Tag: #Social Distancing

Health, mental health

Week 16 Kindness Project Week 4 A Captive Audience for Comparison

granny18

The Theme for Week 16 of The Kindness Project is “Stop Comparing Yourself”.

The Kindness book speaks about focusing less on external things and more on our own hearts and minds, worrying less about whether we’re “better than” or “less than” the people in our circles.  Those of us following the “Social Distancing” protocol pretty closely would, you might imagine, have an easy time not comparing ourselves to others when we only see our own families every day.

But, at times of isolation like these, we are drawn to Social Media, especially Twitter and Facebook, to find information, to connect, to find some small part of this we can control. What we see instead is a myriad of misinformation and panic-inducing partial data and…a few people who seem to be doing self-isolation just a bit more creatively than we are.

As if the mere fact of being apart from loved ones, being unable to enjoy a hike in the forest a change in work or loss of income wasn’t enough to cause depression, here’s another factor.

Research has shown a link between social media and depression brought on by comparing our lives to someone else’s.

https://www.statista.com/chart/19262/impact-of-social-media-on-mental-health/

We can’t control being apart, being banned from provincial parks or our employment situation. Still, we CAN be selective in our social media exposure, and when we do engage, be mindful of what we are thinking when looking at someone else’s posts. It’s important to remember that what they are showing you is the BEST version of their lives. They don’t post themselves weeping in frustration, close-ups of their wrinkles or the explosion of temper their frustration brought them. (You don’t know my dark…or wrinkly…side…) Not because those things aren’t real, but because it’s not what we post on a platform like Facebook. Kind of like the old Christmas letter, we left out the embarrassing bits.

Twitter runs its own risks as misinformation is RAMPANT.  I’m beginning to realize I need to get information only from reliable sources and quit reading the comments. QUIT READING THE COMMENTS!! You will be tempted to correct someone sharing some misinformation, but you will NEVER WIN!

I tried. I’m exhausted.

On Twitter, a comparison might just be okay. I’m feeling comparatively intelligent these days…

If you’ve come to me via social media, know this, if you are doing your best, if you skid to the end of the day alive, you are doing just fine in these tumultuous times. You’re doing okay, friends. Just keep doing it another day.

And another.

And another.

One of these days, we’ll lay some face to face love on those social media friends, those who seem to be perfect, those who seem to be losing their minds, because deep down, we know all of us are just doing our best to be…”okay”.

Be kind to others, be kind to yourself.

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Doing what's right, Health

Into the Fire.

granny18

Well 2020…

Occasionally nothing gets written when I can’t think of anything to say. These last few weeks, while it is true, nothing has been written, this time it’s because I have too MUCH going on in my head, and I haven’t known where to begin.

The doodle on this page was done around 1 a.m. as I tried to “capture” some of the thoughts clanging around in my head so I could sleep.

First thoughts were for my daughter, an Emergency Nurse, running INTO the fire of COVID 19 while the rest of us shelter.

Secondly, my daughter, a mother, working long hours and not seeing much of her kids. There may come the point where she will have to isolate herself from her kids and her husband. These little ones age 1, 3 and 5 will wonder where she’s gone.

Lastly,  the two groups of people who will influence the conditions my daughter will face.

Will she work in an overwhelmed health system making decisions such as Italy has had to make, around WHO to treat, rather than HOW to treat?

Will she become ill herself from ongoing exposure to the virus? Admittedly this is probably more a matter of “when” than “if.”

Will she be among the health workers that have…died?

Who influences these outcomes the most?

 Me.

You.

We can be people who chose to ignore recommendations from our Chief Medical Officer and don’t practice social distancing. We can contribute to an exponential spread of the virus and a health system unable to keep up with the onslaught. We can be those who pour fuel on the fire my daughter and her colleagues must enter.

Or, we can be people who chose to follow recommendations from our Chief Medical Officer. Don’t visit, keep our distance while out and don’t go out and about unless we need to. We can decelerate the fire my daughter and her colleagues must enter.

Being apart is hard, so hard, I get it. My further away grandkids were coming for their first sleepover last weekend. It had to be cancelled. An Instagram video call had to suffice. We have been babysitting the closer grandkids once a week and were really starting to settle in and enjoy this scheduled time. That, too, is gone for now. For them, it was a Facetime chat that will have to be enough.

The worst part is all the unknowns. How long? How bad? I’m a planner, and it seems there is nothing I can do.

But

I CAN stay in as much as possible, get my groceries delivered, do the video calls. It is my contribution to saving our health care workers from the horror experienced in Italy.  

We had warning; there’s no excuse for us allowing this to happen. As people, as a government, as a country…as a society.

May you all stay well. Those of us 50 and up have an increased risk of complications and death; those 65 and up even more so. If you have people in your life who are immunocompromised (as I do), they are also at significant risk, no matter how young they are.

As my daughter and I exchanged, “I miss you” messages, I promised her a party when it’s all over.

“You’ll come over for dinner; we’ll eat all kinds of “sh*t” we shouldn’t. You’ll drink too much wine and have to stay over. In the morning, we’ll have mimosas and waffles (with bacon!) for brunch.

It’s a date. We don’t know THE date, but it’s a date.

Keep her safe for me.