If you're like me then you're seeing a fascinating range of reactions to the coronavirus right now. They run the gamut of "BARRICADE YOURSELVES IN YOUR HOMES" to "IF YOU DON'T LICK THE SUBWAY YOU'RE LETTING THEM WIN" - with "them" being some vague amalgam of the opposing political party, the opposing media, and/or terrorists.
Most of us fall somewhere in-between, and I'm not about to tell you what you should be doing, much less what you should be feeling. The only reason I bring this up at all is I'm seeing a bunch of well-intentioned (I hope) shaming going on, and regarding THAT I do have something to say.
::drags over soap box::
Ahem hem hem.
Calling someone stupid for being afraid DOESN'T HELP ANYONE.
The same goes for calling them silly, overreacting, fearmongering, or evil.
This applies to more than viruses, and it's just as unhelpful if you're dismissive ("There's nothing to worry about!"), bullying ("Stop feeling that way"), or patronizing ("You only feel that because you're brainwashed, misled, etc.").
I'm probably preaching to the choir here, but remember that good intentions aren't enough when you're commenting online. Even if you're right about whatever point you're making - and that's assuming you are - no one is going to listen until you start with a little grace, a little love, a little consideration for the fact that we're all out here fighting a hard battle.
And if you are afraid, if you're one of us a little closer to buying a hazmat suit than a plane ticket, then let me tell you the steps *I'm* taking, as someone with an anxiety disorder and prone to panic. (I know, I know - I said I wouldn't tell you what to do... but here I go anyway. :p)
1) Learn the essentials to make your own informed decisions. Go to the World Health Organization and the CDC and read how COVID-19 is transmitted and what you can (and can't) do to protect yourself.
2) Do that stuff. Do what you need to feel comfortable when it comes to things like traveling.
3) Don't judge other people for doing their stuff, or for not feeling as afraid as you.
4) Once that's done, TURN OFF THE NEWS. Don't wallow in it. Don't track every new case. Practice a little faith, a little trust. Remember to breath. Remember to laugh. Remember to live.
5) Wash your dang hands.
I'm not saying it's easy, and if I sound dismissive, please know I'm not. Big Stuff like this is extra hard on those of us with anxiety, so it takes extra work to not let that Panic Monster get the better of us. Be ready to ask for help, and check in with your loved ones to see how they're doing.
Whatever you're feeling right now, regarding the coronavirus or anything else, know that your feelings matter, and there is nothing wrong with you for having them. We can't switch off our emotions at will; they just ARE. But to paraphrase a wise Headmaster, it's not our feelings that define us, it is our choices. So choose to be kind. Choose to ask for help when you find yourself spiraling. Talk about it, get that fear out in the open. Then remember I love you, this WILL get better, and a whole bunch of us are right here, right now, rooting for you.
******
I've been on a puzzle kick lately - they're like a mental pacifier at the end of the day - and this rainbow palette is giving me heart eyes:
1,000 PC Rainbow Jigsaw Puzzle
Come to think of it, I guess I'm also on a rainbow kick. Give me all those happy colors!
Come to think of it, I guess I'm also on a rainbow kick. Give me all those happy colors!
YAAASSS!! I'm a nurse in a pulmonology office, and I literally spent all day today compiling information about COVID-19 for a bulletin board. The CDC site is very helpful and realistic for both sides, helping to peel the panicked off the ceiling while nudging the naysayers to realize that this is a real virus with real consequences.
ReplyDeleteYou're doing the good work! I hope you share some of those flyers online, too; I haven't seen many helpful visuals that help summarize what folks need to know.
DeleteNPR has a good guide for kids with a focus on calming anxieties; it might also be helpful for some adults!
DeleteThank you for fighting that good fight. I'm over here just trying to practice my normal flu season protocols and I can't because there are no supplies left on the shelves and my toddler has a tendency to use up ALL THE SANITIZER AT ONCE WHYYYYYY.
DeleteJen, I *wish* there were better, simpler visuals for folks. I'm not sure if my institution would let me disseminate what I've compiled for legal reasons (I work for one of the top 5 hospitals in the nation so... they're super picky about what goes out with our stamp on it). The basics are: Wash. Your. Hands. If you think you have COVID-19, stay home and away from people and call your doctor, who will take it from there. Don't wear a mask unless you are feeling sick yourself.
DeleteThere is a big difference between belittling someone's fears and empowering people to be less fearful, and that's the heart of the CDC website and the info I am disseminating to my patients.
Excellent advice. I'm in Colorado and we now have two cases I believe, but they are far away from me and mine. I like the point about not watching too much television...I think that feeds the frenzy. Yes it is a concern and some people are very concerned and even fearful. I get that. My 93 year old mother lives in Seattle, and I am not going to visit right now (cautious, not fearful), but she is not ill. It is hard though...and disconcerting.
DeleteTwo things - first, I'm embracing more and more the four boundaries that Alanis Morrisette says she gave to her children as life rules: "You can't tell me what I'm thinking, you can't tell me what I'm feeling, you can't touch my body, and you can't touch my stuff" ("without permission" obviously implied for the last two). All that stuff you were saying falls squarely under boundary 2. Maybe also 1. People are allowed to think and feel what they want, they just aren't always allowed to act on it.
ReplyDeleteSecond - I have a friend who loves puzzles and I try to find really different ones for her, and this is what she got for Xmas: an Owl Wooden Puzzle https://amzn.com/B077HD5Q99 Since it's not square, it messes with standard approaches even though it doesn't have that many pieces.
Yes. I work at a regional hospital/health system, and literally spent all day compiling information from the CDC and WHO to create a resource for our community on our website. We want to be prepared - not panicked. And a big part of that is having accurate information to cut through a lot of the fear-mongering going on elsewhere.
ReplyDeleteThe only thing I will say to people who are afraid and trying to be prepared...please do not try to stock pile masks. They are needed for the actual medical personnel who have to be around these cases (and others) and having a shortage happen on masks because people are panic-buying them is going to do WAY more harm than good. (Not to mention generic surgical masks aren't going to protect you, and the ones that WILL protect you need to be measured for and fit to you specifically by someone trained to do it.)
ReplyDeleteStockpiling masks is silly and counterproductive from a public health standpoint, definitely!
DeleteHaving *a* mask, however, is useful for the immunocompromised or other people who are both more likely to catch any given virus and more likely to have it hit them hard, though.
1. If a random child in a waiting room sneezes in your face, then hooray! Those airborne snot-droplets are not in your nose and mouth, anyway! (your eyes are still unprotected unless you wear glasses, but still: it's something.)
2. People tend to stay a little farther away from people in a mask, keep their children farther away, and get less irritable about things like you wanting to use your own pen instead of the provided pen.
3. Wearing a mask reminds you to not touch your own face while you've been touching doorknobs at the local doctor's office. (at least, it reminds me, and my doctor's office is also an urgent care center where lots of people with the flu show up for diagnosis/treatment, so I consider it worthwhile to avoid touching my face when I've been touching a lot of potentially-germy surfaces.)
I mostly note this because my mom was wearing a mask last week and had a man come up and be all cranky about the fact she was wearing a mask and tell her how she shouldn't be wearing a mask and it doesn't do any good, etc., and honestly, she has enough to deal with right now, since she's recovering from chemo and that is why she is wearing a mask (she told the guy, apparently politely, that she was immunocompromised and that wearing the mask caused *most* people to stay a little farther away from her, which she considered an adequate beneficial effect; I kind of wish I had a video clip, because my mom can be polite, or she can be warm-and-fuzzy you've-just-gotten-a-hug polite, or, very very rarely, she can be Freezingly Polite and I would love to know which one she deployed).
My immune system has decided to malfunction fairly dramatically for as-yet-unknown reasons, so for the last few years, I've worn a mask out whenever I've gone out when there's a lot of flu or whatever going around town, and people generally don't give me any grief about it. But also, I reuse the masks that I wear while not-ill, unless they do get sneezed on or something, so we're still working through the box of 10 that we bought 3 years ago.
So, yes! Please do not panic-buy all the masks. But they're still useful for some people, and if we could let regular people wear them without harassment (since you can't always tell who is immunocompromised or lives with someone immunocompromised), that would be great.
(I do not think you would have come up to my mom and publicly lectured her, for behold, you are an Epbot reader! :-) But still, partial protection is more useful than no protection, for some people in some higher-contagion-risk environments?)
The only reason i am personally annoyed by the sheer panic is that it is being fed by the media. There are causes for concern to be sure and as you point out folks prone to anxiety or health issues are going to be understandably more concerned than others.
ReplyDeleteYa gotta turn off the TV like Jen advises in point #4. With the 24 hour news cycle the same story is rehashed over and over. To get ratings, stations look for some new angle on the situation without necessarily worrying about its validity.
People are making money on making other people afraid and it torques me off.
And Jen, that puzzle is amazing!
SO MUCH THIS. I share your anger with the sensationalist news preying on our fear. I could have a whole 'nother soap box moment on that, but I think you about covered it. ;)
DeleteI concur. Here in the UK, every news bulletin on the TV or radio, the lead story is this. TBH it's driving me round the bend.
DeleteFirst it was Brexit for about 3 years - headlined every news bulletin. Then Megxit, lead story every news bulletin now this. They give shock headlines like - the confirmed cases have soared to 38. 38. Out of how many? (about 60 million population) Compared to what??? How many cases of 'ordinary' seasonal flu have there been in the UK over the same time period with how many deaths? This sensationalism does nothing but stress people, who like you all say some of us can be very vulnerable to this. My Mum has compromised immunity and she is getting very worried about it all. I try to ease her distress by letting her know actual facts and figures etc as gently as I can so this event can be put a bit more in proportion for her, but the seed of fear and panic has already been planted.
I truly hope everyone gets through this s**t-storm soon. Get noses out of the news feed on phones, turn off the news on the TV/radio and look out of the window and glory at the spring that is happening, between the storms and the rain here in the UK, the daffodils that are blooming and the beautiful birds that are doing their mating dances in our gardens.
...and remember to wash hands thoroughly.
I want to give everyone a virtual hug, be well, be safe.
"...no one is going to listen until you start with a little grace, a little love, a little consideration for the fact that we're all out here fighting a hard battle."
ReplyDeleteHands down, the best sentence ever written about communication.
I'm in the long term care senior living business. We are working hard to be prepared--both for our staff and mostly for our residents as they are highly vulnerable.
My only gripe are with the people who are hang-wringing and pearl clutching about Covid-19 but blithly ignore the annual recommendation to get their flu shot. I appreciate not everyone is eligible for a flu shot but being afraid of shots isn't a great excuse.
When it first hit, I checked into the map a couple times a day to see how fast it had spread, wondering if this would be THE superbug that decimates the planets population like all the movies warn will happen ;)... and then I learned more about it.
ReplyDeleteI spent around twenty years working in the food industry,so I've had the 'wash your hands' beaten into my brain so much it comes as a shock to remember that there are SO MANY people who DON'T get the importance. If this new bug can wake them up and getting everyone to wash their hands more often, then once it's passed then maybe it'll be a bit healthier place. Washing hands is one of THE top preventive and protective measures out there to avoid all sorts of illness. Hand sanitizers are a nice bonus touch, but they do not replace hand washing... merely add on to it. And masks won't do much to protect you unless the SICK person is wearing them, or you're wearing the mask in a room full of sick people.
The panic hasn't fully reached my area yet - we do have a couple dozen reported cases a couple hours away, so the VIRUS is here, but the panic from the virus isn't. Working in the hospitality service, I do have people FROM that area coming in all the time... so the treat is there. But it's no more of a worry about catching it than any other bug.
*Big Hugs* Stuff like this is scary. Even people who work with it are worried, mostly because it is new and we don't know what all it is going to do. But it belongs to a family we are familiar with, and that makes it less scary, and helps to figure out the best ways to slow transmission and to treat the infection. Think of it just like flu season - we don't know exactly what strain will be making the rounds, but we can get close enough to make vaccines and treat it. And washing your hands is ALWAYS the right answer!! Thank you for posting such good advice, despite the anxiety pitching a wobbly in your brain.
ReplyDeleteTurning off the news, radio, streaming, however you get your news is the very best advise. It feeds anxiety. Hearing the same thing again and again and again, makes it seem 3x worse than it might be. I found this to be the case 4 states away after Katrina worried about my Gulf Coast Family. I watched my husbands anxiety spiral out of control. My own anxiety was getting the better of me. I made him turn off the tv at least one hour for every hour it was on. Yes, be aware, do what YOU need to do and Don't Panic.
ReplyDeleteHave a true called WASGIJ puzzles. (Jigsaw backwards) The picture on the box is not the puzzle, the company website explains it like this: Wasgij Original – the brainteaser puzzle that requires puzzlers to use their imagination (and a few clues provided) to put themselves in the position of a particular character that appears in the picture shown on the box. Once the puzzler has done this, they need to imagine what that character is looking at in front of them – that is the image they must piece together. I found my first one at a garage sale for .25 all pieces guaranteed, and it challenged my husband the jigsaw pro. You can find them on Amazon. They are a bit pricey but well made with quality paper. A hint, don't try to do the outside frame of the puzzle first, look for like colors/patterns and put together little mini vignettes then go from there. Load of fun.
ReplyDeleteCan we add a point 5b to your post? I'm in Washington state and a lot of people are very worried right now...which is fine, like you said we all have different levels of feels right now, but in their panic they're preparing for a snow storm not a virus and they have purchased ALL the TP. So I would add that if you're in an area a little further away from a hot spot: #5b Go make sure you have enough TP for a week or two. :)
ReplyDeleteKori, I'm in Nebraska and they've been using snowfall analogies to describe Covid-19 preparations around here, so maybe those shoppers are just being literal-minded?
DeleteI'm not too worried; yes, we're highlighted on the outbreak maps, but that's because we're one of the quarantine sites for evacuees from that cruise ship and a few of them had to be moved to the bio-containment unit at the med center. Their protocols held against Ebola, I think it can cope with this. And I'm already washing my hands frequently because I work at a dry cleaners and you wouldn't believe some of the clothes that get dropped off ;) .
In Missouri we've had zero cases and I'm not really worried, but I am taking precautions. I live in a town that likes to panic (schools close because of a forecast then nothing happens) so we went ahead and did some preparedness grocery shopping, but I didn't go grabbing all the milk and eggs. I went thru my list of things I used every day and determined what might be a good idea to stock up on in case the stores started running out, plus some easy to make foods like rice (goes with almost anything for variety).
ReplyDeleteMy big thing really is that I made hand sanitizer (since stores are running out). Because the flu has run rampant thru my office over the last month. I'm 1 of 3 who hasn't been sick. And we have an annual event next week with people coming in from all over the country. Someone always gets sick, so I'm just being better prepared this time.
I admit I laughed because what I've been saying for the past week or so since corona showed up in my parts has been 'don't lick the handles in public transport and wash your hands'. The first recorded guy in my country showed up in my city. Still, the number of cases is something like three in the city, nine in the entire country? So not the zombie apocalypse the news has been proclaiming it to be.
ReplyDeleteJen, as always your are a beacon of light, love and understanding in this maelstron that the internet can be. We should never patronize or diminish someone else's fears for whatever reason.
ReplyDeleteI think the media is doing way too much fear mongering. That said I think we need be sensible. If you are healthy, do things to stay healthy..like wash your hands, avoiding folks who appear to be sick. If you are sick, stay home and do self care to get well. If you are really sick, seek medical help. (now if I could convince this one guy at my church to stop bringing his germs I would be so happy...or at least to stay the heck away from me. But he seems socially off and doesn't get that my death glares mean to stay away.)
ReplyDeleteI will gladly give Suki belly rubs all day...even if Little Miss Maine Coon cat gets mad at me. But ONLY after I wash my hands.
ReplyDeleteIf you're loving rainbows and puzzles, check out an iphone game called "I love Hue Too". OMG so much fun. My eye for colour sorting has improved SO much.
ReplyDeleteEureka! I found the CDC's list of fliers and info sheets. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/communication/factsheets.html (sorry I cannot figure out how to insert as a hyperlink)
ReplyDeleteA friend of mine has the perfect way to think about washing your hands. Wash like you just ate a big bag of Cheetos and you are about to knit with pure white yarn.
ReplyDeleteI have also seen "wash like you just chopped some jalapenos and you need to change your contact lens" - I like them both :)
DeleteMy husband watches the news all day, late into the night, every single day. I feel like screaming and jumping off the roof if I hear one more word about elections, impeachments, or viruses.
ReplyDeleteAnd for the love of everything, DON'T be the the asshole that goes into a store and buys EVERY SINGLE bottle of hand sanitizer!!!!!!!! People that are doing that are what's causing so much panic about supplies for the people with weak immune systems that need this stuff.
ReplyDelete