SeekingAfrica
Sponsor
Mind you, it's not the isolation part that really got to me. My ballet classes went online, I do video calls with friends regularly. It's not so bad. The things that got to me were the uncertainty, the change in the world and here, the change of routine, the fear of the future.
Because of bad sleep and having to go to stores mid-day while they work, my routine has flipped upside down.
I AM lucky to still have work, but I work for myself with clients all over the world and now I have no way to know how anyone will be affected and hence, how long I will have work.
Even with sleep meds, I still go to sleep, wake around 4-5, and I'm up for an hour watching tv shows I have watched before to calm down, and then sleep for another couple of hours or more. All the dreams I have are always unsettling, not full on nightmares, but never restful either.
This month while everything was changing all the time, I stopped working out outside of my ballet classes, my back started hurting again(sprain) and I've been eating really random and not the worst, but not healthy either.
I am afraid that even when the restrictions are lifted at first it will be hard to travel between countries, making seeing my parents and being able to return where I am harder. I also sometimes need to cross the border and back before reapplying for visa, so I'm afraid about that.
I know it's a lot of ifs. And if I'm lucky it will all go okay. I just feel like I worked so hard to get stable, and start getting social and healthy again, and to set goals for the year and have the capability to actually do something about them, and this situation completely side-swept my goals and my sense of ability to DO whatever it is I was intending. It shouldn't have. I can still do a lot at home. But there was something in the uncertainty when this began, this waiting every day for the next statistics, next report from the president, next restrictions to remember that hit me really hard. It kind of woke up this part of me that spend 3 months waiting to return to safe place where I was able to change my situation. This part of me that was hit by the trauma but had to wait 3 months until I was in a safe place until I could even begin to cope. So for 3 months there was a lot of waiting, and further trauma and denial and it was bad. And when I was finally safe it didn't really get better because the emotions finally hit me. And something about how fast, how instantly this situation went from 0 to 60 in a week, it just really hit me hard. And now that this are more settled I am struggling to make my brain feel stable or safe again. So suddenly I feel unmotivated, in need of lots of rest and sleep and everything is harder to do. But I don't get to just be resting. A lot of the world is still in crisis(as are we, but just seems sliiightly more stable now), nothing is certain and whatever work I have, whatever options I still have I need to do the most out of. Not that this knowledge helps my mental state.
I'm trying. I am taking smalls steps daily. I'm talking to friends, I am doing SOME work(but not fully full time yet although I can-some time is lost in depression and anxiety), I am following the law here, I am keeping my apartment in reasonably okay organisations. I haven't shut down. But I'm just... floating. Eating whatever, not exercising, not working on my goals, even ones that aren't affected by the current situation. I'm finding it increasingly hard to try setting goals and planning for a future when the world is going through all this. I feel like I'm daydreaming and waiting to wake up- but I haven't woken up and I know that I won't. I want to be the person that isn't sideswept by this. And I am not, not fully. But I don't like who I am right now either.
I don't know... how to keep myself together emotionally through this, how to make any of this feeling better....Maybe there is no better, maybe it's just situation that needs to pass before it gets better. But that is so hard to accept. I need something to keep me going, something that feels better than only surviving when waking up is getting harder. Something more tangible than a future that feels so uncertain. Mini goals perhaps. Some days are okay. Some days I need something, anything that feels good, so I get through the day, hence all the unhealthy behaviors and eating... I'm sorry that this is so long. I'm sorry for complaining with the way the world is. I don't want to offend anyone that is having practical trouble in this situation, hence why I didn't post earlier. I'm just really struggling.
Because of bad sleep and having to go to stores mid-day while they work, my routine has flipped upside down.
I AM lucky to still have work, but I work for myself with clients all over the world and now I have no way to know how anyone will be affected and hence, how long I will have work.
Even with sleep meds, I still go to sleep, wake around 4-5, and I'm up for an hour watching tv shows I have watched before to calm down, and then sleep for another couple of hours or more. All the dreams I have are always unsettling, not full on nightmares, but never restful either.
This month while everything was changing all the time, I stopped working out outside of my ballet classes, my back started hurting again(sprain) and I've been eating really random and not the worst, but not healthy either.
I am afraid that even when the restrictions are lifted at first it will be hard to travel between countries, making seeing my parents and being able to return where I am harder. I also sometimes need to cross the border and back before reapplying for visa, so I'm afraid about that.
I know it's a lot of ifs. And if I'm lucky it will all go okay. I just feel like I worked so hard to get stable, and start getting social and healthy again, and to set goals for the year and have the capability to actually do something about them, and this situation completely side-swept my goals and my sense of ability to DO whatever it is I was intending. It shouldn't have. I can still do a lot at home. But there was something in the uncertainty when this began, this waiting every day for the next statistics, next report from the president, next restrictions to remember that hit me really hard. It kind of woke up this part of me that spend 3 months waiting to return to safe place where I was able to change my situation. This part of me that was hit by the trauma but had to wait 3 months until I was in a safe place until I could even begin to cope. So for 3 months there was a lot of waiting, and further trauma and denial and it was bad. And when I was finally safe it didn't really get better because the emotions finally hit me. And something about how fast, how instantly this situation went from 0 to 60 in a week, it just really hit me hard. And now that this are more settled I am struggling to make my brain feel stable or safe again. So suddenly I feel unmotivated, in need of lots of rest and sleep and everything is harder to do. But I don't get to just be resting. A lot of the world is still in crisis(as are we, but just seems sliiightly more stable now), nothing is certain and whatever work I have, whatever options I still have I need to do the most out of. Not that this knowledge helps my mental state.
I'm trying. I am taking smalls steps daily. I'm talking to friends, I am doing SOME work(but not fully full time yet although I can-some time is lost in depression and anxiety), I am following the law here, I am keeping my apartment in reasonably okay organisations. I haven't shut down. But I'm just... floating. Eating whatever, not exercising, not working on my goals, even ones that aren't affected by the current situation. I'm finding it increasingly hard to try setting goals and planning for a future when the world is going through all this. I feel like I'm daydreaming and waiting to wake up- but I haven't woken up and I know that I won't. I want to be the person that isn't sideswept by this. And I am not, not fully. But I don't like who I am right now either.
I don't know... how to keep myself together emotionally through this, how to make any of this feeling better....Maybe there is no better, maybe it's just situation that needs to pass before it gets better. But that is so hard to accept. I need something to keep me going, something that feels better than only surviving when waking up is getting harder. Something more tangible than a future that feels so uncertain. Mini goals perhaps. Some days are okay. Some days I need something, anything that feels good, so I get through the day, hence all the unhealthy behaviors and eating... I'm sorry that this is so long. I'm sorry for complaining with the way the world is. I don't want to offend anyone that is having practical trouble in this situation, hence why I didn't post earlier. I'm just really struggling.