The emotional journey of quarantine
This was not the first piece I was planning to publish for my newsletter. I originally wrote one about my efforts to break my addiction to social media by spending less time on it - but given the current state of the world, that piece is not very relevant right now. Instead, my first post is about the emotional journey over the past few weeks. Also, since this is my first piece, I was very tempted to edit and re-edit it until it’s “perfect” but I’m publishing this knowing that that’s not a realistic goal. Progress over perfection as they say.
There are a lot of articles out right now about living life in quarantine in this new “normal”. Many have touched on how to be productive while working from home, some have discussed tips for staying active, how to manage a new realm of self care, and others are full of ideas for new hobbies. I haven’t yet seen the article I’m looking for about the emotional journey of quarantine...so I’m sharing mine.
The Stages of Quarantine
The stages of grief from losing a loved one or suffering a great loss are the following: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.
The stages of quarantine that I’ve seen or experienced so far are denial, anger, refusing to cancel travel plans, bargaining (if only we had started working from home earlier) panic buying, stressing about grocery shopping, depression, hopelessness, avoiding the news, rage watching white house press conferences, emotional eating, abandoning personal hygiene, putting on jeans to try to feel normal, taking said jeans off after 5 minutes, overposting on social media, feeling drained by spending the day on video-calls, waking up at 5am wondering if it’s all a bad dream, and short stints of acceptance.
Work
I have cycled through many feelings about work during quarantine - I have felt grateful to have a job, appreciative to have the privilege to work from home, eager to get into the zone with work, and happy to have a distraction. Other times I have felt exasperated by the minutiae of work, unmotivated to get going, struggling with focus, and a sense of “what’s the point of working if the whole world is collapsing?” Minute by minute it feels like I’m riding a rollercoaster of emotion and I’m trying to be productive while also attempting to forgive myself for being distracted and unfocused.
Panic Attacks
Panic is an overwhelming feeling. In quarantine I’ve had 2 panic attacks so far. Once, when San Francisco announced we would move to shelter in place, a move that felt so intense and over the top, something I didn’t think would happen, and I felt an overwhelming sense of hopelessness and fear. I feared I didn’t have enough food; I feared the stores would be closed; I feared I would be alone and socially isolated for too long. I got into bed and pulled the covers high and tried to take a stress-induced nap. I couldn’t actually sleep but I felt better to just breathe and rest.
The second panic attack was after a few days of working from home and facetiming with family and friends, when my wifi got glitchy and would cut out frequently. A surge of panic jolted through my body as I imagined what it would be like to be in quarantine and completely alone without wifi or any connection to the outside world. Luckily it started working again after restarting my modem 16 times and having several exasperating conversations with Comcast employees...but what I felt was a primal fear of being abandoned by society, left alone and away from the herd, unable to contact anyone.
Odd to think that panic attacks related to coronavirus are commonplace today. I don’t have any statistics, but would venture a guess that nearly every person has experienced at least one so far in this global pandemic.
Taking inventory (of your physical and emotional space)
If there’s one thing Marie Kondo has taught me, it is that your physical space greatly impacts your emotional and mental state. Cluttered space makes for a cluttered mind. All items must have utility or bring joy. Quarantine means that I am forced to be even more intimate with my physical space and must take inventory even more frequently and more closely than I normally do. What items do I have in my home right now that I can entertain myself with? I have gotten pleasure out of organizing my work items - I store my keyboard and mouse in my desk drawer and bring them out each morning as a “ritual” to signal to myself it’s work time. I have been making my bed with extra precision, fluffling up my pillows each day. I try to treat each item with great care that wasn’t quite there pre-quarantine...I figure, we’re all stuck in here together so might as well be friendly.
Interestingly, quarantine has thrust our emotional states out of the shadows and into the light - conversations with coworkers that used to stay strictly in the weather and weekend zone now are much more authentic and raw. We openly ask each other “how are you doing with all of this” and for the first time in recent human history, we are all going through the same negative and fearful experience. We all have the same information and we all are facing the same level of uncertainty about the future. Quarantine is like having a few mirrors propped up to your emotional state - there are only so many reality shows you can watch, dishes to wash, emails to answer, and feeds to scroll through before you are faced with the harsh reality of how you are truly feeling. And boy, are we all dealing with it in varying ways. Alcohol and weed sales are up. People are self medicating with tik tok videos. I’m not judging. Do what you gotta do.
Time
What is quarantine time? For me, at first quarantine felt so long and slow. The hours dragged by and each day felt incredibly long with the news changing so quickly, flurries of text messages, toilet paper flying off the shelves. We lost the transition time that we take for granted in our normal day to day lives - such as commuting, walking to the next conference room, and going out for a coffee break. Week one was full of shock, rollercoaster of emotions, and confusion when I found myself looking forward to the weekend and then remembered “oh wait - why am I even excited, it will be exactly the same as what I’m currently doing…”
After a week or so, quarantine time feels a little closer to normal time. Am I getting used to working from home? Am I used to staying inside? Have I accepted that this is what the foreseeable future will look like? I’m not sure. I do think it helps that I have created more boundaries for myself between work-mode and home-mode. I don’t roll out of bed and immediately start working anymore. I try to eat breakfast and do some yoga first. Building in a schedule and time for myself has helped me feel like I have more structure and has helped time feel a bit more regulated and perhaps more semblance to normal life.
(Re)Connecting with friends and family
As soon as our ability to connect with family and friends in person became threatened and then completely taken away from us - our desire to connect grew even stronger. Especially for those of us living alone, I feel like I’ve spent every day facetiming with friends and family and getting in my social time through video chatting. It’s incredible to have the technology to be able to keep in touch with people and play Jeopardy on Zoom, and pictionary on Houseparty...but at the same time it’s exhausting to be on video calls all day for work and all night for socializing. There’s something to be said about spending time with people - at a party or just idling around where you aren’t necessarily staring into each other's faces or directly requiring each other's attention.
Sadness & Fear
The state of the economy, people losing their jobs and their lives (and risking their lives). Businesses struggling and closing. What happens when the whole country goes to war and has a recession and everything implodes at the same time? One of the reasons I feel worried and anxious is how it’s starting to dawn on me that a transition back to “normal” will likely be extremely slow. Nothing drastic will really change until we have a vaccine. It just feels painful to internalize how deeply and fundamentally this pandemic has and will change human culture and society. Will we ever shake the hands of strangers anymore? Will we ever hug new friends at concerts in a sea of hundreds? It feels hard to imagine right now.
All I know for sure, is that transitioning back to our impractically tight and itchy normal clothes, wearing makeup, and sitting on a jam packed Muni bus is going to be tough after this.
The Future
I don’t have some grandiose takeaway and I’m not going to say “everything will be ok” or pretend that I know what will happen or how we will feel. We’ve never really known what lies ahead but now we’re faced with the fact that we definitely don’t know what’s ahead and can’t pretend that we do. I’m trying to judge myself on my efforts versus my outcomes. I'm just taking it day by day, how about you?