This question used to be so benign. Mainly because in most situations, the retorts were so ridiculous and irrational—once you actually thought about them or heard yourself say them out load—that the fear basically evaporated. Take these scenarios for example:
Before the big presentation
Person: What are you afraid of?
Me: That they’ll all laugh at me and I'll throw up in my mouth a little bit.
Boarding an airplane
Someone: What are you afraid of?
Me: That it will drop out of the sky with no warning.
Scoring that new job or raise
Human: What are you afraid of?
Me; That I’ll get hit by that bus now that I finally have what I want.
Any given Tuesday
Anyone: What are you afraid of?
Me: A giant centipede will come for me while I'm sleeping.
That was then. But now? Oooooh boy. If someone asks what I’m afraid of at any minute of any day, my brain goes into instant death spiral mode. Given the current societal climate, there are so many very real and probable things to be afraid of. For instance, I’m afraid that I or a loved one will get COVID, or worse yet, that I will GIVE someone COVID and that particular someone will be one of the horribly unlucky someones who suffers continued complications or the ultimate worst case scenario. (I can’t even bring myself to say it out loud.) That home schooling will rip my family dynamic apart, thread by thread, and all the stress, confusion and uncertainty we’re swimming in day to day will swallows us whole and cause irreparable damage to my children’s psyche.and my sanity. That humanity and the earth as we know are hurtling toward certain destruction with each rotation around the sun and the refusal of the powers that be to do something—anything—to restore any shred of normalcy is a mere pipe dream.
Dark, right? I know. Some days I just can’t help these thoughts from popping up in my brain, usually while I’m working really hard to keep my shit together and get through the day as positively as possible with something resembling a smile on my face. I push the bad thoughts deep, deep down and operate in auto survival mode. Don’t we all? But how far down will these feelings be able to go? When will the flood gates cease to resist the constant tide of what-if’s and what-the-fuck’s? When will we simply self-combust under all this pressure, rendering human destruction by other earthlier means null and void? No one knows. Aaand enter the uncertainty. Fear + uncertainty = well, I don’t know. But it’s absolutely nothing good. For any of us. But you don’t need me or anyone else to tell you that, especially if you’re a human who is responsible for other, tinier humans. Just take this headline from my “friend” Scary Mommy:
So, what do we do with all the fear, the #caronaphobia, if you will? That’s my question de jour. And true to form, I do not have the answers. Sure, there are the fairly obvious, squishy, happy-feely, pop culture answers to the daily dilemma of managing fear and anxiety: mediation, yoga, gratitude journals, wine, soft drugs, etc.
Again, as Scary Mommy points out:
(Obvi it’s not just moms who are losing their shit. Regardless of who we are or whether we have kids or not, we’re all freaking the fuck out.) Now, we can lump all of these coping tactics under the collective bucket of “self-care”. And I’m not here to knock any of ‘em. Each one has its own way of making one feel better, if only for five minutes or an hour. Jotting down notes about what gives me light within this darkness or working myself into the shape of down dog may not solve anything for good, but at least it prevents me from shoving my head under my bed pillow and screaming for a sec. Self-care? Check. But then what?
I come back to the sage advice a wise therapist one told me: Focus on only the things you can control. And in case you’re wondering, that does NOT include centipedes.
Here’s the thing. Since I came here to type me feelings out, I’ve come to realize something: absolutely nothing is normal anymore. Except fear. But fear a la COVID really isn’t any different than the more benign fears of yore. Simply put, fear is fear, right? We have the same physical response to the highly irrational fear of little green men taking us back to their mother ship than the more rational idea hat we will contract the dreaded ‘rona some day in the future. Our bodies and even our brains don’t know the difference. They just send the signal that now would be a really good time to get into your sweatpants and fire up The Great British Baking Show for the next 6 hours so you can avoid all of the things .
Yes, shit SUCKS right now. Few of us have lived through anything quite like this before. Just when I feel like I’ve got a grip on the day-day stresses of feeding, bathing, clothing my children and getting my ass out of bed to meander over to my desk to eke out some work and I even start feeling good about life, I remember, oh yeah. The whole fucking world is falling apart. And then the fear. But as much as I acknowledge it, I still can’t change it. Just like I can't control how people perceive me, whether the plane has stomach clutching turbulence, or anything that those horrible nasty monster centipedes do when I'm not looking.
So the solution of trying as hard as I can to focus on only the things I can control is the only answer I've got and it actually seems like a pretty good one. Indeed, some fears are always going to be way more existentially threatening and freakier than others, but shit. We gotta use the tools we got, right? It’s the only way to get through this mess resembling something that is alive.
Scary Mommy, do you have anything to add before I go and try to put my own words into practice?
Off topic, but fair point.
We’ll address that one on the next episode of “What The Fuck Do We Do Now?”
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