Lockdown

Having seen endless Tweets, texts, TikToks and Instagram posts about people being on the struggle bus with this whole situation I almost feel a bit guilty that I’m here in my cosy little flat pretty much living my best life. It’s kind of left me with a weird feeling. I don’t really know what to say to people, I don’t really know what to post. I think it’s super important that everyone can voice their difficulties and share negative experiences but, in this situation, I’m hesitant to do the opposite and say anything positive or share opposing struggles. It just feels awkward, making this post incredibly hard to write. I have literally no idea how to pitch the tone and as it all feels a bit sensitive, so I’m just going to make a couple of things clear before I start…

I’m obviously just talking about my personal experience of being locked down in my flat, I’m thinking about the whole pandemic part of it as a separate issue entirely. Obviously, lives are being lost, essential workers are having to put themselves at risk every day and lots of people are living in housing situations that are far from ideal. I’m not going to touch on that.  

Also I’ll try and keep the ‘gratitude vibe’ to an absolute minimum (that’s sickening at the best of times) and I certainly won’t be talking about how you should make the most of this opportunity and come out of it smarter, fitter and with a new skill. I certainly doubt I’ll be any of those things by the end of it!

Finally, I’m definitely not, in any way, meaning to invalidate the feelings of people who are having a really difficult time…it’s just that I haven’t heard much from people who aren’t!

To be fair, I am a natural hermit! But I also feel like I’ve been training for lockdown my whole life…in good ways and bad!

I’m an only child from a small family. I’ve lived alone in my car and a tent in rural North Yorkshire for a few months, I ran away to the outback with two other people for a while and then travelled around Vanuatu alone, I’ve lived and worked on a couple of British islands that would be considered ‘remote’ to many, and internet and mobile signal was shoddy in all of these situations! That was the fun part, albeit occasionally a little bit lonely.

In between pitching my tent on the moors and ‘finding myself’ ‘in the bush’ came the not so fun part! I joined the Merchant Navy. Which, is admittedly, an odd jump and one of the poorer life choices I’ve made! During the sea phase of my training we did four weeks on ship and four weeks off. I don’t think I’ve ever hated something so much in my life. I was an outsider in a way that went way beyond me being the only woman on ship and I found it brutally, relentlessly boring. Once I’d finished doing everything I’d brought onboard with me I slept as much as I could so I was awake for the experience as little as possible. I couldn’t use the internet (it was broken) and there was no mobile signal. I could phone my parents from the ship’s bridge but everyone would listen in, so my parents asked me yes/no questions. It honestly broke me. I’d involuntarily start sobbing, I struggled to hold conversations because I had literally no idea what to say to people and I felt irrevocably lost. I didn’t think I’d ever feel that alone again.

Then, in my last year of undergrad, I got ME. I’ve written three other blogs which go into more detail about that, but I’m not sure I mentioned the loneliness. Fairly early on, when I was at my worst, I couldn’t see my friends, sometimes I’d get out of breath trying to talk to my parent’s, I wasn’t able to watch TV for long because processing the images was exhausting, I struggled to read, I was too nauseous to enjoy food and I lost my tolerance to alcohol (tragic!). I had no idea if I’d get better, there was no prognosis and no treatment. I had to try and come to terms with the idea that I might never stand on top of a mountain again or swim in the sea or run…anywhere. While I reclaimed by teenage bedroom lying in the dark and the quiet, everyone else was carrying on with their lives. I felt totally left behind. When I mercifully started to recover, I still had to meticulously ration my energy so I ‘missed out’ on a lot of things. When I went to do my masters, I still spent most of my time in bed recovering between lectures and social interactions. I was isolated a lot, because ultimately, I knew that was how I might get better and luckily, gradually, I did. Knowing that it was the right thing to do didn’t make it easier. Something as simple as waiting for a friend to reply to a message felt like an eternity and I was constantly checking my phone. I have never felt so achingly lonely. Merchant Navy Amy had no idea what was coming!

So, those two things were pretty shaping and maybe I wouldn’t have found lockdown as easy if I hadn’t experienced them. We’ll never know.  

Anyhow, in comparison, this feels like a cakewalk. I’m able to easily access the internet, I can smash through a Netflix season in a day, I have all my crafts around me and I have the energy to do them, I can drink again, I can enjoy my food and I don’t have to take a nap after phoning my parents. Plus, everyone is in this situation, so I’m not alone and I’m not ‘left behind’.

I’m actually pretty grateful to be able to slow down and take a bit of a break. I’ve finally got back into yoga again, I’m finishing craft projects that have lain around half done for years, I’ve read…fiction, I’ve even downloaded some PC games and commandeered my boyfriends Nintendo Switch so I can play animal crossing! I’m totally unashamedly addicted, if anyone fancies giving me some fruit other than peaches then hit me up. Of course I’m looking forward to when I can get out of the city and into somewhere wild, but the outdoors still exists, and it’ll still exist when this is over. Whilst I can’t do the outside things I enjoy, I’m indulging in all the inside things I like instead.

It’s also given me a chance to think. I went to university because I wanted to be an academic, my goal was always a PhD. But the more I see of academia the less I want to be involved. So, after about 5 years I’m suddenly having to reassess what I like, what options are out there and what I might like to do after I’ve finished. I’ve got plenty of time, but it’s nice to have space to process things and play around with some ideas. I think that’s been weighing on me more heavily than I realised.

So, of course I’m not walking around in unencumbered bliss!

For a start, I’m worried about how I’ll adapt when lockdown finishes. I’m an introvert that’s normally pretty good at pretending not to be. I find social interaction ‘a lot’ and I don’t think I’ll be running to the nearest crowded pub as soon as we’re allowed to, I have a feeling I’ll be creeping out of my cave tentatively. I’ve also gotten used to this slower pace of life and I got used to not seeing people very quickly. I already find myself hoping for a lockdown extension and feeling a bit anxious when people talk about going back to work and when that will be.  I’m not ready to put down my crochet! These weeks are going very quickly to me.

Another minor struggle is dealing with the pressure to ‘connect’…although I am starting to get over that a bit now.

Mostly, I hate Microsoft Teams. I’m at home, in my sanctuary. I’m hermiting. It feels like an intrusion. People who I’d never normally have in my house are suddenly, in my house. There was a moment in the beginning where I though it was something I should throw myself into so I’d just get over my Teams anxiety…but that quickly turned into complete avoidance. I started to wonder why I’d put myself under undue stress to hang out with people online that I don’t hang out with in real life. Plus, it’s awkward. When I’m in the pub with a group of friends and suddenly all the individual little conversations come to a natural end and it’s just me talking and I have all the attention, I hate that. That’s what videocalls feel like to me.

We now have to have a weekly ‘informal’ lab meeting on Teams, I’m pretty sure it’s just because my supervisor is under pressure to get us to ‘connect’. It’s one of the low points of every week. In general, I stay as quiet as possible, turning off my microphone so I’m on screen as little as possible. I’m pretty sure none of us need it, no one has anything to say and it’s always dragged out over an hour.

You will not see a cheery Teams screenshot on Twitter from me!!

I totally understand that these group chats have been a complete lifeline for some people and that’s great. I guess I should just hold on to the thought that the lowlight of my week is another person’s highlight! I see some people are really making the most of this new type of interaction. But, like I mentioned at the beginning of this post, I haven’t heard from many people that are feeling like me and I know they exist. I guess the whole point of this blog post was as a self-indulgent processing point for me, so I could explore why I apparently feel differently to most folk and to say to the other people who feel the same way I do, “you’re not alone”…if you didn’t know that already!

Anyway, if you’ve made it this far, I wish you as happy a lockdown as you can manage. Take care and stay inside…obviously. (Although this post is going out later than I anticipate so if you’re in England you don’t need to stay inside anymore, or you do, or you don’t as long as you’re two metres from your mum in a park, but you should stay inside as much as possible, unless you can’t work from home, in which case cycle to work far away from everybody, or wear a diving suit on the tube or something…).