Fear and Loathing

Three months into the pandemic society appears to be loosing its moorings. Opening up is a catch phrase for crazy and deadly behavior on the part of politicians, the police and people who think it is a reasonable thing to run around with weapons to scare people. As I sit in my home under a 5 day curfew. I am so disappointed and scared. These feelings of anxiety and fear are normal. But when you have the disease of Depression/Anxiety it gets worse. Should I get my haircut? Should I visit people? Should I stay home? As far as I can see my chances of getting sick are about the same. The big change is that the hospitals have more room. This is not comforting.

My anxiety is an all time high. I have started to feel negatively about myself. My negativity is not rational but feels real. I know in the past that when I feel that I have no control over things, I go negative. If only I was a better person I could control the situation. Of course, as I write this it seems ridiculous that I have control over the world situation. My one bastion of control is over my own state of mind. So that is what I have to work with. First, dealing with specific crazy thoughts I need to do the circle. I divide a circle into four parts. First, I put my crazy thought in the one part of the circle. For example, I put in “I am a bad person”. In the second part of the circle I expand on the thought “I’m a bad person because…”. In the third part of the circle I write full sentences about myself expanding on my bad character. Finally, in the fourth part of the circle I write the truth. Surprise surprise… Turns out I’m not doing anything wrong. This is the reality. After all “fear is false evidence appearing real“. Next, I need to focus on mindfulness. It time to listen for sounds in the moment. The moment is filled with lots of things to notice. Traffic going by, music from the neighbors and birds singing. We are going through a bad moment but it will pass.