Covid’s Effect

Like in many households around the world, Covid hit hard. My Dad lost his job months prior and had been devoting his time to fixing up our family’s house to go on the market. My Mom had just received a job offer in Massachuets and finalized the purchase of another home in New England six days before the virus really took hold. In the middle of me moving my life around, saying good-bye to all my friends, and packing up my belongings, I found everything coming to a halt.

At first the isolation was very, very annoying. But, I soon began to appreciate not having to stress about seeing people at school or any more sudden changes in my life…every day was the same. As time went on, and the world began to come out from hiding, I started to notice a change in my anxiety. Now since I had not seen people in ages, every interaction was amplified. A pre-pandemic simple wave turned into a million questions about health and life, and those a million questions turned up my anxiety like a volume dial.

I grew so comfortable in my small social circle that I found it difficult to expand it. However, I knew I needed to work on it, as it was only a matter of time before the world went back into full swing. So I pushed through my worries and started to challenge my automatic thoughts.

Automatic thoughts are immediate, irrational, and often negative thoughts that enter our brain in response to a stimulus. An example of these automatic thoughts are:

“I’m gonna embarrass myself if I share XYZ about myself.”

“This is going to be so awkward.”

“They probably hate me and think I am so annoying.”

As you can tell, having these types of thoughts are very damaging to one’s self and can make an anxious person even more anxious. In order to revoke the power these thoughts have over you, try thinking about logic. Ask yourself that if someone else were to look into your brain, would they think those are silly? Or, whether or not that thought makes any sense. Often time when I check my ATs, I find them illogical.

For example:

“I suck at this, I should give up before someone laughs at me.”

No, I just made a mistake, no one will laugh. Everyone messes up at one point in their life, and nothing bad happens! Be forgiving to yourself just as you are to others!

Give yourself a break and think about your automatic thoughts before you give into them.