Covid in my Anxious World

Shortness of breath, chest tightness, racing thoughts: common occurrences with anxiety and panic disorders but also a symptom of Covid. So which is it? How do I determine whether I'm sick with fear or sick with Covid - 19. Today, anxiety disorders, are the number one mental health diagnosis in the world, affecting around 1 - 5 people. Intrusive thoughts and immediate doom are patterns that come to my mind, immediately when I think of diagnosing my own personal symptoms. Every shortness of breath is a heart attack, every throat tightening is an allergic reaction, every migraine is a tumor. It is hard to steer our thoughts away from the worst case, especially in the overwhelming current climate where there is a real enemy amongst us that is taking lives.

On the blog today, my beautiful cousin, Jess, shares her life long journey with an anxiety disorder and how this pandemic has affected her personally. She ended up contracting Covid-19 and overcoming it was both a physical and mental battle. She now hopes that sharing her story will help others in fear of getting Covid but also anyone who has contracted it and the shame or fear that may come along with a positive test.

Looking back, I can see now that I have suffered from anxiety for the majority of my life. When I was a kid, my anxiety stemmed from my fathers alcohol abuse and the constant fighting of my parents. Whenever my father came home drunk, which was often, I would stop whatever I was doing and insert myself in their presence, talking a million miles an hour so that my parents would not have a chance to talk to each other. I was that terrified of the chaos that ensued when they fought. As I got older, it popped up in other ways, with my mind unable to stop racing, or my heart beating so fast I thought it would pop out of my chest and it was hard to even catch my breath. I dealt with this by making myself so busy with school, sports, friends, helping other people with their problems, you name it, whatever it took to stay busy. By the time I was 30, I had pushed it so far down, that I even had myself convinced that I was fine. It is crazy how your brain can play tricks on you when you ask it to. Things would happen, I would get through it, figured it was fine and I went about my life blissfully unaware that my world was about to come crashing down. In 2015, my husband was transferred for his job to Hollis, Maine. Do you know where that is? No, neither did I. I had never heard of it. What I know now is that it is a tiny postage stamp of a town in the middle of nowhere Maine. Where I knew not one soul. We had been living in Burlington, Vermont since we graduated college, so I was safely cocooned in in a community I felt safe in, with amazing friends, a job I loved, and the mountains in every direction. Suddenly, I had no friends, no community, a husband that was working 90 hours a week, and no mountains to be seen. I never knew how much I would miss those mountains I took for granted for so long. I started to deteriorate quickly. I fell apart from the inside out, all the while still trying to put on a happy face for everyone, my husband, my friends back home, my grandparents. I didn’t want to bother anyone with my issues. I lost count of how many times I told myself to snap out of it, wondering what was wrong with me. With nothing to distract me, I realized I was in trouble. Some days, I could barely drag myself out of bed, other days I had panic attacks over the most random things. My wake up call was a very literal experience. I was still in bed at 11 am, and my mother in law called me to tell me that my sister in law's husband had taken his own life. I felt shocked, like someone had thrown a bucket of cold water on me. I knew in that moment that I needed to help myself. Depression and anxiety is a slippery road and I was just shown how even the people you know and love somehow slip below the surface and are unable to keep treading water, and also unable to ask for a life vest. It scared me. I admitted to John and my close friends that I was dealing with some serious anxiety and depression and I needed support. I could not do it alone. I waited for the shame, the judgement, but none of that came. Instead I felt the relief of not feeling alone anymore. I had convinced myself that my anxiety was a character flaw, that people would look at me differently, but of course, they didn’t and have been supportive of me ever since. Life isn’t perfect, why do we all feel the need to pretend it is. I think social media plays a huge role in this. Rarely do you see the real posts, the raw posts that are hard to write. You see sunsets and smiles and perfect babies and pets. I realized in that moment that there must be other people like me, who were wondering why everything was perfect for everyone else. No more always perfect social media for me, I was ready to share my truth with the world. The good, the bad, the ugly crying. My next step was to find something to help me.My PCP is a naturopathic doctor, so the first things we tried were vitamins and meditation. I really did feel better with the addition of the tools, but I needed more. I tried CBD oil. It was amazing. I really noticed a difference in the way I felt daily. I felt calmer, less worried and less anxious. You have to be careful when finding CBD because there are lots of frauds out there. I was lucky to have a reliable hook up. I felt like I found the magic potion. Again with the brain trickery, because anxiety is a roller coaster, not a flat road. By this time we were living back in Vermont. This was what I thought was going to be the best year of my life getting to move back to the place I loved, with my husband and friends I needed. How quickly the domino effect of misfortune started. My gram passed away two months after we moved back. My grandparents were my rocks, my parental figures, my center. My anxiety could not be touched. It was sky high and along with grief it brought me to my knees almost daily. CBD didn’t touch it, meditation was a joke and I ended up doing what I had tried so hard to avoid. Getting a prescription for Ativan. I realized that it was not a failure to admit needing more. I never take it daily but it supplements with the natural remedies to keep my balance. Next up, my husband lost his job, our beloved dog got sick with an autoimmune disease that brought her to the brink of death twice, and cost us $10,000, and my grandfather died. Don’t get me wrong, there were many good times in that year and a half as too. I was back in my community, I had found a job I loved just as much as the job I left when we moved to Maine, our dog recovered, and even my husbands job loss had the silver lining because he was no longer killing himself working 90 hours a week, he was working less and enjoying life more. Keeping with my word, I posted all along to my social media. The good, the bad, the ugly. You know what I found? People appreciated that. They sent so many messages of love, hope, experience, solidarity. I met other people who have anxiety and now we can talk openly about that. I finally felt like I had things under control, but as we know, life likes to keep us on our toes and here comes March 2020 and the pandemic of Covid-19. Terrifying for the general public, devastating for people with mental health issues. I was able to work from home and my work was incredibly supportive. I only left the house once in three weeks to get groceries and while it was hard not seeing friends as an extrovert, I was making do with zoom calls. All that changed for me on Monday, March 23rd. I woke up feeling feverish, and automatically started panicking, because for me, my anxiety always takes me to the worst case scenario. The whole week I was so exhausted I could barely focus, I just kept telling myself it was allergies but I know my body very well, and deep down, I knew it was not going to be ok. The following Monday, I woke up with a raging fever, I couldn’t taste or smell anything, and walking up my stairs felt like I was taking on Everest. I had a cough and I was freaking out. I have asthma, so I know what it is like to not be able to breathe and it is not something you want to think about. For three days, I did not leave my bed, except to drag myself to the bathroom and to take a shower a day, which felt like I was on psychedelic drugs at a music festival. My husband was the best and took such good care of me, keeping me hydrated and attempting to feed me but honestly, when you cannot taste or smell, food is utterly unappealing. I had a coughing fit so bad I thought it was the end at one point but that too passed and I managed to slowly drag myself back to being normal. When my doctor told me that she wanted me to get tested I was a little shocked, but I went and got the test because John is still considered essential, so we wanted to be sure that we were erring on the side of caution. The odd thing about being tested is that they want you to go alone, to a drive up site. This seems all fine and good but even 3 days past the worst of my sickness, I was weak, and tired and still seeing spots. The fact that they wanted me to drive myself somewhere seemed impossible but I managed. They also shove a huge Q-tip so far up your nose, I swear it touched my brain, but other than the ten seconds of pain, it was easy. Now during this time, I did what most people with anxiety do, I shut myself off, I didn’t return texts or calls, mostly I was too sick but also I thought I was dying and I didn’t want to admit to anyone, even myself, how terrified I was. That was the wrong move. My friends started stalking John and they were really worried. My friends parents brought me homemade soup and left it on my doorstep and my other friends dropped things off they thought would make me feel better.When my doctor called and told me the test was positive I was kind of shocked, don’t really know why, but it was a weird feeling and I was glad I was already on the mend by that point. I honestly worried what people would think if I told them I got this terrible illness. I had no reason to feel that way, I had not exposed anyone else, I had been home the whole time. The doctor thought John was the carrier with no symptoms and I had gotten it from him. I was struggling with the stigma of getting sick, a stigma I gave myself. A few days later, I talked to a friend who had just been diagnosed with Covid-19 and was scared. She didn’t know what to expect and that is when it hit me. I should share my experience with this. Maybe it will help someone realize what happens when you are sick, or even why it is so important to stay home and not infect people. Guess what. That was the right move. I think if anything, the anxiety post sickness is higher. I now know what it feels like to be that sick and I do not want to do it again. The one trip I took to the store post sickness was crippling. I just ran down the aisles throwing things in the cart because I just wanted to get out of there, get the mask off, get home to where I was safe. Pandemics are not something we have lived through in our lifetime and the unknown is a terrifying thing. We don’t know when this will end, if we will get sick again, if school will start again and if we will all have jobs in three months. If I have learned anything from my struggle, it is that we are all human, most people have compassion and sharing is more productive than trying to handle it alone. It is ok to not be ok and I think that is the most important takeaway to date.