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This week we talk about changing how we communicate when it is more typing and less talking face to face, as well as the realization that there is nothing stopping the Wombat co-Host (Ursula Vernon) from taking a stay-cation. We’ll follow that with letters from you, and discuss staying organized after getting organized, dealing with people in the current environment, and more.
Links for this Episode
- Thunderclappers
- CloudHQ
- Native Seed Search
- Sorry, that’s about all we have this week
I’m at about the same stage of pregnancy, can confirm that we’re well into the GTFO/Aliens phase. I’ve been having the same periodic realisation that Something Bananas Is Happening re: the pandemic as Ursula, but I alternate them with suddenly being like “holy fuck I’m extremely pregnant!”
Hey,
I really appreciated Ursula’s talk in this episode about how “Your brain is trying to save you” and how plenty of mental illnesses weren’t mental illnesses at the time you developed them. I have Complex PTSD, ADHD-PI, and anxiety and depression secondary to both of those things, and I wrote an essay on my Tumblr several years back entitled “PTSD is Your Brain Trying to Make Sure You Don’t Die”. It was just really neat hearing someone else with the same perspective.
Stay safe,
-Ariadne (Ah-ree-ahd-nay)
I had been thinking that I was mostly not having any sort of trauma response to the pandemic. I am in a province where the total cases have officially been in the hundreds, with 7 deaths. (I will say thought that the testing was not as extensive as it could have been, especially in early stages, and those numbers are almost certainly lowballed). I have not kept absolutely perfect distancing, but we have been adhering to the rules as best we can, both when they grew tighter and now as they are loosening (our elder child was ecstatic when she could go to a public playground again, and more so when the school division opened their playgrounds.) The kids have adapted somewhat and are less inclined to try and injure one another in frustration at close quarters, so that’s one boon. On the other hand, I am an utter failure as a home-schooler.
However, I am also literally two hours’ drive from the US border, and as the province goes through slow steady reopening of less essential services, and the country has begun discussing reopening the US border (so far, they keep extending the closure month by month), and the last few days have suddenly become very tense. As you know, it only takes a handful to change those numbers.
Then you add the fact that this is also the moment when racial tensions suddenly also overflow, between the minor incident in New York with Christian Cooper, and George Floyd’s public murder in a city where I have a fair goodly number of friends. Right now I am considering it an excellent time to play video games instead of scrolling social media.
My husband, who has a diagnosed anxiety disorder and depression, has also been showing it more, because of course, the things that concern us are the same things, so our emotional stress points are simultaneous, never in counterpoint. The best part of that, of course, is that sometimes anxiety expresses itself in physical symptoms, so at a time when getting sick is particularly fraught, he also gets to play the guessing game of “cold or stress”?
We *did* take advantage of the time at home to clean up a portion of the yard and have begun to restore the garden patch that had gone to weeds – and rocks, and detritus from paving the driveway – and put in a few basic plants, spring bulbs, and old seed that may or may not result in anything. However, this was the pre-Pandemic plan and the main thing the Pandemic did was ensure I didn’t have an excuse to abandon the project. I have been appreciating Ursula’s garden tweets, even as I envy her the state of her garden; we are less than two weeks past the traditional spring planting weekend, and at the point where tomatoes might maybe start flowering, if they are precocious.
Somewhat less on the subject of stress (Where I seem to have rambled with no actual conclusion) and more on the subject of productivity, most people have been talking about their productivity going out the window during the pandemic. Mine is no different. I have been skipping whole days of Habitica, where think pre-Pandemic I did that maybe once, in the midst of Winter Seasonal Celebration nonsense. I almost forgot I had a planner.
I DID, however, find that this particular Captain Awkward Column was unusually helpful. While even in the face of this I have been terrible at always writing down the three things to do in a day, it did clarify for me some of the important tasks — and some of the impossible tasks nagging in my mind that i could set aside. I thought either you or your many faithful listeners might find it helpful as a way to reset.
https://captainawkward.com/2020/05/01/pandemic-productivity-life-hacks-from-a-deeply-unproductive-freaked-out-person/#comments
I really feel the bit about certain people with certain types of anxiety coping somewhat better during the pandemic. Not to put too fine a point upon it, my subconscious started bracing for the apocalypse November 9th, 2016, and that put something of a strain on my well-being and ability to make long-term plans. When the pandemic rolled around, it felt like I could relax because the Worst Thing was finally here! No more waiting!!
I do think it’s going to very difficult as we start unraveling the traumas of the last year, because they took such different forms for different people. Lots of people are going to have agoraphobia, as you said, but I feel like a lot of essential workers are going to have a range of different issues (possibly including rage issues??? maybe I’m projecting.)
I hope people don’t feel pressure to “get over it” when the effects of the pandemic will most likely be with us for decades.