I have no idea when this crappy lockdown will end. That’s right, I think it’s crappy. It sucks to be away from normal life. It sucks to have to be isolated from people I love and it’s really crappy to live in fear. That’s what elected officials want: They push fear so that people comply. I get it and I do what I have to do. But if anyone says this doesn’t suck, they’re lying.
The bigger problem isn’t that this current lockdown sucks, they real problem is when the elected officials decide that things have to open up. After months of living in fear, people aren’t suddenly going to jump at the ready to live without fear. They aren’t going to just live normally, after 21 days, people form new habits and now, thanks to all the fear and sadness and the messaging that has propagated it, fear is now a habit. When it comes time to return to some form of normal, which we will, we are going have to deal with levels of PTSD that no one has ever seen before.
Because of the trauma, I think it’s really important that people admit that this sucks. Maybe not publicly, but I do think we should all write down what we feel and think about this time, good or bad. Yes, it sucks, but it hasn’t been all bad. In a real way, we’ve gotten to take a break from people who irritate us and we’ve gotten to stay home and be with family. The messaging, however, has taken its toll and I can’t imagine that a policy based upon fear isn’t taking its toll.
So, if you feel crappy and if you’re angry, confused, and afraid, it’s ok. That’s how the messaging is supposed to make you feel. We are supposed to be afraid and confused. So, its perfectly normal to be experiencing negative emotions that you wouldn’t normally be feeling. We do need to stay home and we do need to isolate, but we should express the negative emotions that the messaging causes. The truth is that this lockdown sucks. And it’s also true that it will pass, eventually, and we can’t live in fear forever. That would be more damaging than the virus. So, stay home, but it’s ok to feel that it sucks because when all you hear is bad stuff, there’s really no other way to feel.
