When Covid-19 hit, our lives changed forever. I am a counselor and I was called on February 5th to serve on a crises intervention team for people impacted by the growing pandemic across the world. I knew the United States was going to be facing a horrible event if we did not take immediate and comprehensive actions to intervene and stop the potential spread. I talked with the families whose loved ones had contracted the disease by simply riding on the same bus as someone who was asymptomatic. I literally cried with those who were in the hospital dying without a loved one by their side. I grieved with the family who was unable to even communicate in those final moments. I got angry because so many didn’t take it seriously and continued to infect others unknowingly because they just didn’t understand or believe that they were deadly carriers of a disease that would kill those around them.
Granted, not everyone died but everyone was impacted. They still are. We all are. Across the world people live in fear and conflict with families, friends, businesses, religious leaders and even nations. We seem to have to blame someone for what is happening because we don’t know how to help in stopping the onslaught of what is happening on a ton of different levels in our world.
I knew it was coming. I tried to warn people but it fell on deaf ears. When it arrived I was scared because people weren’t taking it seriously. When my friends saw it only as a political ploy I went through the whole range of feelings including shock and then hurt that they didn’t believe me, sadness that I knew hundreds of thousands of people would die quickly without anyone by their side, grief of the loss that I knew that others would be going through and anger that this has evolved into not only a pandemic of Covid-19 but a pandemic of hatred that is causing death, division and destruction.
Who in this world has NOT experienced anxiety, anger and even depression over this? How many of us “meet criteria” for a diagnosis of anxiety or depression? Here are a few of the symptoms that I think I can say most of us have had to deal with at some point in the last few months.
-
feelings of sadness, helplessness, worthlessness, or emptiness
-
overeating or loss of appetite
-
insomnia or sleeping too much
-
restlessness
-
irritability
-
a feeling of impending doom or danger
-
lack of energy
-
distancing yourself from others
-
feeling numbness or lacking empathy
-
extreme mood swings
-
thoughts of hurting yourself or others
-
being unable to carry out day-to-day activities
-
hearing voices in your head
-
alcohol or drug misuse
-
an inability to concentrate
How, is it humanly possible to overcome these negative feelings when we feel so helpless to do anything about our circumstances? Are we willing to do what Reinhold Niebuhr did when he prayed the prayer used by practically every person in recovery who accepts the concept of a “higher power”? He said “God give me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” Herein lies the answer to coping with life in 2020. We need to know what control we do have and what can we do about it and what we have to learn to accept and ride it out.
Here Are Some of the Biggest Stressors;
BUSINESSES ARE CLOSING BECAUSE OF COVID-19. Whether you are the owner or an employee your life is now has changed in ways you can’t control. You must face the fear of financial loss and all of it’s implications. You wonder how long this will last. You worry you won’t be able to pay the bills. Your family is afraid. You feel helpless.
SOMEONE CLOSE TO YOU OR YOU CAME IN CONTACT WITH HAS COVID-19 . Maybe it is a loved one that you are worried about. Maybe you came in contact with THAT or someone you came in contact with. You are afraid they will get sick and die.
RACIAL UNREST– Black people (and others over the years) have been killed by police. The police, no matter who they are or how supportive they are to change the systemic racism, they have consequently come under scrutiny and are fearful for their lives and their jobs. They too are anxious about how to deal with a crisis on the job. People are using the situation to loot and destroy property which causes more stress for everyone.
LEADERS ARE BEING TARGETED– Those in leadership positions feel and in fact largely are responsible for the lives of those that have been charged to protect. Whether it is employers ensuring that their staff are not at risk of illness or violence to legislators and service providers ensuring that those in need are being cared for and getting the best care possible, they are often at the mercy of someone else’s decisions.
POLITICAL DIVISION– The pledge of allegiance to the United States says we are “one nation, under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all but we have none of those right now. There is chronic and severe division that is tearing our nation apart at a time when we need to come together. It is causing everyone in this nation to feel stress, anxiety, anger and at times depression. We want everyone to get on the same page but it is a battle over control. If we truly were “one nation under God” we would be “indivisible” and there would be “liberty and justice for all.” There would not be republicans and democrats. It wouldn’t matter what race or nationality we are because there would be unity…so much that you couldn’t separate us if you tried. Pride goes before the fall they say and we are indeed falling deeply into a pit of self righteousness that we may never come out of without divine intervention. Needless to say this is anxiety provoking, anger inducing and downright depressing at times.
WHO DO YOU TRUST– There is nothing more stressful than being in the middle of a pandemic with economic collapse and all kinds of natural disasters going on and you don’t know who, if anyone, is telling you the truth about what is going on. With conspiracy theories running rampant and a divided country everyone is scared and stressed.
SO WHAT ARE THE SOLUTIONS?
Understanding the Brain Problem
If you are one of those who may not have any faith in scientific or medical evidence you may struggle with this next part because it is based on decades of research. but the first thing is to realize is that EVERYTHING that happens to us physically, mentally and emotionally is governed by our brain function. Our brains produce chemicals called neurotransmitters that manage every single cell in our bodies and how they all function. Norepinephrine and serotonin are just two of the many chemicals that are related to anxiety and depression and many other brain activities. We may be more familiar with the increasing talk about brain injury from football accidents and veteran injury in the military. We know that things don’t work like they did before. Each part of our brain has a different “job” to do and when things are out of balance or injured we can’t function in the same manner.
Imagine you have a child or someone you love in danger. Perhaps they are crushed under a vehicle and they need to get out before the car explodes. You run to their aid and pick up the car to move it as though it were a gallon of milk. You had super human strength but the next day, or any day thereafter, you would not be able to do it. It is the crises that caused you the adrenaline (a chemical in your brain) to be expelled to give you that “fight or flight” response. The problem is that like the engine of a car there is only so much oil and gas and water to keep the thing going. If any one of these needed ingredients runs out the other ones stop working or are at best, limited in their functioning. Once those needed ingredients are depleted they need to be refueled.
For most stressors our bodies are able to replenish the chemicals naturally. Some stress is actually good as it prepares us for future encounters, however, if we are under chronic stress the system will break down and start running poorly like a car does when you start to run out of gas, oil or water. (Good lesson for those of us who have blown an engine because we didn’t keep the oil and water tanks full!) This depletion of chemicals causes neurological disruption (the signaling system that goes from our brains to everything else.) Stress messes up the chemistry. They are learning that Covid-19 is impacting the neurological system as well which could be the cause of the lost of taste and smell. There are many mental and physical illnesses that also impact neurological functioning that may or may not respond to treatment. (2)
About the anger- Anger is an emotion that is always secondary to something else. We get mad because our expectations have not been met. Think about the last time you got mad. Let me guess, somebody either didn’t do what you wanted them to do (omission) or they did something you didn’t want them to do. (commission) Think about what is under the anger…. in this pandemic it is probably most often fear. Fear of Covid-19 and the devastation it causes. Fear of the political arena and who is going to be in charge and what happens if the “wrong” party wins. Who is going to get killed next and why isn’t anyone doing more to stop it. Why are people not wearing masks or perhaps why are they wearing masks.
It also is often hurt or betrayal that people aren’t listening to you. They aren’t respecting your opinion, your decisions, your judgments, your religion, the color of your skin, the country of origin, your sexual orientation or perhaps your medical care. We expect people to treat us a certain way and if they don’t we get upset. The problem with that is that we have no control over whether people like us, care about what we need or are going to be kind. Anger, along with every other emotion that we have starts with our thought process and it is here that we need to address our toxic thinking that will inevitable poison our minds and disrupt our brain functioning.
In a nutshell…stress messes up our brains and we need to take care of it if we want to eliminate or minimize anxiety, anger and depression.
How to Fix Our Brains
-
Admit that you are stressed out and figure out the cause
-
Determine if you have any control over it and if you do, what can you do to change your circumstance
-
If you have no control over it consider what help you need to let it go and not obsess with the outcome
-
Exercise. It is one of the best medicines you can take because it gets the endorphin chemicals in our brains going to increase a sense of well-being. (3)
-
Eat healthy. Putting bad food into our bodies will not bring good brain functioning just like putting sugar in our gas tanks will not help give us better gas mileage and will eventually leave us sitting at the side of the road with a huge repair bill (4)
-
Talk to someone! It may be a friend , a counselor or a life coach but you need to talk to someone who can help you find a different perspective than the one that is bringing you down. “Cognitive Restructuring” is a mental health strategy that is simply looking for a different solution to a challenging problem by looking at it from another angle. (5)
-
Get medical help. Anxiety and depression are medical problems not moral weaknesses. If the natural means of replenishing your brain isn’t working within 2 weeks you should seek medical help. You may need a nutritional supplement or a mental health medication to “jump start” your brain.
-
Chillax- This is the 2020 generations word for chill out and relax at the same time. Studies have shown that stress has caused the US economy $300 billion dollars a year (6) There has been a great deal of research on the benefit of mindfulness and meditation. These strategies are ways to bring the brain chemistry into control through deliberate management of our thought processes and bodily functions. We truly have to learn to relax and get our minds off of the things that upset us. (7)
Realize The Urgency!
-
Alcohol sales rose 55% in just a week when this pandemic hit! 75% of alcohol purchased has been hard liquor! (8)
-
Gun sales have almost doubled and one source indicated a
-
In a survey done by the CDC in June of 2020 indicated that anxiety disorder symptoms were about three times those reported in the second quarter of 2019 (25.5% versus 8.1%), and depressive disorder was about four times that reported in Q2 2019 (24.3% versus 6.5%). CDC also said 13.3% of respondents reported starting or increasing substance abuse (including drugs and alcohol).In addition, more than twice as many respondents reported serious consideration of suicide in the previous 30 days than did adults in the U.S. in 2018, referring to the previous 12 months (10.7% versus 4.3%. (13)n increase of 222% in ammunition sales. (9)
-
Suicide rates are significantly higher and there is a fatal link between suicides and guns. (10)
-
Domestic violence is on the rise since Covid-19 hit in part to XRay injuries through emergency room visits. (11)
-
Drug overdose deaths are up 11.4% in the first 4 months of 2020 (12)
