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gaudiorSeveral people pointed out that 12) Go the fuck outside is much easier said than done. Which is a good point; you can't just walk through a panic attack, and I'd be an asshole if I were suggesting you could. So, here is the addendum:
12a) How to go the fuck outside.
There are two aspects of this: convincing your rational mind, and convincing your unconscious.
...well, I started to write an explanation of why you rationally don't need to be that scared of going outside. You can read it below, I put it under a cut, but... frankly, it's just unnerving to read even though it's trying to be reassuring. It had lots of words like "virus" and "infection" and such, and... eh.
So, let's just assume that going outside is worth it, and talk about how.
First of all, you want to try this in small steps. This is going to be the basic CBT procedure for phobias, and it involves breaking down the frightening thing (going outside) into a series of small steps that are each somewhat doable, and increasingly closer to the goal. So in this case, you might:
1) Sit at your closed window, and look outside. Do something you find calming-- deep breaths, relaxing music, relaxing your muscles, taking anti-anxiety meds, getting someone you trust to hold you tight, petting your pet, listening to comedy routines. Do that until you are fairly bored.
2) The next day, sit at your closed window with your face covered, as you would if you were going out, and repeat the calming until you're bored.
3) The next day, open your window, sit across the room from it, with your face covered, and repeat the calming until you're bored.
4) The next day, open your window, sit in front of it, etc.
5) The next day, open your door, sit in the doorway, etc.
6) The next day, go out the door, and sit on your stoop/porch/whatever, etc.
7) The next day, go out the door, and walk either to your car (if you have a car) or the sidewalk, and either sit in your car, or go back to your stoop, etc.
8) The next day, walk around your block, etc.
If you feel like you can easily skip any of these steps, go for it. The important thing is to start with something you find a little scary, but not panic attack-inducing, and do it until it's not scary any more. Don't push through-- if you've already done one step today, and are pretty tired, then wait until you're fully rested to come back.
Because yeah, this is scary, and I did not mean to dismiss anyone's fear. Your nervous system is trying very hard to keep you alive by scaring you away from a potential threat, and you might thank it for working to keep you safe, and then politely but firmly teach it to focus its attention elsewhere.
Good luck, and also, please do keep telling me if the advice I give is ever counterproductive!
--R
The first one is tricky, because, as I mentioned before, there is no complete safety. The only way to be 100% sure not to catch Covid-19 would be to go into a hermetically sealed bubble and stay there for the next eighteen months or so.
But a useful thing to think about is viral load, and your immune system. Viral load is how many virus particles you receive. To quote the article I just linked, "Much of the reporting on coronavirus seems to make people think infection is a quantum, complete effect like neural transmission: if a single virus particle embeds in my nasopharynx, I’m done. No...several hundred viral particles [are] presently postulated as needed to cause general infection." (Italics mine.)
So... when you're outside, even if someone sneezed right outside your door, that sneeze contained an average of 75,000 viral particles, and those didn't all just sit there waiting for you to come out. Most of them were big enough to form droplets, which fell to the ground, which you're unlikely to touch with anything that's going to touch your mucus membranes. A small percentage of them were aerosolized-- small enough to float in the air-- but those ones a) will survive for a maximum of three hours, and b) will be dispersed by the breeze. The odds that enough virus exists from that sneeze to actually get into your body, and not immediately be destroyed by your immune system, which is constantly roaming your body looking for viruses to destroy, are very, very low. You're much more likely to get infected with Covid-19 by contact-- touching someone's hand that has it, and then touching your mucus membranes. So, like, don't do that.
12a) How to go the fuck outside.
There are two aspects of this: convincing your rational mind, and convincing your unconscious.
...well, I started to write an explanation of why you rationally don't need to be that scared of going outside. You can read it below, I put it under a cut, but... frankly, it's just unnerving to read even though it's trying to be reassuring. It had lots of words like "virus" and "infection" and such, and... eh.
So, let's just assume that going outside is worth it, and talk about how.
First of all, you want to try this in small steps. This is going to be the basic CBT procedure for phobias, and it involves breaking down the frightening thing (going outside) into a series of small steps that are each somewhat doable, and increasingly closer to the goal. So in this case, you might:
1) Sit at your closed window, and look outside. Do something you find calming-- deep breaths, relaxing music, relaxing your muscles, taking anti-anxiety meds, getting someone you trust to hold you tight, petting your pet, listening to comedy routines. Do that until you are fairly bored.
2) The next day, sit at your closed window with your face covered, as you would if you were going out, and repeat the calming until you're bored.
3) The next day, open your window, sit across the room from it, with your face covered, and repeat the calming until you're bored.
4) The next day, open your window, sit in front of it, etc.
5) The next day, open your door, sit in the doorway, etc.
6) The next day, go out the door, and sit on your stoop/porch/whatever, etc.
7) The next day, go out the door, and walk either to your car (if you have a car) or the sidewalk, and either sit in your car, or go back to your stoop, etc.
8) The next day, walk around your block, etc.
If you feel like you can easily skip any of these steps, go for it. The important thing is to start with something you find a little scary, but not panic attack-inducing, and do it until it's not scary any more. Don't push through-- if you've already done one step today, and are pretty tired, then wait until you're fully rested to come back.
Because yeah, this is scary, and I did not mean to dismiss anyone's fear. Your nervous system is trying very hard to keep you alive by scaring you away from a potential threat, and you might thank it for working to keep you safe, and then politely but firmly teach it to focus its attention elsewhere.
Good luck, and also, please do keep telling me if the advice I give is ever counterproductive!
--R
The first one is tricky, because, as I mentioned before, there is no complete safety. The only way to be 100% sure not to catch Covid-19 would be to go into a hermetically sealed bubble and stay there for the next eighteen months or so.
But a useful thing to think about is viral load, and your immune system. Viral load is how many virus particles you receive. To quote the article I just linked, "Much of the reporting on coronavirus seems to make people think infection is a quantum, complete effect like neural transmission: if a single virus particle embeds in my nasopharynx, I’m done. No...several hundred viral particles [are] presently postulated as needed to cause general infection." (Italics mine.)
So... when you're outside, even if someone sneezed right outside your door, that sneeze contained an average of 75,000 viral particles, and those didn't all just sit there waiting for you to come out. Most of them were big enough to form droplets, which fell to the ground, which you're unlikely to touch with anything that's going to touch your mucus membranes. A small percentage of them were aerosolized-- small enough to float in the air-- but those ones a) will survive for a maximum of three hours, and b) will be dispersed by the breeze. The odds that enough virus exists from that sneeze to actually get into your body, and not immediately be destroyed by your immune system, which is constantly roaming your body looking for viruses to destroy, are very, very low. You're much more likely to get infected with Covid-19 by contact-- touching someone's hand that has it, and then touching your mucus membranes. So, like, don't do that.
(no subject)
Date: 2020-04-14 04:08 am (UTC)Your nervous system is trying very hard to keep you alive by scaring you away from a potential threat, and you might thank it for working to keep you safe, and then politely but firmly teach it to focus its attention elsewhere.
OMG, I kind of love that. "I thank you for working so hard to keep me safe, now
shut the hell uphow about we go for a walk and try to see some cherry blossoms?" That's a neat reframing.(no subject)
Date: 2020-04-14 06:15 am (UTC)Hermetic bubble is the best chance of survival for those people.
Obviously people in that group are likely to know it already, but I think it's worth acknowledging that not everyone can/should be trying to GO THE FUCK OUTSIDE right now.
(no subject)
Date: 2020-04-14 08:57 am (UTC)Hermetic bubble is the best chance of survival for those people.
Obviously people in that group are likely to know it already, but I think it's worth acknowledging that not everyone can/should be trying to GO THE FUCK OUTSIDE right now.
Also, wheelchair users and amputees and Blind people and people with chronic illness are discriminated against when it comes to who gets a ventilator, so there are some groups of people who may not be at more risk from COVID-the-virus, but who are nonetheless more at risk of dying from COVID due to hospital discrimination.
So, Disabled/chronically ill people should stay inside as well, because there's well documented hospital discrimination against Disabled people re ventilator access [not related to survival chances, but related to perceived "quality of life"]. Basically if two 40 years olds with equal medical chance of survival are competing for access to a ventilator, its the non-wheelchair user/non-Blind person who will get ventilator access.
(no subject)
Date: 2020-04-14 10:15 am (UTC)If such a window is not available, I would urgently recommend acquiring a S.A.D. light. This is a significant investment, yes, but 'stuck inside for >1 year without sufficient daylight exposure' is the kind of situation where some reliable source of time-of-day-appropriate intense blue light exposure for circadian sync is medically crucial for both one's sanity and one's ability to get good quality sleep.
Among other things, robust circadian rhythms are a very potent immune boost, both to your immune system's ability to respond quickly and effectively and (perhaps equally crucially for COVID-19) deescalate appropriately.
(no subject)
Date: 2020-04-14 11:07 am (UTC)Even those of us who can sometimes go the fuck outside are probably getting significantly less daylight than usual, and that can really trash your mood, even if your mood issues aren't normally seasonal.
(no subject)
Date: 2020-04-14 06:15 pm (UTC)Oh dear, that explains so much. //has had delayed sleep phase syndrome since I was a child
(no subject)
Date: 2020-04-14 08:41 pm (UTC)I set up a lawn chair on my back porch the other day. It's really too cold here to sit outside right now (actually right this second it's snowing), but when it's warmer I will be able to do so in a bathrobe right after feeding the cat, if I want to, and I won't have to set up the chair or sweep off the porch then because it's already done.