I’d Choose Pandemic Life over Mental Illness Any Day
By: Jean Campbell
Tags: Pandemic Diaries, Depression, Anxiety, Recovery, Mental Health

I’d Choose Pandemic Life over Mental Illness Any Day

Photo by Juan Di Nella on Unsplash

The pandemic is bringing most of us face to face with a hard fact of life: we need other people. Touching them, seeing them in real-time, and eating in restaurants with them. We need to play board games.

Most of all, we need to feel connected. Even those of us with social anxiety miss handshakes. And we who’ve lived thru an invisible malady know a lot more about connection than normal, healthy extraverts might imagine.

Connection (some might call it love) is precisely what’s lost when you are dealing with depression and anxiety. Instead of a green field full of possibilities, the world of others is a minefield to be survived.

As I watch pre-pandemic life via The Crown, where people gleefully party and/or stab each other in the back, I realize how emotionally draining it is to live in isolation. (Yes, I’m thinking of Prince Charles.)

I am also acutely aware of how much more difficult it is to live with isolating mental illness than temporary social exile due to extreme events, i.e. COVID. That’s partly because I’ve recovered enough to feel connected again.

Pandemic isolation vs. Invisible isolation

There are emotional connections in my life that have always have been there, but today I can feel them. I experience the web of life I am a part of — but in the darker days of gloom and worry, no amount of family or friends would’ve mattered.

After decades of battling depression, I found a semi-cure this year, shortly before being slapped in the face with semi-isolation because of COVID. But more on that later. What I wonder is how well-equipped we who have mental illness are, really, in dealing with this new level of isolation?

It is possible we have a kind of superpower?

From anecdotal news reports and informal surveys, there is evidence that for some of us, this pandemic-imposed isolation is a boon rather than a trial. One study on mixed emotions showed that those with lower emotional stability (“moody” personalities) are actually better at responding to uncertainty.

For example, I’ve discovered three plusses: first, my social anxiety rarely gets triggered (there’s almost zero in-person socializing) and second, I feel less isolated since I know so many others are, too. Finally, I have confidence I can handle isolation — especially when there is an end in sight.

While some studies show that people with anxiety and depression fare worse under lockdown, a few suggest that isolation is easier for those who already have strategies for handling it.

But I’m also aware that some outings are necessary, especially the human ones.

An Elf with difficult choices

This weekend, I’m scheduled to become an Elf by assembling soup jars at my church to deliver to neighbors. I live in a rural area with a lot of older people — so there’s no doubt these Elfin goodie bags over the holidays will cheer someone up! Many of my neighbors are more isolated than me.

And I think you know where this is going….

Is it worth sitting in a church with a dozen other women, as we all wear masks, for an hour? Of course, people will talk to each other. That’s only natural and sane. We’ll be scooping beans and spices into jars. What else is there to do but laugh and kvetch?

The heat will be on, re-circulating the air non-stop because it’s colder than normal this time of year. I’d feel so much better if we could sit outside and brave the 45-degrees in the parking lot.

Is it worth going? What if we have a super-spreader in our midst?

I am determined to fill jars with beans. Because the alternative is feeling less connected. The alternative is an empty room, and that is too much a reminder of the old days when getting out of bed in the morning felt like climbing Everest.

I wish I didn’t have to risk my health and my life for the sake of feeling part of a community. But I can’t overstate how aware I am that I now have that choice.

Before I escaped the beastly jaws of my invisible illness, I watched others connecting from afar and knew the hand I was dealt was a crappy one.

My mental health is a hard-won battle

Last year, I changed three habits, out of which my former anxious, depressed self transformed.

The old me would have obsessed about a doctor’s appointment for the week (and especially the day) prior to going. I was driven by moods that snowballed into fears, rather than hopes. Anxiety could overtake me if I had something as minor as a bug bite, or someone cut me off in traffic.

Unwittingly, the new habits intertwined, like three strands to form a strong rope. First, I learned to breathe correctly. (Most people over-breathe and, without noticing it, hyperventilate.) Chronic hyperventilation worsens overall health and induces a constant feeling of anxiety.

This transformation was startling. I thought I had tried every holistic therapy known to man.

Restoring normal breathing allowed me to recover from the second anxiety-depression driver: oversleeping. If I sleep in, I awaken feeling both sluggish and time-pressured. A pernicious fatigue follows me throughout the day. After all, I already admitted defeat by making my first action of the day the decision to roll over and burrow under the covers!

If I get up shortly after waking up, the day is better. Life is better. The dreary weather looks romantic, not oppressive. I am more likely to go outside. Ideas for articles hang like ripe fruit, etc.

The last change was my diet, which is less important. I got off flour and sugar because I have an autoimmune disease.

COVID is tough but I’m used to it

Despite how hard the social isolation is, I’d pick a pandemic world where I feel connected versus a ‘normal’ world battling mental illness any day of the week. For the first time, I am grateful I know how to survive depression, anxiety, and social isolation.

People who feel connected to others, to nature, to ideas — the ones standing by the fire in that cabin — cannot comprehend how crippling day-to-day isolation is, especially the interior kind.

Perhaps this pandemic will create more empathy. Could experiencing isolation give “normal” folks some idea of what exile to a cold and empty house feels like?

I would prefer being out and about, playing the absurd games you play in middle-age (pickleball, anyone?). But I am deeply thankful I have a firm mental health foundation under me now. I am equally grateful I’ve learned to weather isolation — perhaps because I’m middle-aged, or perhaps because I’ve survived bouts of depression.

I will fill jars with beans without worrying, too much, about the Elf sitting next to me. I might even feel grateful for her.