Coping with the virus as an existential threat
There are lessons to be learned from patients dealing with progressive illness
It goes without saying that COVID-19 has changed our lives. All of us are finding ourselves adjusting to new normals, and many of us are struggling. When reaching out to others, we are focusing our conversations on how hard social isolation is. Our complaints are focused on the disruption to routine, the changes in the way we interact with others, and the frustrating new realities of everyday life. While most of us are aware of what is going on outside our doors, many of us are also choosing to ignore it — some are even denying that the threat is real.
I see many parallels between our situation and that of patients coping with progressive illness, having done research on individuals with pulmonary arterial hypertension, an incurable disease with poor survival and yet an uncertain trajectory. We too have been handed a large but distant existential threat, and we are dealing with it much like these patients do. We focus on our immediate changes in circumstance — how we are housebound and fatigued by illness, how we have lost our social lives, feeling disconnected and alone. We focus on what is right in front of us because it’s easier than thinking about how the world that we once knew is gone. Quarantine is more than just staying at home — and while isolation does present real challenges that we are all dealing with — we are dealing with the drastic fragility of life as we know it.
All of us collectively have been handed a considerable existential threat — that is a threat to our existence, the world as we know it, our future, and potentially our lives or the lives of our loved ones. Much like being diagnosed with a terminal illness, we live under the shadow of death. It is a constant part of our new reality, and even if we are not consciously aware of it, it is certainly on the back of our minds. When faced with such an unknown, but not immediate, threat; the mind often focuses on what it can control instead of what it can’t. This is why isolation has become many of our key concerns. We are trying to adapt to this new environment and control what we can control, but many of us are avoiding the larger existential issues. I believe we can learn from patients with progressive illness and adopt a similar strategy to deal with pandemic life.
So what does healthy coping in these situations look like? It may be like walking along a balance-beam, where leaning to the right means approaching the threat and leaning to the left means avoiding it. Walking on the beam means being able to oscillate back-and-forth to maintain emotional stability, while always moving forwards. Leaning too far on either side will result in falling off the beam into either despair or denial. Overall, focusing on your immediate environment will keep you sane, but being aware of the larger issues will keep you prepared. Whether this means reading the news for a limited amount of time each day, acknowledging your fears in conversation, saying important things to your loved ones, or simply taking a moment to remind yourself of the situation we’re all in will allow us to be more prepared to face the new world when this is all over — and proceed with appropriate caution until it is. Practicing mindful awareness of the situation can leave you feeling better in the long run. If you are feeling overwhelmed and unproductive remind yourself that it is not due to a personal failure but is a result of having a lot on your plate, and that is totally reasonable.
Coping with isolation is hard — but it is only a temporary inconvenience — whereas the economic, social, and health/life impacts of the virus itself are imminent and will likely be long-lasting, and once quarantine is lifted we will have to come to terms with these upheavals. This will be much easier if we have been processing it all along. I certainly am not suggesting we all go ahead and catastrophize — that would be falling off the balance beam. However, taking a minute each day to engage in the above suggestions will allow us to become more comfortable with our anxieties. Remember, keeping yourself balanced and on the beam means you will be able to move forwards, and eventually, move on.