I’ll be honest. I am in survival mode this year. In 2020, I put the effort into investing in my mental, emotional, physical health but that just has dipped to almost close to zero in 2021. We are in March now and I just passing time. Being present for me has become excruciatingly difficult. I tend to zone out a lot and my attention span is very short. On top of that, I have been very forgetful because of the fact of not being present.

I have developed social anxiety and find it extremely hard to function in social events i.e meetings, calls, video calls, etc. Those of you who know me, know that I am quite the friendly, cheery, overly happy giggly person but that has turned into someone quiet and picky about her engagements with people now. I don’t call people anymore, I text only a few but even then it is highly likely that I will send a text and reply after weeks because I feel like I have lost touch with my social skills.

It just seems like a lot of work to be honest because most of us are at home with similar schedules which is working 16+ hours and then being too tired to do anything outside of work on weekdays. Then when weekends come around you kind of just want to be offline and anti-social. There is only so much that you can take in terms of whining, complaining, and talking negatively about your routines/way of living in this pandemic that unfortunately it seems better to just shut down.

Some of us managed to live in 2020 but now in 2021, it’s just survival mode. Even right now, as much as I want to write this blog, I am finding it hard to have continuous focus and follow through with my own activity that gives me joy. This blog is literally just thoughts with no order and no storytelling happening here if you want that, then might I suggest you stop reading this blog and go pick up a book bud.

Those of you who know and have mental illnesses will know very well, the following:

1. We have our set of coping mechanisms, however over time and quite often they stop working for us, requiring us to create/ideate on a new set of coping mechanisms. It’s a vicious cycle.
2. When we do create healthy routines or structures for our days, it can be very hard to follow through. For example, I want to meditate and journal every day but I am unable to do so. Even the tiniest of tasks seem to require a mountain of energy, which of course is an illusion.

Now those 2 points have exploded, expanded and become godzillas in our lives since covid-19 hit us. I pushed through in 2020 and kept going with the mindset of taking it one day at a time and motivating myself somehow but now I feel exhausted just thinking about it. What’s worse, is that a lot of new folks have climbed on to this boat and are finding it 1000x times more difficult because of lack of experience of how to tackle mental illnesses that have been either born due to the pandemic, have finally accepted the fact that they have a mental illness, or are indirectly affected by someone else who has a mental illness.

When you are in this sort of state of mind, you have essentially shut down to function. You will just be a mass hovering and taking up space. There is no pulse, no soul, and just hollowness. It sounds morbid and it is. So you just survive. And this is where I want to commend you and I, for not giving up and for not beating ourselves up about it and taking those small steps. It’s okay to just survive as that is an accomplishment in its own way, in today’s times. It’s okay to not be productive some hours, some days, some weeks, some months.

These times are honestly altering and testing our limits/tolerances and we have not been taught how to live/adapt through these times. We have heard plenty of stories and read about historical plague events but none of us have actually lived through one until now. So the learning curve is definitely going to be there and it requires patience and compassion towards yourself and others.

One hopeful and optimistic vision I do have is that we will overcome this and we will be more compassionate towards ourselves. I know this because since the pandemic started a lot of us have become more mindful of who we engage with, more of us have started therapy, and even bigger than that, people have acknowledged how damaging/controlling/life-threatening mental illnesses can be if ignored so we are finally talking about it more with the older generations and with each other. Which has commonly been a roadblock when people my age or a little bit older are trying to seek therapy or medication or help when it comes to mental illnesses.

So here is to hoping and just surviving. 😉