Quarantine Dealings
You’re not alone
Going into day 53 of confinement, I never thought I would get this anxious about my future, about the world, and about my friends. When quarantine first started, most of my friends and I saw it as a short term solution for a long term problem. However, today, it is the cause of anxiety for many, especially for millennials who are used to a social culture in their everyday life. Migrating from the classroom to Zoom, from the club to social media, from the gym to live classes, from quality time to face time, has proven to be the biggest challenge our generation has faced. Who would have thought that the age of technology, of social media, of Instagram, would have such a difficult time adapting to life in confinement? To be with family, in a short space, to a new “virtual reality.”
Insomnia, anxiety, confusion, concern, and uncertainty are some of the common feelings amongst some of my quarantine acquaintances. This article is to let you know that I hear you, you are not the only one, we are all going through the same situation.
Since the global lockdown started, most of the news we hear, watch or read are related to suffering, uncertainty, death, but also hope. What seems to be the underlying issue between this news is the feeling of entrapment everyone is experiencing with this global crisis. Be it a student, a front-liner, or a government official, concern is now a quarantine companion, and this leads a lot of people to feel all types of ways. I’m here to tell you not to feel guilty, you’re not alone, and everyone views this new reality differently.
Since this quarantine has lead most of our social interactions to be through social media, I decided to make some inquiries the best way I thought my friends would open up: through Instagram. On my close friends stories, I made some questions — to about 80 friends- about their feelings towards quarantine. I tried to make the questions as light and fun as possible so they wouldn’t feel intimated sharing their real feelings. This also helped me cope with my own.
The first question was about their preoccupations towards the quarantine and coronavirus. Out of 71 friends reached, only 11 people answered, and their responses were sincere. Half of them are concerned about the economic situation when this crisis is over, how it can affect the economy and change in unimaginable ways. One of them said, “ I don’t know how long I would be able to keep my job if everything keeps at a standstill, I have responsabilities” said Antonia García López.
Quarantine has given us a lot of time, and we spend most of that time overthinking, and that is what the other half of my friends are worried about. They overthink about the future, about life after quarantine and the permanent changes our future is facing when coronavirus is extinct. Can you relate to them? I definitely can, so I decided to ask them for more answers.
An essential part of lockdown that a lot of us have to deal with is our mental health. On a quarantine free life, mental health is very important, but a lot of people don’t pay attention to it because they are too busy, you know, living life and all. But again, with the time quarantine has given us, we can now stop and think about our mental health, and how it is affected. That is why my next question was: “How do you feel?., Do you have anxiety?” surprisingly, to this question, only four people answered. Yet, the four of them said they felt anxious, and the four of them are younger than 21. This made me think about how in an age of social media and global communications, these people are used to being connected, online all the time, feeling anxious when they have the availability of being online? It is difficult to wrap our heads around the fact that we need to stay home to stay safe because we do not know how to spend so much time with ourselves.
“Force yourself to smile, write three things a day that you are grateful for, meditate.”
Since only four people wanted to share their mental health regarding quarantine, I decided to ask them: “What do you do to make the sadness and anxiety go away, and what do you do to make your days productive?” Surprisingly, people engaged more with this question, I got 27 responses. Most of them agreed on exercising as the best way to get rid of stress, anxiety, and as a form of discipline and distraction. Some people even recommended meditation and reading as another distraction during the quarantine. Smoking, journaling, texting their exes, yoga, cooking, music, screaming, and doing homework was also there. But the answer that surprised me the most and I would love to pass along is this: “Force yourself to smile, write three things a day that you are grateful for, meditate.” This response is, in a way, what we all need to be told.
I know that everyone tells us that it’s temporary and that we see quotes on Instagram that say “this too shall pass,” and yes, it will, and yes, life will be different, and we need to accept and respect that. However, that doesn’t mean that you can’t have an anxiety attack or be a little selfish with your feelings. It is normal that if you belong to the class of 2020 in any degree and your plans changed from one day to the next, you feel anxious or sad, and it’s OK, you don’t have to be thinking about all the coronavirus deaths all the time, you can feel sad. It’s OK to be angry if you had plans, if you had a business, if you were going to get married, it is OK. You are not the only one, you are never the only one.
Still, this doesn’t mean that you can be blinded to the situation, but since this lockdown is a once in a lifetime situation, try to deal with it gracefully. Find someone to talk to about your feelings, don’t accumulate them, try to take something new out of this crazy situation. Be grateful for having health and a place to spend your quarantine, and listen to others who are less fortunate than you during their lockdown. Don’t go crazy, even though it might seem like forever, believe me, this will end, we don’t know when, but life will go back to a new normal soon. And if you’ve made it this far, try to accept our new future, as cheesy as it sounds, everything happens for a reason, and dealing with a pandemic and a quarantine crisis does not come without teaching.
Remember, you’re not alone; there’s a bunch of us going through similar situations as you, so don’t be by yourself, join the quarantined community, and smile.
