Historically, I dread my own personal dental visits. I am Novocaine resistant, and I have had far too many dentists that never managed to get me numbed down enough to stave off a miserable experience for anything that needed to be taken care of. My most recent dentist (who sadly just moved to another state), had great technique all around and honestly I found myself thinking at more than one visit to repair something over the past couple of years that it was the most relaxing moment of my day. Of course there was still the poke of a needle, and brief moments of discomfort- that is unavoidable when a repair needs to be made. But the me of 10 years ago would never have imagined any scenario where a dentist visit could become the most stress-free part of my day.

The me of today would waste a great deal of time enumerating in one post why dental appointments seem almost meditative now. And that was before COVID. Trying to navigate and survive a pandemic can be a significant mental health challenge for anyone. For families of loved ones who need significant medical, therapeutic, or behavioral healthcare supports, this additional strain on already difficult circumstances can create a sustained internal crisis. Everyone’s needs and experiences matter in our family and in each of the families walking a similar path, but today I am only authorized to be speaking on mine.

A good friend of mine who lives out of state says that I sometimes seem like I am trying to be superwoman. I’m not superwoman. Not on any given day. I am only ever trying to be the best parent I can be in our circumstances to both of our beautiful children, and sometimes I have to completely tamp down on my emotions to effectively deal with an immediate crisis until it’s a safer time for me to process all of those feelings. What we’re all going through right now isn’t really going to be short term from everything I can see, and that does not allow me to rely on putting things to the side until a better time.

I’m not really going into specifics at this time for the things that have preyed upon my own ability to regulate my emotions and fears. I think many of us can all fill in our own blanks from things that we might be going through right now and that is all the picture of that I care to create for now. I will, however, talk some about how I have personally been trying to manage the impact to myself in our current circumstances.

I have some old standby coping mechanisms that help me pick myself up as often as I can, but sometimes those fail me. Typically, I enjoy a bit of escapism through reading. Generally, I really love science fiction and fantasy. Back in March when I was trying to give myself some mental time away from everything that was happening, I checked out a couple of books that I hadn’t read from authors whose works I generally have liked in the past (R.A. Salvatore and Anne McCaffrey). The moment Corbin got shot in the head, I had to put the first book down. I didn’t make it past page 9 of the second book because I emotionally couldn’t handle the discussion between the two parents about to be overtaken in their ship by a hostile alien race as they discussed whether or not to give a “bitter” suicide solution to their young toddler to protect her from the anticipated cruelty of capture. I tried a Sylvia Noble book that I purchased back in December when the authoress was visiting our local Barnes & Noble. I have never read any of her books before, but I thought “what the heck, she’s from Arizona and it could be awesome.” I hit page 231, and Kendall was planning on searching somebody’s office while they were gone. Nope, I couldn’t handle the tension from the possible outcomes and had to put it aside for a while.

Sometimes you can tell how delicate my emotional state is by how much romance I’m reading, because there’s a fairly typical plot formula that almost always involves a happy ending with those books, and when things get harder for me emotionally, I find more challenging dramatic elements that are normally well tolerated by me to be quite triggering. If things are too emotional and stressful in my personal life, I need a break from the imagery of the harder moments of real life with my reading. If I can’t even read romance, my internal state is stretched quite tight.

Towards the end of March, I couldn’t read anything and my mental state stayed frayed that way for nearly two months. I tried, I did. When that happens, I have to focus on something artistic or musical. Those types of activities can ground my mind in the present but absorb enough of my concentration that I am pulled away from ruminating upon my heaviest concerns. A lot of what I do with my eye shadow these days is what my limited schedule can accommodate to nurture my artistic side. I find playing a bit with color to be soothing. I decided to learn the ukulele because that instrument to me has always sounded more bright and cheerful than others, and usually my mind is only able to stay fully in the present if I am having to learn new things about what I am doing.

All of the infection control cleaning has made it hard to do some things that are important pieces of self-care for me. My strength training and yoga have taken hits here, because I can’t fit all the pieces of what is good for me into what is necessary right now. I get some strength training in 2-3 days a week, and yoga about three. Meditating has also been sprinkled in randomly here and there. I spent extra time when I could watching fun things with Hannah.

None of what I was able to do was enough to completely carry me through the end of March. I feel like if those weeks had a theme song, it would be “Fear of the Dark,” by Iron Maiden… but it was my own thoughts and worries that were stalking me and clawing at my ability to sleep, making me fearful of dusky solitude. My mental and emotional state is never good when I can’t get at least 4 hours of sleep a day, so I started taking Melatonin. Without it I was worked up too much and unable to fall asleep.

I consider myself to be more of a spiritual person than religious at this point, and I’m not here to say anything to convince anyone to do anything differently on the matter than what they feel in their own hearts. For me personally, I still find prayer and meditation to be joyful. Some days these are more helpful to me than others.

A lot of what I do when I can’t provide sufficient levels of self-care is playing some mental games with myself. The “I’m so lucky” game is most helpful to me. Shifting my focus to what I feel lucky to have helps me to actually see more of the good things for what they are. I know some of you might read about some of our challenges and think luck isn’t to be had here. But it is. And I am not just lucky that Emily wants to still work with our family. We are so very lucky that Casandra also has chosen to work here, because what both she and Emily do cannot really be done with Tony successfully via teletherapy. We are lucky to still have Amara and Chris on our therapy team. We are lucky for the patience of Acadia and Pauline, who have taken the helm of Tony’s NMT programs via telehealth. We are lucky for the guidance Stephanie and Cecy still provide.

I also play the “at least” game. I have heard of multiple people who also do this. The gist is, when something happens that hits me hard, I try to find the “at least” moments…those little things that kept it from seeming worse than it was. “At least” I know enough sewing skills to make masks. “At least” I had material to make masks with right away because I had several quilts I couldn’t find enough time to finish a few years back. “At least” I can find time to exercise at all, even if it’s not as much as I want for my own personal goals.

My answers don’t need to be your answers in this or anything else. But each of us will have to find some things that help us personally stay afloat when life starts flooding us with negative events and emotions.