Kids of my generation, perhaps the one before, would scratch their heads wondering why grandma kept all those rubber bands. We’d look askew when she turned off the stove before things were heated through; why she used the same tattered sponge over and over, even though its once bright yellow pad had turned a sickly brown.
The polite answer is she lived through the Great Depression and World War II.
The more accurate answer is she had a form of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
During the Coronavirus disease pandemic, we too are experiencing something life-altering. The economic fallout and curtailment of our movements aside, I mean. For the first time in our lives, we are not experiencing a global event through a medium of television or print; we are living through it, all of us, at the same time. The COVID-19 pandemic is not something that happens to “those poor people” on another continent.
It is happening to me. It is happening to you. It’s happening to your partner. It’s happening to your children. It’s happening to your friends. It’s happening to your parents. It’s happening to their parents.
Everyone.
Your children, or your children’s children, will wonder why Grandma is so “anal” about sanitising her hands every time she comes home from the shop; they’ll scratch their heads when she insists they wear a mask when having a cough; why they’re reluctant to leave the house when “some kind of bug is going around.”
The polite answer is that she lived through the COVID-19 pandemic.
The more accurate answer – the answer we know to be true – is that she has some form of PTSD.
That she is “we.”
A dear friend of mine was upset that she couldn’t “fix” herself and stop being “paranoid” about COVID-19 and germs in general. How could one be “fixed” when every day – hour even - we see images of body bags, death counts, and big scary red spiky balls on TV (they’re supposed to be an image of SARS-CoV-2, the pathogen that causes the disease. I can assure you, it doesn’t look like that.) The best we can hope for is recovery.
Marketing and communication during this time has been annoying at best and predatory at worst. I’ve been inundated with spam email for hand sanitiser, toilet paper, deferred business loans, and everything I don’t really need. It’s because they’re set to the modern default: I’m going to shout at you like a petulant child until you hear me. Just hop on Twitter at any given moment to see what I mean.
Organising a support group for men with anxiety and depression issues for the last decade, I can tell you from my own experience that the most powerful tool for any type of recovery – emotional and economic – is to listen.
My red-coloured rubber physiotherapy ball, definitely not a scale model of SARS-CoV-2.
Lend that ear. Take in what the other person is saying. Empathise with them. Don’t mull over what you’re going to say in response. Just become the receiver for a brief few moments. Let go of any expectation of reciprocation. Be that “rock.”
The psychologist Sam Vaknin says our society is a narcissistic one. I tend to agree. When I first got into journalism, I was expecting publications I didn’t read nor buy pay me money for my writing. That is hypocrisy of the highest order. On the macro level, we transform ourselves into “content” for a currency of attention, though many people do not return the favour. It’s not hypocrisy. It’s just Instagram.
If you’re admonishing yourself for washing your hands obsessively, don’t. Right now, with no cure or vaccine, it’s better to be safe than sorry. “You do you,” as the saying goes. Like in twelve-step programs, there is a reasonable expectation you will relapse a week, a month, a year, a decade from now. It’s fine.
Don’t beat yourself up about it.
What can we do to recover from it all? In my view?
The first step toward recovery is simple.
We just have to listen.
If you or anyone you know is in need of help, contact Lifeline on 13 11 14 or BeyondBlue 1300 22 4636. Just want to talk? Call me on 0417 120 749.