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from the would-you-like-to-talk-about-it? dept.
How to keep your sanity when you feel like the world is going crazy:
Hi there. How are you feeling today?
It's a loaded question right now. Many of us are having extraordinary feelings in response to extraordinary times. Hundreds of millions of people here in the United States and around the world are doing their best to help contain the spread of novel coronavirus disease COVID-19 by following World Health Organization and Centers for Disease Control guidelines and, bluntly, staying the heck away from other people.
Even for a born introvert like yours truly, the era of prolonged, enforced social distancing is hard. Folks are either stuck at home alone, stuck at home with their families, or still having to go out into the world every day to work—either because their work is vital or their employers are being stubborn—and all the while, we're being buffeted by government warnings and endless waves of frightening news.
In short: right now, we're all exchanging some measure of our mental health in order to preserve our own and others' physical health, and that has limits. We're all in this together, for several weeks and months, if not longer, and basically, we need to avoid driving ourselves and each other crazy if we're going to get through it.
That, of course, is easier said than done. To that end, we called up mental health experts to ask what, realistically, we should all be doing to help ourselves and others.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 23 2020, @04:53AM
Yep. You're mostly spot on.
But as I said:
I'm over 50 but don't have any underlying conditions or a compromised immune system, so I'll probably be okay.
But I also have an elderly mother and other family members who are older or have compromised immune systems. I'm scared for them, and for others in the same boat. Which is why, regardless of the lack of leadership from the Federal government, I'm glad that many states are pushing hard to *slow down* the spread of the virus.
And most people seem to be on the same page too. We don't want our fellow Americans to die. If we can slow the spread enough, we can actually save lives. I can't speak for anyone else, but I believe that's a worthy goal.
Fuck Trump and fuck anyone else who makes the suffering of our fellow humans worse. We're better than that. Many, many people are rising to the occasion and that gives me hope.
But hope isn't always enough -- I guess we'll just have to wait and see.