Invisible Anxiety

Everything seems a little more difficult these days and a lot more stressful. One week we think we’re about to go back to the office, and then we are told that no, not for a few more months. Local, state, and federal agencies give us conflicting mandates about masking and vaccination, while social media tells us whatever we want to hear, mixed in with the exact opposite. We don’t know what’s safe to do and fear for our vulnerable elders and unvaccinated children.

If we try to travel, there’s more to it than buying a ticket and getting on a plane. Aside from our passports, we need to show our vaccination paperwork and make sure we are tested, and live with the fear that we’ll test positive in a faraway place and might get stranded away from home. Every day, we hear that the number of infections is going down, although the death rate is still high, while more people we know test positive and must isolate.

Yet, somehow, we go on! We adjusted to working remotely, and then hybrid, and will eventually figure out how to work side by side in an office again. We figured out ways of seeing people and having fun without undue risk, picked up hobbies and adopted pets, learned to cook and garden, and made the best of it. We miss our distant friends and relatives, but talk to them virtually more than we talked when we could see each other. We are an adaptable species.

But all is not well, in that the events of the last two years have driven us into a state of anxiety, invisible to others and often to ourselves. With the prevailing uncertainty, helplessness, and fear, it’s no wonder that we’re feeling anxious, even as we focus on getting on with our everyday lives. We’re trying to pretend that we can power through this, and that everything’s okay, but it’s really not. The signs are everywhere.

We try to sleep, but suffer from insomnia. We’ve learned to cook but overeat, snacking to calm our nerves and gaining pandemic pounds. We drive less but get into more accidents. We spend more time on social media but feel more disconnected. And the macro-trends are terrifying. Violent crime is up, overdose deaths are up, mental illness is getting worse, racism parades itself openly in the town square, and we can’t even talk to each other without demonization and name-calling. We are far from okay.

Like all pandemics, this one will pass, and things will feel more normal. But prolonged, untreated anxiety leaves scars, and unless we have a plan to address it, the personal and social toll of the pandemic will extend well beyond the disease itself. We have to learn to talk about our anxieties and develop skills and strategies to manage them, and more than anything else, we need to recognize that we are all in this together and reach out to each other with empathy and understanding.