In the last post, I mentioned how 2020 is gonna be waay different than previous years. That big changes are gonna happen. Well here we are halfway through 2020 aaanndd whoopdeedoooo... HELLO CORONAVIRUS!!!!
The thought of always be indoors excited the introvert in me at first. But I forgot that I am also prone to anxiety. And so that anxiety kicked in... and it got me bad. Being cooped up indoors, having plenty of time for yourself is not always good if you've got anxiety issues. I ended up really minimizing contact with the outside world. I got off social media because it was making me feel bad watching other people being more than I am. I didn't participate in conversations in whatsapp groups. I didn't join any Zoom meetings and webinars unless I had to. I only focused on work. Which was a challenge in itself. I'll write another post (re: sambat) on how hard I worked to deliver 7 classes to almost 200 students where 2 subjects are completely new to me and not easy to master (1. Statistics, 2. Data Science... modyarrrrr!!!! haha). I literally worked 24/7, since the internet only worked well and with abundant quota starting from 1am to 6pm #ogahrugi
So yeah, the past few months haven't been easy. I had anxiety attacks, dark dark days where I could stay awake at night and not sleep for 24 hours straight even during Ramadan, or worse, sleep for more than 10 hours during the day.. as sleeping meant I didn't have to think of the bad things that were poisoning my mind. My family just thought I was sick. Which is true. I made myself physically sick from all the mental load I was bearing. I made frequent chats to Halodoc app, because during the course of those #stayathome days I had bad gastritis and GERD and normal gastritis medicine didn't help anymore, my ear infections kept coming every month, I kept getting headaches which caused me to buy a blood pressure monitor and home kits that measured your cholesterol, glucose and uric acid (at my last checkup, those levels were high above the normal >_<). Which then confirmed that I really was having high blood pressure. (But I still can't use the home kits since it's hard apparently to prick yourself and draw your own blood....)
Things have gotten better in the past weeks. I don't know exactly what the turning point was. Maybe because I prayed a lot, and it finally helped. So I started to come out of my shell. I installed social media apps. I responded in group chats. I started to feel more positive.
That's not to say that I'm not going back to those days. I guess I came to know myself better. It still could happen. My anxiety will still get the better of me sometime in the future. I've come to realise that it may be genetic, it's something I was born or it's always in me to be this way. I came to know this because being with your children 24/7 made you know more about them. And what I learn about my son Raka is that he's exactly like me. He gets anxious and overthinks to the point that sometimes he gets nightmares, or just cries because he's worried sick of things that we might think are trivial. So I always pray that he will always remember to turn to Allah when those anxious feelings attack, because I will not always be around to soothe him forever, and that it's futile to expect other humans to soothe you if you don't turn to Allah first.
So, that's the great lesson I learned. Another great lesson I learned is from reading Dale Carnegie's book How to Stop Worrying and Start Living. I haven't finished yet, it's a HUGE book. But the first tip really talked through me: LIVE FOR TODAY. Coincidentally, a psych I follow on Instagram recently posted the same thing. It's the mantra for anxious people: LIVE FOR TODAY. Don't think about tomorrow and stop dwelling in the past. Just do your best for today. Ikhtiar untuk hari ini dan berikan yang terbaik untuk mencapai masa depan yang indah. Kira-kira begitu deh.
Kalau sempet next post I will spill more about that.
PS: Gw lupa kalau bisa posting blogger pake email. Dulu jaman ngantor suka begini pake email kantor. Biar gak ketauan lagi ngeblog tapi lagi kirim email kantor. Dan jadinya, berasa gw lagi ngirim surat ke seseorang gitu.. dan gak ribet kan mesti buka blogger dulu ❤ semoga jadi rajin lagi ngepostnyaa
