I started off by discovering that social obligations were a huge stressor for me: I often wanted to do things by myself, but I nearly always felt guilty about it, dwelling on all the friendships I wasn't investing in, imagining myself becoming isolated and truly alone. Now I can schedule a couple of FaceTime calls a week, text a couple other people occasionally, and have my social obligations met. And I'm fortunate to live with my partner so we can give each other a baseline level of human contact. This has freed me to really dive in and embrace a couple of hobbies I had been robbing myself of.
On the other hand: I'm incredibly stressed about the state of the world and the future of our society. I feel powerless, I feel cognitive dissonance about how wrong so many things seem, I feel like things are falling apart around me. These feelings are probably exaggerated by generalized anxiety and secondary information sources, but it's hard to shake them off without being able to go out into the world and see some degree of normalcy- that some things, at least where I live, are a semblance of okay. It also wouldn't hurt to have the option of distracting myself with a movie, or some tacos and a margarita, every once in a while.
And then there's all the little stressors: sanitizing grocery deliveries one item at a time every week, not being able to properly go to the doctor for non-emergencies without risking exposure to a deadly disease. Even taking walks is a bit stressful, having to constantly navigate around other walkers in our neighborhood to make sure we're all keeping our distance. These things were terrifying for the first couple weeks, then they became normal, and now they've become grating. Part of me definitely just feels tired.
I started off by discovering that social obligations were a huge stressor for me: I often wanted to do things by myself, but I nearly always felt guilty about it, dwelling on all the friendships I wasn't investing in, imagining myself becoming isolated and truly alone. Now I can schedule a couple of FaceTime calls a week, text a couple other people occasionally, and have my social obligations met. And I'm fortunate to live with my partner so we can give each other a baseline level of human contact. This has freed me to really dive in and embrace a couple of hobbies I had been robbing myself of.
On the other hand: I'm incredibly stressed about the state of the world and the future of our society. I feel powerless, I feel cognitive dissonance about how wrong so many things seem, I feel like things are falling apart around me. These feelings are probably exaggerated by generalized anxiety and secondary information sources, but it's hard to shake them off without being able to go out into the world and see some degree of normalcy- that some things, at least where I live, are a semblance of okay. It also wouldn't hurt to have the option of distracting myself with a movie, or some tacos and a margarita, every once in a while.
And then there's all the little stressors: sanitizing grocery deliveries one item at a time every week, not being able to properly go to the doctor for non-emergencies without risking exposure to a deadly disease. Even taking walks is a bit stressful, having to constantly navigate around other walkers in our neighborhood to make sure we're all keeping our distance. These things were terrifying for the first couple weeks, then they became normal, and now they've become grating. Part of me definitely just feels tired.