A pandemic is enough to stress out anyone. Throw in a possible quarantine and a lot of unknowns, and it’s easy to fall into the anxiety spiral. Here in Jacksonville we aren’t on total lockdown yet, but you can feel it coming. Every morning I check the news and see it creeping closer and closer to us. And now that they’ve taken the beaches away here, it’s leaving me wishing they’d just do it and get it over with. Flatten the curve already.

I feel all out of sorts over this. It’s a really weird mix of:  “I must not let this beat me, I will push through and continue working on things and come out of this ready to go again and ahead of the game! “and “Oh God, the world is all weird now, what’s the point of doing anything when the future is so unstable and who knows what’s even worth doing or preparing for anymore?” I’m trying not to let the anxiety win.

Finding Ways to Cope with Pandemic Anxiety

Sometimes I like to relieve my anxiety by watching movies with similar situations, but where things are much much worse. It’s a little soothing to be able to sit there and go, “Well, at least it’s not that bad.” For example, when we moved into our current house and everything started to fall apart, we watched The Money Pit and laughed at some of the similar situations and were happy it wasn’t really that bad. So last week when this all started happening, we watched Outbreak. Now I sure am glad it’s not a virus where you break out in boils and ooze. At least we’ve got that going for us.

And my son had a LOT of questions about the movie, so as a result he learned a lot about viruses and how there are different kinds, I also had to reassure him this one is not going to make our eyes bleed or turn us into zombies. I think it at least got him to start washing his hands more often.

I try not to stress over him being four and how now we’ll always be like, “Hey, remember when you were four and a virus took over the world?” His 5th birthday is coming up next month. I guess it will be the easiest party ever to plan. Cheaper too. Very exclusive guest list.

Trying to focus on the postives over here! We are having lots of family time. My closet is super organized. I weeded the garden. I also completed at least three more shrine quests on Breath of the Wild, so maybe we’ll finally save Hyrule during the quarantine. I also have a lot of good “apocalypse wear,” due to the cosplay thing so maybe that will finally come in handy.

Taking It Day by Day

Things are weird. But the world has been through plenty of weird stuff in other lifetimes than ours, so things will keep going. I just have to keep reminding myself that. I also try and limit my exposure to the news and online articles. I like to do a check in the morning to see new developments, and then again around 5 PM when the newest announcements usually come through. When I don’t know what to do, I find something to clean or organize. If this keeps going, I’m going to come out of it sparkling and with everything in order.

If you’re fighting the anxiety yourself, what have been your coping mechanisms?