Corona Virus Plea

I am a skeptic. I rarely believe what I hear from rumors or the media. I need to find out for myself what is true. From the beginning, I was not scared of Covid-19 (A.K.A. Corona virus) because I am healthy, young, and wash my hands regularly. However, after hearing stories from some of my friends, I thought it was important to share their thoughts on quarantines, social distancing, and good hygiene.

One particular friend’s story struck a chord with me. She shared that she has four immediate family members who are at risk of death if they contract corona virus. Her brother is most at risk because he  was hospitalized recently for trouble breathing on his own. She shared her anxieties in trying to get all the necessary supplies to help her family self-isolate until the risk of sickness decreases and her fears that they may not survive if one of them contracts Covid-19.

I will tell the rest of the story in her own words:

As I’m unloading bags from my store trips, my brother is watching the news. We’ve explained the self-quarantine, social distancing, and how Taiwan, Singapore, and Hong Kong have successfully decreased death rates and even the virus in general by practicing these methods. The news goes on, reporting how parents are finding activities for the kids while they’re out of school. The activities are in the community. For example, the butterfly exhibit increased from 40 people a day to 200 today. This is not social distancing, and my brother knows it. He gets angry- he’s legitimately scared he’s going to die and hates the idea of severe pneumonia because he knows what it feels like to not be able to breathe. It sounds like a painful horrible death to him, and I understand why he feels this way. He says, “please, you have to call someone, you have to write letters. I want to live, and I don’t want to stay in the house forever. “We’ll run out of food. “There’s not enough, and I don’t have enough of the things I need to not get sick.” He’s right about it all! I don’t know who to call or write because so many people don’t really understand!

I don’t need to fear. Most of you don’t need to fear, but there are many in the vulnerable category who rightly need to fear and protect themselves. They need our help protecting them. They are relying on us! They are sitting in homes, praying they won’t need to suffer, afraid of not only death, like my brother who wants to do so much more and is not even 30, but also of the pain and suffering as breathing becomes more and more labored. They sit at home hoping something can stop this or at least greatly limit it. They’re doing all they can. I’m doing all I can for them.

I’ve seen posts- let’s pray, let’s fast, and yes, let’s do. But faith without works is dead, prayer without action is asking God to stop us instead of partnering with him. We need not fear. The reason for this is to put our prayer into action and answer the prayers of my brother, of my father and mother, and my sister. The point of this is to answer the prayers of family members like me! We have a real chance to bear one another’s burdens to stand as brothers and sisters in this great human family. It is a unique and wonderful and beautiful opportunity if we choose to take it.

My niece who is quarantined with them said, “I don’t want to stay inside all day. It’s hard.” I said, “Well, if it keeps your Mom, and grandpa and grandma, and Uncle Matt from getting sick will you do it?” Yes, she meekly nods and says, “but for how long?” “How long would you do it if it keeps them dying?” She looks at me with a big smile and adamantly says, “Forever. I’d even stay in here forever if it meant saving someone’s life I didn’t know, but I love them so much longer than forever.” If a 9-year-old can do it, then why not us with all our children? Please hear my brother’s voice because I don’t know who to write to.

Would it have been worth it to you to go to the movie or restaurant or not limit your work outside or demand your employees come to work as even one person dies you don’t know? I believe most of us would be like my niece. I’m counting on this basic human goodness to help my family! So let me explain what social distancing is and looks likes so you can answer the prayers of my family and many others like them at this time:

Limit contact to no more than 50 people at any place, but staying under 20 is better and highly encouraged. Stay six feet away from anyone. If you have any symptoms, stay home and get tested immediately. Have people work from home as much as possible. Schools close. They don’t stay open for breakfast and lunch or childcare purposes for parents. You encourage the whole population to stay at home as much as possible. Employers and governments support parents in staying at home with their kids, working from home as possible, and ensuring people can financially do so while having their needs met. In the long run, the cost to governments and employers is cheaper than if this spreads, and the economy fares much better. No one goes to restaurants, movie theaters, malls etc. You only go out for medical care- if it’s absolutely necessary, for the job you have, and potentially to the grocery store or pharmacy. That’s it.

This isn’t a time to visit neighbors or family living in other homes. You stay in your home, and they stay in theirs. Kids don’t run back and forth between houses. We seriously distance ourselves for a few weeks from everyone possible. We wash hands often, disinfect often, use hand sanitizer, etc. Then at the end of a three-to-four-week period, we begin lifting some, but not all, of these restrictions. The spread is almost eliminated from the community, deaths prevented, and slowly we begin lifting aspects of the social distancing.

Take time to play with your kids. Have conversations. I promise that will be far more bonding and memorable than any movie you watch or place you visit. Let’s focus on relationships! Maybe you’re alone or live with roommates who just pay the rent and you aren’t friends with. Great, still focus on relationships. This is an excellent opportunity for us to reflect on our relationship with our higher power, maybe Karma, or Buddhist tradition, perhaps Allah. For me, it’s God and Jesus Christ. I’m anticipating spending deep reflection on where I’m going and how I’d like to improve. I will reflect on relationships, who I can apologize to or mend things with.

Then I’ll find ways to help others. I’ll find a single mother who needs to go to work and watch her kids during the day so I can support social distancing. I’ll find seniors, who shouldn’t go out, and shop for them. If anyone gets sick, I can cook soup and leave it on their doorstep, so I’m still social distancing. This doesn’t need to be a burden. It can be a beautiful time. A time where, as a community, we truly care for each other and we grow as individuals. We can come out of social isolation better and more whole. The choice is ours.

If there is one thing epidemiologists and the WHO have scientifically proven, it’s simply this- the spread of the disease, the severity of it and the death rates can be controlled by social isolation and distancing. It really is our choice! I truly hope people read this. Sharing things so personal doesn’t come easy to me. I’m typically much more reserved. Most people didn’t know my brother was in a coma, as I didn’t talk about it. But I share this because I kept thinking of my brother’s plea to me, “please write a letter, call someone, help me. I don’t want to get sick, and I don’t want to die.” This voice keeps me up tonight. I hope you hear my brother’s plea. Please help him, help my family members!

If you want to see the effects of social distancing and how it can help at this time, please click here to see the virus simulator.

 

Hangry

Last week was an especially difficult week emotionally. I had multiple breakdowns a day and just struggled to control my emotions several times throughout the week. By the end of the week, I realized that this was not simply the result of inconvenient timing of mood swings but was instead directly correlating to my eating habits. The longer it took for me to get food, the more aggressive and anxious I became.

I have always known that I struggle with handling needing food. I can tolerate hunger and can go without eating for a while without issues, but if I do not get food when I am expecting to eat, I lose self control. I lash out and have even injured myself at times. This probably sounds a bit extreme, but I looked up a couple articles about “hanger” and aggression around hunger. The ones I found most relevant explained that low blood sugar can decrease serotonin, which increases stress and affects the ability to regulate your mood.

As someone who already struggles with serotonin levels and mood regulation, this can easily send me over the edge. I remember as a kid, kicking myself off a bed because I was so hungry that I didn’t know what to do with myself. The biggest problem with all this is that it is difficult to provide food for yourself when you get to that point. Trying to cook something when your brain isn’t working leads to more anger and frustration because the process takes too long or is not going as planned.

At this point, I have realized as an adult that I have three options. I can withdraw myself from the situation until my body tires itself out and I no longer have the energy to be aggressive, or I can try to maintain self control just long enough to get something to eat, or I can allow things to get to the point when I explode and am at risk of hurting others or myself. I can’t tell you how many times I have experienced these problems as an adult, much less as a child. Granted, as a child, someone else was mostly responsible for providing food for me, but I had less control about how or when that food came.

I think it is interesting to note the differences between what we expect of children and adults. Often when we become most frustrated with how someone is acting, there is probably a physiological component to their behavior. Maybe they literally cannot just keep calm and carry on. Maybe they cannot communicate their needs. Maybe they cannot provide for themselves in the ways we expect. The difference between children and adults though is that we expect the child to learn to do these things and the adult to know how to do these things. But maybe instead we need to focus more on why things are happening to help prevent the physiological reaction because at that point, it is too late in many ways to avoid unwanted reactions.

Eating Disorders and Health Issues

I recently committed to a new diet. The hardest part of that commitment was committing to eat. I don’t have an eating disorder right now, but I have had one before. Having health issues related to food has brought back memories of that time.

Back then, it was easy to hide my disorder because I could isolate myself and no one would have known if I didn’t tell them. Now, with these health issues, it was easy to slip back into that lifestyle because I had an excuse. People knew I wasn’t eating, but they also knew why. So no one questioned the sanctity of my actions.

I have tried to downplay the seriousness of my eating habits, both to others and to myself. But the truth is that starving yourself for physical reasons is just as bad as starving yourself for emotional reasons.

I don’t know how I recovered from my eating disorder. I do remember that it took a long time. I remember that I had to make deliberate choices to change. I remember that it involved changing my environment and basically starting over.

Once again, I find myself in recovery. This time it is not an eating disorder; it is simply disordered eating. Still, it takes a lot of the same things. I have a reason to get better. I have changed my environment. I am consistently making the hard choices to change.

When I tell people about my diet restrictions, they are quick to feel sorry for me or offer solutions. Although helpful to some extent, the solutions fail to recognize one important factor in my recovery. I have not just faced health issues, I have straddled the edge of an eating disorder that would have been all too easy to fall into.

I don’t write these posts so you will feel sorry for me. I write these posts so you will understand. Everyone sees me as so capable. They see a health issue with solutions. They see actions that need to happen. But it’s not just health that needs to recover. For me, it has never been just health. It is a comprehensive recovery. I am recovering mentally and physically and emotionally. It’s not from an eating disorder, but it may as well be because the behavior and recovery are strikingly similar.

I have a lot more resources this time though. I have a lot more reasons to be healthy. My mind is more clear than it ever has been. So I have hope that recovery will be easier this time. I have hope that I will be okay. I have hope that I can avoid the temptations of an eating disorder and become healthy again.

You Have a Right to Mourn

I decided to give up gluten at the beginning of this week. I had already given up most foods that have gluten in them, but I hadn’t completely cut it out yet. In the past six months, I have limited my diet to foods with little fat, oil, sugar, acid, lactose, and sodium content. For the most part it has worked, but I haven’t followed the diet strictly until recently.

Going gluten free was a lost battle for me. It meant admitting that something really is wrong and accepting that it may never change. In a few weeks, it may not seem like a big deal. But it is a big deal right now, which has made me realize something.

I never thought of an autism diagnosis as a big deal. It was simply a name for a set of symptoms that already exist. I didn’t understand the need to mourn or the devastation someone may feel. But now I understand better. Parents don’t mourn the child or the diagnosis. They mourn the inability to hold onto something they wanted to have.

Right now, I am mourning that I may never enjoy pizza again, that I don’t remember the last cream filled donut I ate, that I do not know if I will ever again feel the sensory adrenaline of hot sauce. To other people who haven’t experienced this or who have been living with these problems for a while, it may not seem like a big deal. People who don’t know, who can’t know, or who know all too well, are giving me suggestions and advice, solutions for what they perceive to be my problem. But they all miss the point. I don’t need solutions right now. I just need to mourn.

Give me solutions in a week or two. Tell me what I’m doing wrong and what I can be doing better, just wait until I have had a chance to mourn first. Let me breathe in the reality of my situation for a moment. Let me process what this means and what it changes. Let me not be okay for a little bit. Then you can bombard me with your advice and solutions because maybe then I can handle it.

I am sorry for not understanding the need to mourn before. I am sorry for wanting people to realize that autism isn’t so bad before they are ready to. I am sorry for not recognizing your right to mourn.

You have the right to mourn what you wish could be. You have a right to cry and be sad or afraid. You have a right to not be okay for a while.

And maybe when you’re ready, we can discuss advice. Maybe when you have mourned, we can solve this together. Maybe once you have processed this, it won’t seem quite so overwhelming. In the meantime, I understand your need to mourn. And I respect that right. I hope people can understand and respect mine too.

Attachment Styles and Updates

You have probably heard of attachment styles in some form, whether you know about the study done on infants or you are familiar with clingy companions. Basically, attachment styles refer to how you bond in a relationship. You can have secure, anxious, avoidant, or fearful attachments. For brevity, I’m not going to go into the definitions of each attachment style, but feel free to look them up if you are interested.

People usually think of attachments styles as developing from infancy through your relationships with your parents/ caregivers. While it is true that your parents play a large role in forming your attachments styles, there are other factors and relationships that influence it as well. In my case, I would say I have a pretty secure attachment with my family. Although I do get a little anxious with them sometimes, I mostly trust them and feel safe with them.

However, my early relationships outside of my immediate family heavily influenced my attachment styles with everyone else. I lost all of my childhood friends at age seven, and after that I was teased and bullied, isolated and punished. Because of all that, I have an anxious/ fearful attachment style in most of my relationships. I don’t trust people. I am afraid of getting close to people. I am afraid of allowing myself to be vulnerable. I am constantly afraid of being hurt, abandoned, taken advantage of, ignored, and basically afraid of letting anyone get close to me physically, mentally, or emotionally.

Anyway, I have been thinking about this lately because I have an ultrasound tomorrow and an endoscopy next week, and I am super nervous. I waited as long as I felt I could to make these appointments because it is really hard for me to trust people. It is hard to be vulnerable, and going to the doctor is just about as vulnerable as it gets. You have no control at the doctor’s office. You have to do what they say and trust that they are doing their job and that whatever test they put you through is going to help them figure out what is wrong.

The hardest thing about this is not having a secure relationship to hold onto during these tests and procedures. I don’t have parents or siblings to take me to appointments and be there for me. I am simply left to my fear and anxiety. And I have to convince myself to trust, if only for a moment, which is perhaps the hardest thing. If I wasn’t genuinely concerned about my health, I would not allow myself to be this vulnerable even for a doctor’s visit. But I feel I have no choice if I ever want to get better.

 

Basically, what I am saying is that I am scared. I’m terrified. I’m desperately longing for an escape as I go towards what I know must be done. This isn’t one of my usual posts. It doesn’t end with everything bundled up in a happy ending or inspirational message. It’s simply me being real because being vulnerable is scary. Being vulnerable on here is scary, but being vulnerable in real life is even scarier. And I just want you to know that as positive as I may seem most of the time, I still just get really scared sometimes, and I don’t have all the answers.

Lessons of Pain

Pain teaches you things. Sometimes, the more intense the pain is, the more it teaches you. Today I have been in excruciating pain, and I have been thinking about the lessons pain has taught me.

1. My body is amazing. Sometimes we tell ourselves how much we hate our bodies because they are not what we want them to be. When it becomes hard to move because of pain, you realize just how amazing your body really is.
2. My body needs just as much love as I do. I learned this by  unintentionally starving my body. Eating causes me pain and time is a short commodity, so I simply did not eat meals for two weeks. By the time I realized what was happening, my body needed a whole lot of love to get back to normal.
3. Everyone suffers. Most of the time, no one knows I am in pain. I resist the urge to slide to the floor and curl up in fetal position when I’m talking to someone. It has made me wonder how many other people resist similar urges and what unseen pain they may be suffering.
4. You may never fully understand the power of a hug. When I am in intense pain, physical touch can sometimes be unwelcome. But a hug is almost always something I want. A hug releases some of the tension, alleviates some of the pain, and above all, let’s me know I’m not alone.
5. Compassion and empathy. Everyone experiences pain differently, but because I know what pain feels like for me, I can sympathize when you describe what pain feels like for you.
6. Gratitude. When I have a good day, when I feel well enough to do something extra, when pain doesn’t describe my state of being, I am so grateful. It makes me grateful for the little things like being able to stand and able to eat and sleep, etc.
7. Pain is temporary. Even though I am almost always in some kind of pain, I have realized that the intense pain is temporary. It may feel unbearable in the moment, but eventually it will become bearable again.
8. Sleep is my friend. Sometimes I delay sleeping because of depression. Sleeping seems like a darkness that I do not want to enter, but sleeping almost always helps me feel better.
9. People care. Pain didn’t really teach me that people care, people taught me that they care. But pain made me realize and notice people caring.
10. Service. Pain makes you realize the frailty of life. It helps you realize what is most important. To me, what is most important is other people. If I can make someone’s life better, if I can make them a little happier, if I can help someone, I want to do it. My pain does not disqualify me from trying to help someone else.

Mental Health

I don’t understand the dichotomy between how we treat physical health and how we treat mental health.

I have been experiencing some health issues lately that make it difficult to eat food. To me, these issues don’t really seem like a big deal, but when I tell people about it, their reactions make me think that it may be a bigger problem than I realize. The thing is, I compare my health issues to my mental health issues, and in comparison, my physical health doesn’t seem like much of a problem.

Not being able to eat without being in pain doesn’t seem as bad as not being able to eat because I had an eating disorder or because I was too depressed to eat. Being in constant physical pain doesn’t seem as bad as when I tortured myself for days at a time because my mind told me I deserved it. Feeling like I’m dying doesn’t seem as bad as wanting to die and constantly thinking of suicide or attempting to kill myself.

Yes, my physical health issues are kind of a big deal and affect nearly every aspect of my life right now. But compared to my mental health issues, I hardly consider them worth anyone’s time.

What is worth helping, saving, and taking people’s time is when I want to die. That’s something people can change. That’s something they can help with. Bringing me food because I’m in pain is nice, but it doesn’t change much of my condition. Giving me love when I feel hopeless could change everything.

I’m not saying that mental health is more important than physical health. They are both important. They both need attention and care. But if you really want to make a difference, it’s probably not going to be by finding the cure for cancer. In my experience, the biggest difference is made not on the giant scale of curing disease, but on the tiny scale, the one person at a time scale, of curing loneliness.

Mental health isn’t just a statistical arena. It’s not something you just hear about on the news. It’s something that someone you know is struggling with. It’s something that is just as important as keeping someone physically healthy. It is the most real thing I have ever experienced, and it’s not over. I have hope, but it’s still not over. Mental health is real, and it is serious. Don’t forget that.

Health Habits

About two months ago, I posted some goals I was going to try to follow to improve my emotional health. Although these goals were physical goals, I knew that my emotional health was being affected by my physical health. If you want to see that post, click here.

It’s now time to share some thoughts on how my goals have gone so far.

The first thing I should mention is that I haven’t done everything every day, but I do something every day. And it makes a difference. In fact, the more I do, the bigger difference I see.

When I eat right and get enough sleep and drink enough water and exercise, I feel a hundred times better than when I do none of those things. And when I do a couple of those things, I feel ten times better than when I do none of those things. So it does make a difference and it has made a difference.

I’m still not great at keeping all my goals and I can feel myself slipping more easily into depression when I don’t keep my goals, but I am starting to develop healthy habits and I am excited for the difference it is making in my life.

Day 1

Sometimes you just need to restart.

This weekend I went to a camp with my church. One of the speakers there talked about how much your health affects everything else. So I have decided I need to start over. I am doing good things in my life, but I am struggling with my own physical, mental, and emotional health. But maybe there’s something I can do to help myself be better.

Today is day 1. I’m not going to worry about the past feelings of depression or frustration or pain or anything else. I’m going to be a new person.

 

Just to keep me accountable to someone on this newness of life, I’m going to post my goals on here.

Here’s what I am going to do starting today:

1. Go to bed at 9 pm
2. Drink at least 2 bottles of water per day
3. Eat 1 extra fruit/ vegetable 3 times per day
4. Run from 5:30-6 pm
5. Take a multivitamin

Exercising

I absolutely love exercising. I’m not very good at it because I just don’t really feel a need to go out of my way to exercise. But I enjoy the feeling of my heart beating, my lungs expanding, and the blood rushing through my veins. It’s like the opposite of a tight hug- like being hugged from the inside out.

When I am not in a good mood, I exercise to get that feeling. It makes me forget about what is bothering me and just focus on trying to breathe. I exercise because it makes me feel alive.

Sometimes I feel so extracted from the world. Like my thoughts and mood have pulled me from being able to be around people. But when I exercise, I feel so alive. I just feel. I feel in a way that I don’t usually feel. Instead of all the sensory pressures on the outside, I can feel them on the inside. And for some reason, that makes it easier to go back to feeling pressure on the outside again.