Almost there. Tomorrow my son will have completed his 10 days of isolation and can go back to school. It has been a LONG 10 days. Between keeping him in his room and away from those of us that haven’t had Covid yet, talking him through meltdowns about school work he doesn’t understand, not being able to hug my child that has a love language of touch, panicking at every cough or odd feeling, and falling behind on the work I do outside of my home, I truly feel we’ve run a long marathon.
And to be honest, I don’t feel ready to celebrate just yet. I know that each of the people who caught it in our house tested positive within 5 days of the previous person and we are well past that point, but I also know that there’s a reason they wouldn’t let my son back at school until after 10 days. It’s quite possible that we relaxed too much towards the end, allowing him to play video games in the living room (with a mask on), I walked outside with him on Monday to get him out of the house and off of screens, and last night he and I ate on opposite ends of the dining room table since we were the only ones home. I’m sitting here typing and coughing and freaking out that maybe I got it after all. Should I take a test? We didn’t have success with the home tests catching my husband or son, so I’m not sure if I would trust it if it did say negative.
This is the annoying thing about Covid. The not knowing and the dark cloud hovering over us. If it wouldn’t mean I’d miss out on both of my kids’ field trips next week, I’d almost hope I had it to get it over with so I can stop worrying. Except that I went to my aunt’s house to work yesterday and if I took it there I’d just feel absolutely horrible.
Why can’t I stop catastrophizing? Why do I always jump to the worst case scenario?
Well, that seemed to work. My son wanted me to make him lunch, so I had to pause my journaling. After eating, we went for a walk outside. I’m no longer coughing or panicking.
Why DO I do that? What makes some people more prone to that sort of thinking than others? I get so jealous of my husband, who doesn’t (typically) immediately think of the worst case scenario. Or he might, but he doesn’t see it as the only possible outcome. He knows that while things could go wrong, they also could go right. When he’s around (and I share my anxious thoughts) he can usually bring me back around to reality. But when I sit and stew on my own, I can’t seem to break myself out of it.
I had hoped that journaling would help, but instead it took me deeper into my anxiety. But going for a walk with my son definitely helped. Nature, talking about other things (or rather, listening to him talk about video games), and generally getting my mind off of the catastrophizing did the trick.
Tomorrow I have therapy and my husband and I might actually get to have lunch together again for the first time since March 17th! This has been a terribly long month in our house and I’m looking forward to getting back to our normal routines.
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