How are Americans coping with anxiety during the coronavirus pandemic?
Psychiatrist Dr. James Rachal speaks with Harris Faulkner during 'America Copes Together Virtual Town Hall.'
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I got the text from my college roommate, Noah, at the height of the lockdowns. He lives in Amsterdam, and moved his wife and three kids there last year for his job. I had just asked him how they were holding up with quarantine, especially living in a foreign country with no family around.
His words, his response, are important — especially for those struggling during the age of coronavirus.
“I went to Germany two weeks ago for work and was so anxious!” he said. “I don’t think I knew what to call it and am now mature enough to admit it: fear, anxiety, control.”
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I could almost hear the sigh of relief through his fingers as those words popped up on my phone. Liberation. Freedom. Release.
I think we can all learn something from Noah.
See, what he admitted to me is something anyone who is struggling with anxiety during this time needs to admit to themselves. And here’s why: You are never going to be able to have control over something until you name it.
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The exercise of naming something gives us power over it in a unique way. That may seem odd at first, but if you think about it it’s rooted in truth. It’s been there since the beginning of time. In the Judeo-Christian creation story, man exercised the power and responsibility given to him by God by naming the animals. It served as an inherent ranking system of sorts.
Similarly, we exercise a form of power and control over our anxiety and fears by naming them. By calling what’s going on inside us what it really is, we can then start the process of addressing it.
It’s not that different from what we see with addicts. You’ve probably heard it a thousand times, but it bears repeating here: The first step of the 12 steps is admitting you have a problem. Why? Because you can’t work on something you don’t acknowledge is there.
The first step to addressing what’s going on — the first step toward relief — is calling what’s going on inside of you by name.
I was recently talking to two friends who had never really experienced panic attacks or anxiety before in their lives. They began describing to me what was going on:
Racing hearts.
Sweating.
Thoughts they couldn't get rid of.
Thoughts they knew, deep down, aren’t rational but that kept popping up.
Paralyzing fear.
How were they dealing with it? By trying to grit it out and force those feelings to go away. And it wasn’t working. At all.
In a way, I had to chuckle. Not because it was funny, but because I, too, remember what it was like to experience these things, not understand what was going on, and then try to grin and bear it only to find myself feeling helpless. So I calmly told them it sounded like they were suffering from anxiety.
I could almost see the lightbulb go on for them. Their eyes got a little bigger and their faces got a little brighter. “You’re right,” they both said. That then allowed them to take the next step to get the help they needed.
They’re not alone in their feelings. During these last few months, calls to suicide prevention hotlines have spiked by as much as 800 percent. That represents numerically what many of us are experiencing anecdotally: The coronavirus pandemic and the subsequent measures to curb it have caused a lot of fear, panic and anxiety.
For many of you, these may be newer feelings. I get that. I was once where you are. And as some parts of the country begin opening up, that may actually be causing more, not less, anxiety within you.
But I'm here to tell you this: The first step to addressing what’s going on — the first step toward relief — is calling what’s going on inside of you by name. Only by properly naming it are you going to be able to fully address it.
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Let me be clear: Naming it doesn’t mean your struggles will end. I have been battling anxiety and OCD my entire life. But it wasn’t until I was able to name what was going on in me five years ago that I began to win some of those battles. Maybe the better way to put it is: In the war for my mental health, I was fighting a losing battle until I was able to actually name the enemy.
There will be days where anxiety wins. But once you understand your opponent you can actually fight back. That looks like talking to a doctor about what’s going on, maybe taking medicine, or using mindfulness techniques to calm your mind. Maybe it’s all three.
Whatever weapon you use, at least by being open and honest you can know where you need to be aiming it.
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May is mental health awareness month. What better time to become aware of your own mental health struggles than now. For some of you this will be a temporary battle, while for others this is the start of a longer war. But wherever you fall on that spectrum, you need to realize that calling those struggles what they are is not a sign of weakness, but a sign of strength.
It’s how you become someone who has control over their anxiety, not someone who anxiety controls. And that, friends, is the path to relief.
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