That is likely to change. For many, myself included, fear strikes before a shot is shot in the arm. “Anticipating social interactions is often the hardest,” says Brown. “The anticipatory fear of what that will be like may be worse than the reality of how bad the fear actually is once it gets here, but it’s that build-up period that can be very nerve-racking for people.” Welcome to the build-up period.
The good news is we can alleviate these symptoms. The first step is to stay present. Easier said than done, but if you feel the forward-looking thoughts creeping in, says Brown, try to catch them and remind yourself not to worry about summer until, well, summer. “When we think about the future, we feel anxious, and when we think about the past, we often feel sad. And so the goal is to try as much as possible just to stay in the here and now. “
Above all, we have to make agreements to be nice to ourselves. Richard Heimberg, a professor of psychology at Temple University and former director of the Adult Anxiety Clinic, notes that this kindness will be especially needed because both anxious and non-anxious people will have some “rust.” Even the things that felt like second nature in the Before Times, like commuting or working in the office, can cause some discomfort after a whole year without practice. “The level of fear that we have [all] feeling in general will be increased because of the health problems and because of the concerns about rust, ”he says. It’s important to make sure that whatever goals we set for ourselves take this into account, and that we treat them as ambitious rather than prescriptive.
“If we expect ourselves to behave perfectly,” says Heimberg, “we’ll beat ourselves up if we don’t meet that standard.” For some, the reappearance may be more of a slow sweep than a clean break through our shells, and that’s okay. “It’s about accepting that everyone is just as concerned about what we think of them as the other way around. And it’s about giving ourselves the chance to just be human. “
On life the line, the threat of Covid-19 gave many of us the confidence to say no – to others and to ourselves. Fortunately, the few social outings I’ve been able to take in lockdown got an extra layer of sensitivity from friends and family. I’ve done my best to offer them the same. Perhaps most importantly, circumstances led me to extend that policy of judgment-free acceptance to myself. And I’m not ready to give up.
I do not need. That honesty with ourselves and others about what we feel comfortable with and what we actually do want does not have to disappear along with the virus. In fact, all the practice of navigating conversations about the virus settings and activities that we’re good at might do us better.
“This pandemic has created a language for people to express how their comfort levels may differ from their friends,” and I think that’s a great start, “says Brown.” When the context is different, and the virus less so. one reason you can’t be socially engaged, I think people will still have to set those boundaries for themselves … Not that they should say no to everything, but that you should say yes to the things that make you happy could donate. “
In a perfect world, I’d like to have Marie Kondo out of my social life after the vaccination, doing the things that make me happy and saying no to the things that don’t. I would burst the pandemic bubble without losing my pandemic perspective. Of course it is never that simple. I am still the same person. Expectations will inevitably creep in. Every now and then I do things I don’t want to, or I look around and wonder if my decisions are the right ones. But hopefully I’ll be a little nicer to myself along the way.