Due to the corona epidemic, you are staying at home, during this time write a letter to your friend describing what you learned while staying at home.
Answers
The key thing to keep in mind is that we actually don’t know what will happen, but we do know that an enormous national and world effort is underway to try to contain the spread and lessen the effects. We are at the early stage and we are never going to know what the next month or two will bring until that time comes. Meanwhile, we are all in a national emergency together. And we have been asked to reduce our interactions, distance ourselves, and–in some cases—stay at home.
We know that isolation and passivity are the perfect storm for getting depressed and staying depressed. It is possible that you wake up in the morning, worried, anxious and depressed and think that there is nothing to do and that you are completely isolated. How can you cope with this indefinite period of being housebound?
Normalize your feelings. We often feel we cannot tolerate our unpleasant emotions—that we should be coping better. This is like feeling bad about feeling bad. But it is normal to feel anxious, afraid, helpless and overwhelmed when dealing with a trauma. This is a trauma. We are all fearful of horrible things happening to people we know and to ourselves. You are not a robot. You are entitled to feel bad. But you are also entitled to do what you can to feel less bad—even to feel better at times. So, let’s work on what we can control—and realize that we cannot control what we do not know.