That is likely to change. For many, myself included, anxiety strikes even before a shot hits the arm. “Anticipating social interactions is often the hardest part,” Brown says. “The anticipatory anxiety of what this will actually be may be worse than the reality of how bad the anxiety is once you get here, but it is this period of accumulation that can be very discouraging for people.” Welcome to the accumulation period.
The good news is that we can alleviate these symptoms. The first step is to stay present. It’s easier said than done, but when you feel future-oriented thoughts cling, Brown says, try to catch them and remember not to worry about summer until, well, the summer. “When we think about the future, we feel anxious and when we think about the past, we feel sad. And so the goal is, as far as possible, to try to stay only here and now. “
Above all we need to make arrangements to be nice to ourselves. Richard Heimberg, a professor of psychology at Temple University and former director of the Adult Anxiety Clinic, notes that this kindness will be especially needed, as anxious and non-anxious people will have a bit of a “rust”. Even things that seemed second nature to Before Times, such as moving around or working in an office, could arouse some discomfort after a whole year without practice. “The level of anxiety we have [all] the feeling in general will be high due to health concerns and rust concerns, “he says. It is important to make sure that all the goals we set for ourselves take this into account and that we treat them as aspirations more than prescriptive.
“If we expect us to behave perfectly,” says Heimberg, “we will win if we don’t get to that level.” For some, re-emergence can be more of a slow removal than a clean break from our shells, and that’s okay. “It’s about accepting that everyone is as concerned about what we think of them as the other way around. And it’s about giving us the opportunity to be just human. “
With lives in life the line, the Covid-19 threat gave strength to many of us with the confidence to say no, to others and to ourselves. The few social outings I’ve managed to have closed have fortunately come out with an extra layer of sensitivity on the part of friends and family. I did my best to provide them with the same. Perhaps most importantly, circumstances led me to extend this policy of acceptance without trial as well. And I’m not ready to give it up.
I don’t have to. This honesty with ourselves and with others about what we feel comfortable with and what we really do to want do not have to disappear along with the virus. In fact, the whole practice of browsing through conversations about what settings and activities we are good at, in terms of the virus, may leave us feeling better.
“This pandemic has created a language for people to start expressing how their comfort levels may be different from those of their friends, and I think it’s a fantastic start,” Brown says. “When the context is different and the virus is less a reason why you can’t participate socially, I think people will still have to set these limits for themselves … It’s not that they have to say no to everything, but that you should say yes to things that might make you happy. “
In a perfect world, Marie Kondo would make it out of my social life after the vaccine, doing the things that make me happy and saying no to the ones that don’t. I would burst the pandemic bubble without losing any of my pandemic outlook. Of course, it’s never been that simple. I am still the same person. Expectations will inevitably slip. From time to time I will do things I don’t want to, or I will look around and wonder if my decisions are the right ones. But hopefully, I’ll be a little kinder to myself along the way.