This is likely to change. For many, including me, anxiety is hitting even before a shot gets in the arm. “Anticipating social interactions is often the most difficult,” says Brown. “The anticipatory anxiety of what it will look like may actually be worse than the reality of how bad the anxiety really is, once it is here, but it is this build-up period that can be very desperate for people.” Welcome to the accumulation period.
The good news is that we can alleviate these symptoms. The first step is to be present. It’s easier said than done, but when you feel the thoughts of the future seeping in, says Brown, try to understand them and remember not to worry about summer until, well, summer. “When we think about the future, we feel anxious, and when we think about the past, we tend to be sad. And so the goal is, as much as possible, to try and stay just in the here and now. “
Above all, we need to make deals to be legal with us. Richard Heimberg, professor of psychology at Temple University and former director of the Adult Anxiety Clinic, notes that this kindness will be especially necessary, as both anxious and non-anxious people will have a little “rust”. Even things that seemed second nature in the Ancient Times, like going to work or working in an office, could cause some discomfort after a whole year of practice. “The level of anxiety that we [all] I feel that in general it will be elevated because of health concerns and because of rust, ”he says. It is important to make sure that whatever goals we set for ourselves take this into account and that we treat them as aspirational, rather than prescriptive.
“If we expect us to behave perfectly,” says Heimberg, “then we will punish ourselves if we do not meet this standard.” For some, reemergence can be more of a slow shake than a total break through our shells, and that’s OK. “It’s about accepting that everyone else is just as concerned with what we think of them as the other way around. And it is about giving us the chance to be simply human. “
With lives in The line, the Covid-19 threat has given many of us the confidence to say no – to others and to ourselves. Fortunately, the few social outings that I managed to keep secret brought an extra layer of sensitivity from friends and family. I did my best to provide them with the same. Perhaps most importantly, circumstances have led me to extend this judgment-free acceptance policy to myself as well. And I’m not ready to give up.
I do not need. This honesty with ourselves and others about what makes us comfortable and what really to want do not have to disappear with the virus. In fact, the whole practice of navigating conversations about what settings and activities we are OK with, as far as viruses are concerned, can only make us better off.
“This pandemic has created a language for people to start expressing how their comfort levels may differ from those of their friends, and I think it’s an incredible start,” says Brown. “When the context is different and the virus is less of a reason why you can’t get socially involved, I think people will still need to set those boundaries … Not that they should say no to everything, but that you should say yes to things that could bring you joy. “
In a perfect world, I would take the hell out of my social life after the vaccine – doing the things that make me happy and saying no to the things that I don’t. I would burst the pandemic bubble without losing anything from my pandemic perspective. Of course, it’s never that simple. I am still the same person. Expectations will inevitably arise. Occasionally, I do things I don’t want to do or look around and wonder if my decisions are the right ones. But, hopefully, I’ll be a little kinder to myself along the way.