How do I know if I feel better?
How does someone start to feel normal if this is the new normal?
A friend of mine, a social scientist at the local university, did a word analysis and found — and I don’t want to get too technical here — that people freaked TF out in March 2020 and haven’t calmed all the way down yet because — again, excuse the technical jargon — shit’s still messed up. If this is the new normal, asks Rachel Megan Barker, how does one start to feel normal again? Apparently it requires scheduling a lot of play dates for oneself.
by Rachel Megan Barker
The latest data on happiness from the General Social Survey has shown that happiness has plummeted since the pandemic began. This will come as a surprise to literally absolutely nobody.
The realities of living with fear of covid, with the scale of the deaths and with the toll of the restrictions has left us all with a plethora of mental health problems; for some people for the first time in their lives and for others an exaggeration on problems they had had before. Neither is good!
In my last post, I spoke about the overwhelming feeling I have right now; not one of sadness, but one of boredom.
In writing this, I reflect on the fact I don’t even truly know if that feeling of boredom is because of covid. I think it is, at least least in part, simply because why would it not be? But maybe I need to give more thought to why I feel this way; because really I haven’t paused to examine it.
So what have I done? Mostly, I have tried to acquire a whole tonne of dopamine boosts. I have been working a bunch, but I have also been filling my days with archery and gaming and football and theatre. It’s been fun!
I can say, fairly categorically, it has made me feel not just relatively happier, but relatively much happier.
The weird thing about the question of if I am less bored is - I simply do not know right now.
Maybe filling my days makes me happier; and maybe I feel wildly ungrounded and ultimately directionless. Probably a bit of both.
Probably a month really isn’t long enough to figure this out. I probably could have guessed that from the start, couldn’t I?
Rachel Megan Barker is a highly caffeinated feminist, wanderer, bookworm, and organizer. Follow her on Instagram at @rachellybee and on Twitter at @rachellybee.
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