I know things are scary now. And I know that things have felt scary for a REALLY long time. We have been bombarded by hard things and we are all so very, very tired. I haven’t done a psychology thread in a while, but it feels like one might be necessary right now.
#EnergyCrisis Firstly, this sucks. The war, the cost of living crisis, all following hard on the heels of a pandemic. It sucks. It’s wrong and our government is not just bad, but shocking, shamefully incompetent. So that feeling of anxiety we all have…it seems about right, given where we are

So…the world remains…a lot. And so today I would like to talk to you about resilience and what effective survival in the face of a major trauma actually looks like. We have had a…challenging 2 years. Arguably, the challenges go back far further than that. And, for some of us, it can be tempting to feel that we have somehow failed. That the fact that we feel flattened out, butter scraped over too much bread, that we are exhausted or emotional or numb, that all that means that we failed the great pandemic test.

People have been asking about how to manage that voice in your head. You know, the annoying one that tells you you’re rubbish and reminds you of everything you’ve ever done wrong? So I’ve written a thread… To understand this voice, we need to understand what the brain does when it’s not doing anything else. When the brain is not focused on anything else, a strip of territory down the middle of the brain becomes active.

Look, let me be frank. My initial covid infection did not require hospitalisation. Ergo it was “mild”. However, I have never recovered. 2 years later & I am nowhere near who I once was. My body & brain have sustained long term damage.

THAT is what Living With Covid looks like. Some days I’m fine. Some days I can’t stop shaking. Some days my head feels like it is splitting in two. Some days I can’t get out of bed. Most days I can’t remember the stupidest of things. I can’t remember conversations or plans or things that happened.

Y’know what’s shit? That having survived 18 months of a global pandemic, we don’t get a free pass on all the other tiny disasters life likes to throw at us. Because after 18 months of catastrophe, those tiny disasters suddenly seem enormous. For 18 months, we have lived on high alert. For 18 months we have waited for tragedy to come for us. And whether it comes or not, our brains & bodies are exhausted from the waiting.

OH has also tested positive, in spite of being fully vaccinated. He is coping, but is still pretty sick. Weirdly, this time around it’s manifesting more like a heavy cold. We’re limping on and hoping like hell we get out the other side w/out anyone else joining the covid club. I’m trying not to freak out with mixed levels of success. Honestly, one of the toughest bits is the narrative that it’s all over. IF IT’S ALL OVER THEN WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON IN MY HOUSE????

I am back in lockdown. In many ways, it feels like little has changed since the last time, apart from the world outside. Things have moved on now, an entire world that wants to move past Covid. Of course they do, we all want life to be normal, to be healthy, to be with friends. And yet, for so many of us, the past pandemic is not past. It is here still. Even if you are healthy, even if the appearance of your life has returned to normal, or near enough, for many of us, the effects of the pandemic linger.

On my last thread, we talked about how so many of us are feeling that ‘brain fog’. That sense of not being able to concentrate, just not being fully with it. Given the responses I got to that thread, I am guessing that I am not the only one feeling like that! So, I’ve been thinking a bit more about that, about what it means for us. If you examine the literature of burnout, it is described as a pathology. A negative. Apart from in one fascinating area.

I find myself talking about psychology a lot these days (shocking, I know). And the questions I am asked are often the same - when will my brain go back to normal? I can’t concentrate. I forget stuff constantly. And I am so TIRED. Thing is, we probably shouldn’t be surprised. The past 18 months have been stressful beyond compare. When we are exposed to a chronic stressor that just WILL NOT STOP, our brains are subjected to a constant stream of glucocorticoids.

March is here. It is now officially a full year since my family and I were all diagnosed with Covid. A year of nerding out on the psychological literature surrounding trauma so I could understand what was happening to me. So, here it is. Your latest thread... I’ve been thinking about stress. Because who hasn’t. Stress is my life. I have been called sensitive, a worrier and other things I don’t feel comfortable repeating in polite society. Over the years, stress has become my biggest foe.

It is a Wednesday. It is almost half term. I am still homeschooling. I am still in lockdown. I want a holiday so much I could cry. But instead, I’m going to spend a few minutes talking to you about emotional coping. Coping with stressors can be done in a bunch of different ways. But in a situation like ours, where things are out of our control and we can’t physically go out there and change the course of the pandemic, emotional coping becomes more important.

Good morning. It’s time for another thread, and this time I’m going to talk to you about coping. I’m going to take what research tells us about the psychology of operating in extreme environments and see what we can learn that could help us in our current lockdown. I think many of us are feeling as if there is no end in sight now. We seem to be alternating wildly between hope and hopelessness. We are isolated, entirely bored or wildly overworked, and there is little we can do to change our situation.

Another day, limped through. What I’m noticing recently is that I’m getting so frustrated w/ myself. My brain works properly for a v small window of time & then I just can’t seem to think. I forget my kids names (although honestly, that’s nothing new). By afternoon I’m useless! I’m beating myself up for not doing my job properly, for not homeschooling properly (*laughs hysterically*). I am SO clumsy! Okay fine, I’m always clumsy. But this is worse. I’m so damn distractable. And let’s be honest, there are so many distractions around.

Incident report from homeschool: 6yr old sustained an injury to his knee. When questioned how said injury occurred, 6yr old replied “I hurt myself on some play doh.”
Investigations are continuing. Today’s learning focused on Aberfan. Or “Fabistan” as is known in this particular school. Class also discussed Shakespeare. Who wrote something. At sometime. About someone. “To be honest,” said 9 yr old, “I wasn’t really listening because I know everything already.”

I’ve been thinking about the situation we are in. The isolation. The ever present sense of danger. The feeling that we are entirely at the mercy of our environment. And it struck me that the psychology of it is not unlike that of extreme environments - think space or Antarctica. An extreme environment, in psychological terms, is one that places high demands on our emotional, physical, cognitive or social capabilties. What those demands are depends upon the environment.

Okay, so, another 3 weeks... Let’s talk about it. About where we are now. This bit, this is a different psychological phase. We’ve passed through the initial shock of finding ourselves in a global pandemic. We’ve built some kind of new normal, uncomfortable though it may be. The psychological struggle in this phase is a different one. But it is a struggle. We are re-evaluating what we have, who we are, how we function.

Day 2 (I think) of quarantine. After a night battling off a panic attack, I got to thinking. I've spent a lifetime obsessed w/ disasters & how we cope w/ them. That means that I have access to hoards of random information about the psychology of situations like this. Cos I'm odd. So, in the interest of not losing my damn mind, I'm going to share w/ you what I know. In the hopes that it will be of some use to you. My plan is to do what I can, when I can, and if anyone has questions about the psychology of this, I will do my best to answer them.

On Saturday, I had a colossal panic attack. Hyperventilating, palpitations, the works. Our entire world feels so terrifying right now & for those of us w/ anxiety, it is hard not to feel the sky is falling. To help me cope, I turned off social media & restricted my news intake. We are a social species. We take our cues from other people. When we see others panicking, it tells our brains that panicking is the right thing to do.