New Normal – Coping with COVID-19

I’ve recently learned more about Anxiety, how it works, and how to deal with it. My first instance of learning about anxiety was in regards to my son. He would be overwhelmed with his math homework. We read a book called Casey’s guide to playing with anxiety which was very helpful to him and frankly me.

Anxiety is normal and expected

The main premise of the book is that anxiety is perfectly normal and expected. It’s just the way our brain works in order to protect us. So when the emotional side of our brain sees something that’s potentially dangerous it start pumping adrenaline into our body preparing us to fight or flight. That’s that uneasy feeling we get when we are anxious.

When we just think about situations that we worry about this can cause the same physical reaction. Once again our brain tries to protect us and starts pumping adrenaline and we feel the anxiety. These sensations are designed to make us either defend ourselves or run away. The majority of the time we avoid a situation when we feel this way.

Math is harmless

So in the case of my son being overwhelmed with math, we think about what is the worst case and for math the worst case is that he will learn a lot of math. Perfectly harmless.

COVID-19 is not harmless

Now we’re faced with the COVID-19 virus and we think about what is the worst case. The worst case is not harmless and so we do in fact need to take action and it’s different than just ignoring the situation. We have plenty of instructions from people who know what they are doing and we have a plan.

Many people are shocked by the change in our daily lives. Disney World is closed, schools are closed, and for some kids the fact that there is no more sports on TV is a shocking reality they could hardly imagine will ever happen.

I’ve experienced a new normal before

I’ve faced this kind of situation before. When my daughter was 1 years old she was diagnosed with cancer.  As you can imagine our lives were massively changed. I learned from this experience that we had a new normal. Whenever my daughter would get a fever we would have to go to the emergency room. She would have constant appointments and procedures.  We could not be indoors with other people when she was immune compromised. We had to keep as clean as possible with sanitizer stations in our house, hand washing, and the works. We learned that this was our new normal and we got used to it. Once the 2.5 years were over and our daughter was declared finished with treatment, it took us quite a while to adjust yet again to a new normal. We were scared to just stay at home when she had a fever where before we would go to the ER. We adjusted, and once again we have another new normal. Through all the experiences, we felt the anxiety, we tried to understand what we needed to do, and we took action. I’m glad to say my daughter’s treatment was successful and she is doing great!

We’re anxious, and it’s a new normal

The current virus situation is affecting all of us. We’re anxious and concerned about what will happen next and that is perfectly normal and expected. Our normal routines are changing  and will likely change for a long time to come. We will get used to these changes and this will become our new normal. When the virus pandemic is over, we will yet again have a new normal.

Remember how delicate life is on our planet

I personally hope that this experience wakes us all up and drives home how delicate life is. How, in a matter of weeks, the whole world is in danger from this outbreak. Climate change is much slower, although some would argue it’s actually accelerating pretty rapidly. It’s the same danger to millions of lives and like the virus outbreak, we must face it, stop pretending it’s not real. Just like the COVID-19 virus, it doesn’t care if we believe in it or not, and neither will climate change. Once COVID-19 has passed, we should deal with climate change with the same urgency.

I wish you and your loved ones stay safe during this unprecedented experience in our life times.