Author: bromer

I’m fine

By Sarah Marie Bruno

 

Sometimes I feel like the story of my life 

Isn’t about me;

It’s a movie starring a girl without a face,

Watching herself in two dimensions,

From a safe distance

I draw on my clothes like I draw on a smile

But I’ve forgotten what a dress looks like

It doesn’t matter.

They’ll say I’ve got my head in the clouds,

But the clouds are made of smoke

Sanity is knowing I’m suffocating in it

I’d rather be free,

Because if your face is blurry,

I don’t have to care.

• 

In this time of total lack of structure, it was initially difficult to balance time between work, family, and self. Sticking to a structured routine has been a great antidote to this feeling. I wake up at the same time every day, include meditation in my morning routine, work for most of the day (with frequent breaks), and take a regular walk in the evenings with my partner and dog before cooking dinner. Somehow, this hasn’t felt tedious, but instead rewarding and grounding.

• 

I feel a lot of pressure to be superhuman. Just trying to keep up with coursework and research became a herculean task, and as a G1, I worry that my newly formed friend groups will fade away without the ease of proximity. I was almost constantly anxious or stressed, and what has helped is getting into meditation again. I practiced gratitude, and gradually, things looked up. It became less taxing to think about my food and money situation. I started exercising at home thirty minutes a day, actually finding myself to have more energy than before. My friend group began regular Zoom calls to check in and play games together. Classes are thankfully almost over. The sky is really blue today, and that’s nice too.

One thing that has helped me is reminding myself that this is not a normal situation in which to be working, and that I shouldn’t expect myself to be able to function “normally” or be as productive as I usually am. I’ve lived with anxiety and depression since high school, so going to school while feeling worried, distracted, unfocused, sad, numb, confused, panicked (and a whole host of other emotions) is nothing new to me. The difference now is that I feel less alone in it, knowing that so many of us are feeling the same things, all at the same time. Unfortunately, another difference is that I’m sort of cut off from a lot of my usual support systems, since I can’t physically be with my friends or really get out of the house, which makes it harder to deal with in a lot of ways. I’m still using many of the same coping strategies I’ve used before, like taking frequent breaks, paying close attention to my physical health with healthy meals and exercise, talking to my therapist, and talking to friends and family. I try to be gentle with myself, celebrating what I am able to get done rather than being angry with myself for the things I am unable to do. I remind myself frequently that family and my health come first, and whatever schoolwork and research I can get done after taking care of my family and myself is great, but is not the top priority. Thinking that way helps direct my anxiety away from my work, and ends up making it easier for me to get assignments done and continue to make progress, since I’m not so hung up on trying to work as if nothing is wrong. I think it’s important to honestly acknowledge how I’m feeling and accept it, and accept the momentary dip in my productivity, rather than trying to ignore it, which will only make things worse in the long run.

Maintaining my mental health during the pandemic has been difficult. I am a single parent of a three-year old boy and I now have no childcare for him as the daycares are all closed. My days are spent trying to entertain him, teach him, and keep him engaged and active. The pandemic has taken a toll on him as well. He has developed anxiety and some concerning behaviors as a result of the turmoil of this situation, so he now requires even more attention than he did previously. It has been extremely difficult for me to get work done in this environment. I am supposed to defend my prospectus this Spring but there is no way I see that happening. Trying to keep up with coursework, program requirements, and paper writing while also ensuring my son’s physical, emotional, and cognitive needs are met, on top of dealing with the steady flood of distressing news that this pandemic produces is an impossible task. Balancing work and child care as a single parent was hard before this situation, and now I wonder if I will be able to do the dissertation work I planned to do before I run out of funding or if I will have to settle for rushed, mediocre work that will harm my job market prospects, risking the livelihood of my family. On top of these caregiving needs, I have not been able to get feedback from my advisor on the work I am trying to do as they have coronavirus and of course cannot work right now. I have talked to many other graduate students who have similar concerns. Despite fears for the health and safety of ourselves and our loved ones, graduate students have continued to work tirelessly to keep the university running—as preceptors, as research assistants, and as students. But we need help. We are all very scared right now. We came into academia because we are passionate about our work and we want our research to make contributions that will ultimately benefit society. But right now it feels as though our futures are uncertain and Princeton is not giving us the support we need to do what we were admitted to this university to do. I hope the university will recognize our needs and give us the aid that they fully have the means to give. The endowment is like a rainy day fund, and if this isn’t a rainy day I don’t know what is. Supporting graduate students right now may be expensive in the short term, but if the university trusts its admissions process, the benefits that supporting these dedicated scholars will have for the university and the broader world in the long term will be well worth it.

Back in December (in the pre-COVID era), I experienced the loss of my grandmother. I was very close with her and this was a truly devastating, although not unexpected, loss. I grieved with my family and spoke at the funeral. I went home to my parents’ house for Christmas and shared memories of my grandma, ate her favorite foods in her honor, sorted through her belongings, etc. Now that this pandemic is underway, many of my feelings of grief have resurfaced. I wish I could call her and talk to her about what is going on. I know she would have something delightfully sarcastic and witty to say that would make me laugh. Although I miss my grandma tremendously, I also realize that I am fortunate I had the opportunity to grieve with my family when I did. My heart goes out to everyone who has lost family members and loved ones in this time when social gatherings are not possible. It makes it so difficult to process the grief in a healthy way when you cannot mourn with your loved ones, hug your family, attend a funeral, and so on. Wishing everyone strength in this time and sending everyone who reads this a virtual hug! <3

I’ve been getting increasingly frustrated with myself for my lack of progress in my research. I’m feeling a great deal of (self-imposed) pressure to get lots of work done in this time since I’m never going to have this much “free time” ever again. Under normal circumstances, my research is all in-lab work, so in theory, I have tons of time now to work on some of my side projects that I never had time for pre-quarantine. However, what I’ve found is that despite not going into the lab every day, I somehow don’t actually have more free time. My days are almost entirely eaten up by endless Zoom meetings and a constant onslaught of emails. Despite never leaving my apartment, I am more exhausted than ever. I’m finding it difficult to focus and get work done in the scattered hours between Zoom meetings. I have this panicked feeling that all this time is passing me by, and I’ll emerge from this period of isolation with no substantial progress in my work.

There is also a perception now that it is not acceptable to take time off. There is no longer a boundary between work and home, and there is a (mis)conception that everyone is available all the time for last-minute Zoom meetings, etc, since we’re “just at home not doing anything.” When all of my work can be done from my couch, it doesn’t feel reasonable to take a mental health day to rest and recover. I also no longer have the option of forcing myself to take a break by planning a weekend trip to visit friends or family. I constantly feel guilty for not working harder because I always feel at any given time that I *should* be working.

I know that this mindset is almost entirely self-imposed. I’m working on self-compassion and patience. I’m trying to applaud myself for whatever amount of work I am able to accomplish in a day instead of punishing myself for the work I wasn’t able to accomplish. I am terrible at making myself adhere to a consistent schedule, but it is something I’m trying to move towards. I know that sticking to a regular sleep schedule, eating at regular times, and structuring my time with “work hours” and “play hours” are key for mental health. It just takes a lot of willpower!

3 Faucets by Dennis Ryan

I love this artwork because, for me, it captures the intensity, rapid movement, and frantic fervor of OCD hand washing. Especially during this pandemic, my hands are often cracked and bleeding. In a sense, hand washing can be an act of violence against myself. I’m trying to wash my hands with more gentleness and love, incorporating a loving kindness mantra into the ritual. 

• 

I have OCD, and the pandemic has certainly taken a significant toll on my treatment and recovery. I’ve had OCD since early childhood, but within the past two years, I put a LOT of work into my cognitive behavioral therapy, and I am happy to say that I vastly improved! I used to routinely wash my hands until they bled, but stopped this behavior along with many other compulsions. Part of my exposure therapy involved no longer carrying around hand sanitizer everywhere I went, occasionally eating without washing my hands first, etc. Of course, under the current circumstances these kinds of exposures are no longer possible. It’s demoralizing to feel like I am backtracking in my progress even in cases where my response is consistent with the new “baseline” and technically not an OCD response. My various OCD-type symptoms are cognitively linked, though, so washing my hands more frequently, however “normal” that may be under the circumstances, has sadly re-kindled other obsessions/compulsions I had previously eradicated. For the most part, my OCD is actually not particularly cleanliness-based, but rather is more guilt-driven. I often get wrapped up in “magical thinking” where I feel like I am personally responsible for bad things happening in the world even when there is absolutely no logical connection between myself and the external events. For instance, I am terrified of not properly sanitizing things and as a result infecting other people. It has gotten to the point where just leaving my apartment to get my mail or take out the garbage is excruciatingly terrifying. A trip to the mailroom requires 30 minutes to an hour of sanitization and makes it impossible for me to do anything productive for several hours due to what I like to call a “radius of anxiety” around the stressful event. And then there is the secondary layer of guilt in feeling bad that I feel bad since I know I am extremely lucky—I’m healthy, my family is healthy, I have the privilege to work from home with pay, I have secure housing, etc. I’m trying to be patient with myself. I’m very thankful for the free tele-therapy currently available through the Student Health Plan and for my wonderful network of supportive family and friends. I was able to overcome my OCD before so I can certainly do it again!

Working out has been great – I really needed to see some progress, and working out can help me be free of anxiety even for just a fleeting moment. Workouts can be so exhausting that I don’t have the energy to be drowning in my anxiety.