When the Coronacoaster hits the buffers

by Chris Taylor

I’m not gonna lie. The last few weeks have been tough. Really tough. So I’m just putting it out there, in the hope that maybe I’m not alone. To reassure myself.

It all started with a phone call from my older brother in the US. Mum wasn’t doing so well. She’d moved into sheltered housing in New Mexico in January. She was really excited about it and looking forward to an simpler life with close neighbours. Then lock down came and she was confined to her room for most of the day. Now she was six and a half stone, depressed and very anxious. She’d told my brother she couldn’t take it anymore and needed to come live with one of us (her four children).

After looking at all the options it was decided I’d go to the US to get her and bring her back here. Then she’d move in with my younger brother in Essex (her choice). It was a good plan. Everything made perfect sense. She couldn’t travel alone, I was the one most able to go get her. I’d always known I’d have to do something like this and that it would possibly be my last ever long-haul flight.

But what happened next really threw me. I was plagued with anxiety. Would Border Control let me in? Would I have to self-isolate when I got there? How could I safely go in and out of an old people’s housing complex without putting people at risk? What the hell was I doing going to the centre of the pandemic, a place that clearly was not taking the virus seriously? Could I get mum back safely, without her contracting the virus?

I couldn’t sleep for days before the flight. I couldn’t sleep on the flight. I was a nervous wreck going through Immigration Control. I was on edge the whole time I was there and then for my fourteen day quarantine period after I got back to the UK. My wife said to me: “I’ve never seen you like this before”. And she’s known me since we were 12. That’s when I realised something was going on. And I mean something physiological. Now I’m a pretty smart guy. I know a lot about how people work – it’s my job to know. I know about stress and anxiety. I know how to self-regulate. I meditate daily. I do Tai chi daily to relieve stress and stay relaxed (in mind, body and soul). The word most often used by others to describe me is “calm”. I know how to walk through life knowing the Universe has my back.

So here’s the thing -none of that stuff made a blind bit of difference. And there’s a reason: five months of living in an atmosphere of fear; five months of limited physical contact; five months of wariness and suspicion about everyone you meet. That stuff starts to seep into your bones. It sinks in way deeper than rational thought. Way deeper that the ability of the mind to process and control. It becomes muscle memory. And it messes you up.

My New Age friends told me it was no surprise – I was absorbing the energy of everyone around me. My Neuroscience friends talked about hormones, the nervous system, the impact of cortisol or oxytocin-deficiency. I began to get some insight into how instances of mass hysteria might arise – I was experiencing for myself behaviours and attitudes that felt foreign to me.

How do you deal with that? I’m not sure I know. But recognising it as real, as a “thing”, I reckon that’s a first step. Spotting it early, that sounds like a strategy – knowing the signals and taking time to re-centre. And talking to people – not carrying it all yourself.

I’ve always held that when times get tough, or turbulent, the most important thing is to stay calm and to help others do the same. It’s the fear and panic that crush people in the stampede for the lifeboats. What I realise now, is that this is easy to say and harder to do. Or at least it was for me on this occasion.

Actually, I know what I think would really help: to go to one almighty rave, dance until I completely lose myself, then dissolve into the biggest ever cuddle-puddle with a bunch of equally blissed-out folk I’ve never met before. But I don’t suppose that’s allowed under the “Rule of Six”. Unless it also involves grouse shooting. Or a supermarket trolley dash. Or a trip to Barnard Castle.