interacting with others via phone or video chat was a vast change, I was and am suddenly less introverted than I was. Now, I'm not saying that as the risk has lessened I've been going out partying or traveling all over the place, I'm still staying home. I'm more active and social while I'm home though and I look forward to taking baby steps out and about in the future. I've also gone back to school, doing the work to achieve a major yet long-forgotten goal. The change is good and unsettling at the same time and time will tell if it is sustainable. 

    While it's no secret or surprise that the pandemic has exacerbated the strain on an already stressed mental healthcare network, the number of people seeking support for mental health issues has skyrocketed. A study in Lancet study in 2020 alone "found that mental health dramatically declined in that year, with an estimated 53 million additional cases of major depressive disorders and 76 million additional cases of anxiety disorders seen globally." What I haven't seen is a lot of writing about or studies being done is how people that already had documented mental health diagnoses have been dealing with the pandemic. 

    With that in mind, I started journaling more and gathered a group of others that also experienced the pandemic in light of their disorders and encouraging them to share their stories both with me and with publications so that when all is said and done, our group will be represented in the history of the pandemic along with many others. I have a pitch for the book version being shopped around by my agent now but I will continue to document all of the stories that are shared with me no matter what happens.

    I never would have thought that a once-in-a-century event would finally teach me how to be more resilient instead of pointing out, yet again, how much I lack resilience, but here we are.