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19 July, 2020

Surf's up! We're riding the anxiety wave!

I know that I am not alone when it comes to being an anxiety-ridden ball of... something for the last few months, so this isn't something uniquely mine. But hear me out...

The last few months have been like riding a giant wave, in a storm. I'm waiting for it to crash down on top of me, or shoot me out the end into calm, blue seas...... and NEITHER of those are fucking happening.

To help me deal with stress and anxiety, I plan. I plan and make plans and then do backup plans... it's one of my little quirks that, thankfully, Lady Bourbon finds amusing... or tolerable. When COVID hit, I planned food. I planned supplies. I planned on how to keep us all indoors and possibly sane. It worked. It gave me something to do for a while. 

But now... fuck me, man.

Half the country is going on like it's not a thing, the other half is still locked in their homes waiting... and I don't know how to plan for that. My kids are supposed to be going back to school in like, what? 3 weeks? Do I send them? Do I keep them home? Do I burn down the school and make it less of an option?! (please note: I would never actually burn down the school unless we were invaded and the invading army was using it as their base of operations... then I'd light that bitch up.) 

Seriously... I'm at the end of my fucking rope on what to do here. Lady Bourbon and I have stayed up many nights talking about what to do and when we start these conversations, and there are too many variables. My brain just starts going, "eeeeeeeEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE." And I sort of black out for a minute.


Then we have "The country" and all its woes... and there are a lot of fucking woes, my friends. We have civil unrest across the board. We have white supremacy on the rise in many areas. Our "leadership" uses openly hostile words, tactics, and rhetoric against our own people and, deep down, I fear we're heading for something bad. And by "bad" I mean anything from armed conflict to massive economic collapse.
So I plan. I planned food, again. I planned money. I planned protection. I planned how to keep me and mine safe and protect in case of the worst-case scenario. It worked and gave me something to do for a while. 

But now... fuck me, man. 

Half the country is still rioting to one extent or another, the other half is on Facebook complaining about or congratulating the first half. Cops are bagging people in the streets, rioters are breaking stuff and pulling down statues... and the online fights are just as awful and nowhere is safe... meaning there is no online refuge. Everyone is an opinion-having monster with no love for anyone. Lady Bourbon and I have stayed up many nights talking about what to do and when we start these conversations, and there are too many variables. So my brain starts going, "eeeeeeeEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE." And I sort of black out for a minute.

And there is my problem... I can only plan so much. At some point, I run out of things to plan and prepare for and I am left feeling the weight of all that anxiety... and man, it sucks. You've probably seen my posts on Bug Out Bags and the like. That's what I've been doing for the last 2 months. 

I need something to happen or I need it all to go away... I can't keep up this level of anxiety and planning day-in and day-out without some sort of payoff one way or the other. Like I said before, I'm trying to surf this wave. I'm still surfing this wave... I'm still waiting for something bad to happen and all of this planning to be worthwhile... or I'll pop out of that tube and find myself in the clear again.

The only good thing to come out of ALL of this - aside from leaving my miserable job with Debbie - is that I now have wonderfully stocked first aid kits. I can treat anything from a kids' tiny boo-boo all the way up to a 9" gash down your forearm that needs compression bandages and staples.... And as fucking cool as that is, it's still not the same as just being calm and going on about my day. 

I'm beginning to not know how to handle all of this shit. I'm running out of plans to be made... You can't plan for everything and there are WAY too many possibilities out there that could happen. I guess I could enhance my "oh, sweet Jesus, it's the end of days" plan... or my "North Korea just launched an EMP at the Midwest" plan... but then those plans cost a lot of money, man. I'm not ready to turn my garage into a Faraday cage just yet.... 

I'm not really sure what the point of this post was. I think I just needed a distraction and to put some stuff down on "paper" per se.  Maybe I'm hoping someone will comment and give me something to think about and talk... Maybe I should just write more and take my mind off it all. Maybe I need to finish my post apocalyptic novel I started in 2005... It's just that this is all messing with my sense of reality. My sense of how things SHOULD be. Now, I think abut how things COULD become and it bothers me...

Ah well... How are you dealing with this? Bug out bags and spare food? Books and coffee? Smoke and a pancake? 


3 comments:

  1. It's good to handle it this way bro. I wrote something similar a while back, before Covid, about how this anxiety seems different somehow, and you're right, it's fucking scary.

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  2. Yep, I plan and plan. PLans within plans. Plan As, Plans C-Z. This stuff should provoke folks to plan for many things. Most don’t. I’ve seen this happen before. But, I think it is always better to be the well-prepared ants than the happy go-lucky grasshoppers. I am hopefully that there will be a peaceful transition of political power after the November election. As for what schools are doing, I’m lucky because I live in IL. Most schools are at the very least are looking at a hybrid approach and many are allowing parents to make the final call and opt to keep their kids home and do online learning. Because of my family members medical conditions, catching COVID-19 would not be a good idea. So we wil likely opt to continue online learning. The upside to sending them back is too small relative to the downside if the infection starts to spread in schools (but, how likely is that?). Good luck and keep planning. It shoudl help. Improvise, Adapat and Overcome.

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  3. I don't think I am really coping with it well to be honest. I am separated from my partner, they are in the USA and I am in the UK. Not knowing when I will see them again has been heartbreaking and I often feel like I am grieving for the year we had planned. The only thing that keeps me going is believing it will end and we will make it through.... and also my new puppy and wanking! LOL

    Molly

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