“Dear Patience” from Niall Horan’s sophomore album plays in my earbuds. He asks for patience to grant him solace in an anxious time. His new album debuted on March 13, just three days after I got the message from KentWired.com that Kent was suspending face-to-face classes. When I sat down at midnight to stream his new album, it was the first time in three days that I actually felt okay. Not just the okay you tell your family and friends so they stop asking but really actually okay as if my heart rate finally normalized after it had been off the charts for three days.
I have never been good at these types of things, but who is? Doomsday preppers, I guess. But, with diagnosed Generalized Anxiety Disorder and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, I knew I had a long journey to okay than most people do in a time like this. The first three days I didn’t leave my apartment. I had luckily gone grocery shopping the day before, so I was in my room switching between the multiple streaming services that I pay too much for. Then on the 13, Kent suspended face-to-face classes for the rest of the semester. After feeling a sense a calm and normalcy while listening to Horan’s album “Heartbreak Weather,” my heart rate soared back up.
I called my mom late that night. I had sat long enough with my thoughts that they were starting to scare me more than Facebook was. She knows how I am when things like this happen, and for context when I say “things” I am talking about: natural disasters, weird natural anomalies, pandemics, basically anything that someone may look at and say “its the end of the world!” This is all because to quote my favorite novel “The Fault in Our Stars,” “I fear oblivion. I fear it like the proverbial blind man who’s afraid of the dark.” It is irrational, at some points debilitating, phobia. It hit it’s peak in December or 2012 when everyone was saying that the Myan calendar ended and it was the end of the world. Well, 14-year-old Jess was so consumed with fear that the entire month of December is now triggering for me. I remember on December 21, the day everything was supposed to end, we were to have a dance at school as it was the last day before break, and I had to go to the office and calk my mom to come get me because I remember specifically thinking, “if I’m going to die; I’m going to die at home.”
I had hit a similar moment when I called my mom on the night of the 13. I was in the midst of a panic attack and was ready to pack up my entire apartment and drive home that night. She calmed me. She is my safe space. She made me realize that the safest place I could be was right here in my apartment as there are six people living in our three-bedroom house at this moment. She explained to me that I would only get stressed out at home with my nieces and nephews running rampant through the house. She was right. She is right.
I have made my home here on Kent and going home would not be healthy for my current unstable mental health. So, here I am sitting in a sterile apartment that I have deep cleaned every day for the past week. My hands are raw from scrubbing and blisters are starting to form. I think I may be taking the World Health Organizations’ recommendations a little far, but welcome to OCD. Cleaning has never been a major compulsion for my OCD, but it is the only thing I can control right now. So now if I don’t Lysol the doorknobs when I wake up and before I go to bed, I have a panic attack; if I don’t wash my hands after touching something my roommate has touched, I have a panic attack. And the list of new compulsions goes on. I am trying to find ways to find solace at this time, though.
My roommate and I decided to create a weekly schedule so we feel productive and on top of deadlines. We have scheduled “family time” where we will pick a movie or board game to play together, we have time to workout together so we don’t become couch potatoes and we made sure that we each have individual alone/free time, so we don’t want to kill each other. This was the first week of our schedule, and it feels good so far to have some structure. I have also compiled a list of things I could do if I feel the need for a change or I feel bored. Some of the things include: start a new Netflix show, outline the novel I’ve had in my notes forever, binge the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe in order, make my roommate watch Star Wars, journal and get really good at doing tricks with my lightsaber.
I have seen a lot of tweets that say, “Issac Newton discovered calculus while in quarantine and William Shakespeare wrote “King Lear” while in quarantine.” so I hope I too can find something beautiful while in this quarantine. Whether I discover something about myself, or I create something to be proud of, I have to seek patience and solace from my brain and thoughts because there is nothing I can do that I am not already doing. I am practicing social distancing and cleaning probably a little too much. I have to remind myself of these things every day. I have to remind myself that I am not crazy and that I will not let my thoughts control me. I can’t go back to that 14-year-old girl in eighth grade again. I have come too far in my mental health journey to regress.
So onward we go. Looking for outward and inward strength to overcome. I will leave you with lyrics from Horan’s “Dear Patience”:
“Dear patience
If I pour my heart out, can you keep a promise?
'Cause the situation
Is like a mountain that's been weighing on my conscience
If I'm being honest”
I hope you all are able to find patience with yourself and others at this time.
Commentaires