Our Emotional Quarantine

When Covid-19 struck, I had no problem swathing my mouth and nose behind a hot and sweaty piece of cloth. After all, the public service announcements that dominated the airwaves reassured us that we all were in this together: Masks would keep us safe.

Yet, when I masked up for the first time, anxiety bloomed in my chest. I fell silent as I adjusted the elastic band behind my ears—and my discomfort wasn’t simply because it was uncomfortable.

Hadn’t I surrendered something? Later I would realize that I had relinquished my voice that day as I slid on the mask. The similarity between wearing one that was physical mirrored wearing one that was psychological—something I’d done for most of my life. It had offered protection as an emotional shield while growing up in a difficult family and later in a professional one while practicing as a clinical psychologist. But on this particular morning, I didn’t link the two, or the silence they imposed, with my anxiety.

Going to the grocery store had prompted wearing the mask, but wearing it did little to calm me down. I had no real fear of the virus and still couldn’t admit why I was in such an emotional dither. Once inside, it took several minutes to understand why the usual boredom of shopping there now felt as if I’d ended up on another planet.

I sucked in the mask’s damp fabric and my glasses steamed up. Where were the cries of a toddler, whose wail signaled that her confinement in a cart had reached its limit? What had happened to the strains of Muzak usually raining down our heads? Why no crackly directive from the overhead speaker system demanding a clean-up in aisle number six?

In a very short time, other shoppers, looking like fellow aliens, wheeled up to me and stopped short. Heads down, they sometimes observed the limit required for social distancing. I waited impatiently for them to finish searching the shelves and when they were done I pushed by, fast, to get around them. Stop staring, whispered a voice in my mind, even though I was sure I hadn’t been staring at all—I’d just been noticing. 

Covid-19 leaves many faltering in a world we no longer recognize. Even now, we discover we are still adjusting—remaining on high alert about what to do and whom to trust. Sensory overload leaves us overstimulated one minute and emotionally shut down the next.

Perhaps the explanation I uncovered shouldn’t have surprised me. After all, I had just finished writing my memoir, In Pursuit of Radio Mom: Searching for the Mother I Never Had which delved into my journey with a mother who couldn’t seem to love me. Hiding my belief that I was not worthy, I became adept at shining the spotlight away from myself. How could I feel exposed or rejected if others got all the attention? And so I pulled a mask over my needs.

But reliance on this kind of protection hinders a daughter’s self-confidence and her ability to embrace healthy relationships—which is what happens when her cries go unanswered. In Radio Mom, I’ve written about becoming a master, in both my personal and professional lives, at not revealing myself. 

In so doing, I forced myself into an emotional quarantine—the sort of isolation that is accompanied by an ineffable loneliness and which creates acute anxiety. Once again, I had surrendered my voice and become “invisible.”

In the months since the Coronavirus has changed our landscape, my focus—like so many of us—has been on health. Yet, I also find myself pulling off my internal mask more often to avoid the inner distress that wearing a psychological one can induce, even as I must wear the one that the medical establishment dictates.

Here in the Midwest, the breeze that rustles through the trees is different in August than it is in September. Nature reminds us that what we have become accustomed to will change yet again, and the message the seasons bring is that we must be ready to adapt. 

For as long as it is with us, this virus demands adaptation, too. So, I will continue to wear a mask when I must. A colorful one, even. But I will resist any pull toward an emotional quarantine, having no desire for the absolute solitude or anxiety that accompanies it. I am too invested in seeing and listening to other people now—and in wanting to be heard.

Best,