Pandemic Blues

I never imagined the extent that pandemic and its rules affected people, especially seniors until this past week when I helped answer the phone at the senior center.  A flood of people called in a panicked state looking to receive the vaccine (as the Department of Health said the individual towns would handle it the day before).  I tend to be empathic with other people’s emotions, I feel them inside me, and I could feel their emotions from their words but also just from their voice. These were seniors who are afraid of dying, adult children afraid to lose their parent(s), seniors who are petrified to get the vaccine and petrified not to get it, seniors who haven’t seen their families, especially their grandchildren for almost a year, seniors who haven’t gathered with their friends to talk or play cards or play Bingo, seniors who lost their freedom to travel, even just traveling to the store, seniors who stopped living their lives 11 months ago, seniors who cannot take even one more day of quarantining, have had their friends and family die from afar not getting to say goodbye or attend the services for them, seniors and their families who are extremely anxious, terribly lonely, angry, frustrated, and completely depressed.

I am often worried about how this pandemic will affect Remy, but I think he has gained as much as he has lost if I think about it; he did have to quarantining at times and wear a mask and be around people in masks and lost a few community activities, he has gained extra time with me which he would never have had otherwise and he gained extra times with his Mimi and Grampi (in general but especially when his school was closed) and he learned how to adapt and become stronger throughout the pandemic. 

The pandemic has affected my mental illness is a bad way and my supports have gone to telephone therapy and psych meds office visits which are nowhere near the same as in person (although there is the added benefit of telehealth that my appointments can still be held in snowstorms), but I have survived and gotten through it in the end. Of course, I am nowhere as constricted and quarantined as seniors have been and I am more versed in technology to connect to others than a typical senior so I cannot imagine what their reality has been like. I think an important take away from all of this is although a vaccine has finally been approved for people, it is being produced at a snail’s pace, we need to connect with each other (and especially the seniors in your lives).  We will all get through this by working together.