Taking Care in a Slow Burning Crisis

How my own precarious mental health before the pandemic has prepared me for this moment.

Beach north of Cape Disappointment Lighthouse.

For a number of reasons, I was caught off-guard — as were many in America — when whispers of quarantine and pandemic turned overnight into a hard reality. There were many reactions across my network of friends and colleagues — fear, grief, anger. As a world, we have been collectively trying to process this crisis. However, what I learned is that, for me personally, the shift was not that difficult. The reason behind this was more to do with my own inner turmoil and my living in a state of crisis for years now, not because I am somehow not impacted by this pandemic any less than the next person.

I am a white woman in academia in America. With that comes certain privileges that have allowed me some amount of safety net most of my life. With that also comes the instability of being an early-career academic. Without securing that increasingly-mystical tenure track position, I am now in limbo waiting to see if I can find myself job security before hiring freezes are implemented across institutions. However, I am also disabled and have two young children. Nothing about this pandemic makes my truths and reality feel safe or secure. I fully assert that while I have experienced certain kinds of precarity, that does not compare to large swathes of Americans who have had no safety net and far less privilege. However, I felt my own story pouring out of me and I hope that it can add to the narrative of this unfolding disaster.

I recognize this pandemic is a new crisis — the proportions of which we have not seen before in our living memory. This past month in quarantine, I have found myself reflecting back on the different crises I have experienced in my own life. The moments that immediately stand out: the 1994 Northridge Earthquake, injuring myself and getting hypothermia during a 5-day backpacking trip in Alaska at the age of 10, watching in horror from the music room classroom as the planes crashed into the Twin Towers on 9/11, and my near-death labor and delivery of my first-born. While those have all shaped me and made me who I am today, they are not what truly prepared me for this moment of long-term crisis.

What has prepared me for this moment of world crisis is my own mental health journey from the diagnosis of my cousin while I was in high school to seeking my own diagnosis and the aftermath of seeking that diagnosis to where I am now in this moment cautioning everyone to be kind to themselves. In fact, my mental health journey is inextricably linked with those other life events to the point where at points it is hard to distinguish the external crisis from the internal one. My first visual hallucination that I can recall occurred during the Northridge Earthquake, brought on by stress. It was years before I disclosed that to anyone and never to a mental health professional. My tumultuous experiences as a young adult completing my undergraduate degree were all one way or another brought on by an exacerbation of what would eventually be diagnosed in the family of mood disorders.

So, how can having a mental health condition diagnosis be my source of strength now during a world pandemic? From an early age I had to relearn how to trust myself and trust what I was seeing around me. I had to rip down all I understood about my reality and rebuild it from the floor up. I had to learn how to take care of myself in order not to trigger negative moods. I created a toolbox of self-care that helps me get through the ordinary day-by-day. I also embraced the disability community and built a support network there. Importantly, I have learned my limits. I know what I can accomplish on any given day and when I need to step back and take time for myself. I have learned to compartmentalize and deal with my emotions when there is time and space. All of this has prepared me for this moment, where the rest of the world is raw and full of emotions and worry.

In a crisis it feels like you are drowning — the anxiety is overwhelming. With a slow burning crisis, this happens over and over again. You pull yourself up above water only to slip down again. Some days feel like you are using all your energy to keep your nose above water. Other days things seem almost normal and you can recover a bit. Knowing that this is a marathon and not a sprint and we are in this for a long, long time helps to temper expectations. Having come prepared to this crisis with my own set of tools has been extremely powerful.

I have found my disability community to be a great source of support and understanding in the years since my diagnosis. This is the same community that has been well-prepared for such a crisis for years. My community is now under attack be it hoarding of supplies and medicine, devaluing of disabled lives when it comes to life and death decisions during COVID-19 hospitalizations, or inaccessibility of swiftly moving to online courses and work. These are not new attacks. None of these things are surprising to me. However, we are still the first to be left behind when the country is in crisis. Despite that, this wonderful community is still rallying to help one another.

Since graduating with my PhD, I have been in a state of flux and instability, waiting to see if I can get a stable position. Even now, I am still waiting to see what happens. I remain cautiously optimistic but it has been years of trying to climb my way out of financial precarity for my family. We have had to move many times, away from my carefully cultivated support network. I have had to face multiple years of living from job contract to job contract. Scraping together additional teaching positions to supplement the low income that comes along with my early career funding-contingent position. I have not had it as bad as many in academia, but given my own personal struggles and the responsibility of providing for my family, it’s enough.

I relay all of this not to invoke pity or sympathy. If you can spare a little rage, you can save that for another day, when we finally have to rebuild this system of precarious contingent jobs and under-valuing of our academic institutions. But, that is not this blog post. I relay my life circumstances to illustrate that everything leading up to this crisis of a pandemic for me has in many ways prepared me for it. Perhaps, I can share some of what I have learned to help you as you navigate your own emotional journey through this crisis.

1. Learn what self-care really looks like for you. I have spent the better part of two decades learning what self-care for me means. I spent years in therapy learning my triggers, my safe releases, and how to manage my day-to-day. This takes work and patience. You will not get this right in one day. And it will shift over time as this particular crisis wears on. Just know that self-care will look different for you from others around you — especially those chatty know-it-alls on social media. (Example: I have spent this week playing video games and binge watching Korean dramas. You do you.)
2. Build and maintain your support network. Make sure you are keeping touch with these people. Have trusted people who will understand your anxieties and be able to help you with yours as you help them with theirs. Again, this looks different for everyone. One big thing I have embraced during this time is honesty. Something I have been able to do with such vigor before. When someone asks in a work call how I am doing, I don’t have to say “fine.” I am, for the first time in my life, allowed to acknowledge the inner turmoil and hidden challenges that are my life. Because for the first time, everyone around me, to greater or lesser extent, understands what I mean.
3. (USA specific) When you are feeling stable enough (or angry enough) reach out to your government officials and tell them to get their act together. I count myself lucky that, despite some of the precarity I mentioned in my employment, at least I have flexibility. I fully recognize I am able to work when I can and let go of things I cannot. My supervisor understands my situation enough to know I am not going to be as productive as before this crisis. Not everyone has that. Our country was not built to help people with this. The current stimulus package, for example, being rolled out is not nearly enough to get most financially precarious citizens through this.

I watch now in horror as the number of hospitalizations and fatalities climb around the country. I am awestruck at the valor being displayed by the healthcare workers on the front line. For those of us who are staying home to help “flatten the curve” and keep everyone else safe: now is the time to be kind to yourself. Take care of yourself in order to be able to take care of those around you. But, don’t let your fear lead you to become self-centered in your quest for self-care. We are still a global community and those who have less need more right now. We can do better as a country. We can do better as a global society. Together we are stronger. Together we can get through this.