I've Been In Quarantine Before
I’ve been in quarantine before. I called it depression.
I have not left the house for days when I was deeply depressed. I’ve not left my room for much of the day during these times. I stayed six feet away from people. I’ve been in a similar place, even if it was self-induced. Is depression really ‘self’ induced? Who is this self that wants to be depressed?
In a way, I’ve done this dance before.
It was terrible then and it is still horrible.
Many people live in a prison of their own creation. Now the entire world is living in a prison.
But have we always lived in some kind of confinement? A mental prison of our own making?
How many of us are thinking our own thoughts? How many of us are thinking for ourselves? How many of us are free to really do what we want to do in life? How many of us even have the freedom or the time to figure out what we really want to be in this life?
Our minds have been quarantined. We have been living in a mental lockdown that is based in this idea that we have to do what it takes to survive. Even if it means sacrificing our souls.
But not all of us have the lofty choice to be poets, you say. That is part of what is wrong with our society. When we are in quarantine, we devour our TV shows, our books, our songs. It is the only time we realize the true value of artists. That we actually could not survive without art and perhaps we need to honor our artists all the time,
But famous actors and famous singers make millions you say. But what about Marie, she sings in a lounge down the street? She is better than Adele, but she can’t afford nice clothes.
I’m not even sure what the solution to this problem is, I just know there is a problem. We are not allowed to be what we want to be for fear of starving to death. How many of us are really philosophers hiding behind a business degree, running a crappy business that gives us no satisfaction? Living a life of quiet desperation?
And do we really think? I mean really? For ourselves? Or do we just re-think? Do we just re-think thoughts that other people have thought? How many of our ideas and thoughts about things have come from considering what our own truth is and how many have come from the popular factory of thoughts?
Quarantine is a state of mind. Are we even free when we are allowed to go out there in the world? Are we free to be ourselves? To think for ourselves?
Perhaps while in physical quarantine, we can think about our mental lockdowns that we have imposed on ourselves. Perhaps this is the only time we will ever have to reevaluate what it means to be a person, to be alive. To think for ourselves. To be ourselves.
But this is also a time of great sorrow and confusion, and fear.
I have felt this feeling before, this numbness. It’s like a thousand little paper-cuts, which individually don’t seem so bad but add up to a lot, as my friend so brilliantly noted. She also mentioned that being in quarantine is like being in an emotionally abusive relationship, it’s hard to cry out and feel like you have a legitimate reason to be upset when there are those who are physically beaten. There are people who have it worse than me.
This is often what depression feels like because nothing 'bad' can be happening to you when you are depressed except the depression itself. You are not necessarily being traumatized when you are depressed. In fact, depression often comes after trauma. We could become a more depressed society after all this.
But just because my pain doesn't look as bad as someone else's does not negate my pain. All pain is equally legitimate. This is not a contest, and trauma cannot and should not be measured against other trauma. We are all being traumatized by this pandemic. Every. Single. One. Of. Us. Each in our own way.
What are the implications of a traumatized society? I hope compassion is the implication. I hope this makes us feel for each other more. Because we all feel this. I’ll tell you the trick to feeling good, sit with the bad feelings. Tend to them, invite them in to talk, see what they have to say. Then tell them goodbye.
Slowly, but surely, they will be forced to leave. You cannot push them out and shut the door because they will stalk you forever. But let them leave on their own terms. They are in fact a part of you, so in the end, even they are sacred. Our demons are the brothers and sisters of our souls. The black sheep of the family, but still part of the family. And all of us have a dark room in our house. It’s OK to go in there sometimes, but I would not permanently reside there.
And fear is the darkest room in the house.
Maybe we don’t have something to really be ‘upset’ about yet, but the fear is enough. Fear that is real. Coronavirus could happen to us, or someone we love who is vulnerable. Then what? What if I get this? What if I die?
Or maybe, we could lose our jobs. We could lose everything.
This situation creates feelings that are similar to being in depression. I’m here to tell you, you will get through this. I’m here to tell you after this is over, you will look at life in a different way. After my depressions, I have looked at the sun couldn’t believe the enormous amount of light emanating. I had literally been sitting in a dark room for a long time.
But I would be lying if I told you I'm OK right now. I'm not. I don't know what I am. My emotions are all over the place, sometimes I am anxious and afraid, other times I am sad, other times I am happy and at peace and I feel guilty about that. The word I would use to describe my emotional state right now is complex. It's complicated.
And I offer you this space to sit with you. Whatever you are feeling, just be that for a moment. And let it go if you want to, don't let it go if you don't want to or you can't. And then decide what you want to be next. Because we decide our feelings a lot more than we give ourselves credit for. I've decided that I have to survive this without falling into a depression. That is my decision and I am willing to fight for this.
I was in and out of depression for twenty years, and now I have rid myself of this. How did I do it? It was a decision and I practiced discipline, meditating every day, writing every day, being good to myself every day. That was just my way, you have to find yours.
We can decide to be OK while living in quarantine. I know that this lockdown situation will trigger depression in many people who struggle with mental illness, and that is not their fault. Sometimes you just can’t get out of it. It took me twenty years. But I’m here to tell you it is possible. Unless it's not. And I'm sorry if it is not.
But for those of you who don't struggle with clinical depression, how long have you been sitting in the dark? How long do we have to sit in the dark to realize that we have the freedom to open the windows and look outside?
We are not allowed to go outside and play right now. We are grounded. But weren’t we always kind of grounded? Maybe it’s time for us to really ground ourselves.
When was the last time you went out and played for real?
nina