Trapped. That’s my word for today. Trapped. I feel trapped in my home, my community, my province, my country. I know, I know, some of you are probably thinking, these are first world problems. According to the state of my mental health, it may well be that, but it is also something that is wreaking havoc with my anxiety. Just thinking about it elevates my heart rate and makes me nauseous.
I am not going to wax too political as I truly try to keep most of those thoughts to myself, though the rest of my world is pretty much an open book. That said, the numbers do not add up on either side of the argument and much like the US election, the numbers have a tendency to be skewed to benefit whatever side is representing it. Let's talk about Alberta. Our #'s are down. All the numbers. Including the testing numbers, which has to make a person question why – why are we doing half as many tests now as we were prior to the latest lockdown. So, the numbers are down, but now we must "fear the variants" which seems like another government justification to keep us under restrictions that are not fair and equitable and do not allow others to make the money they need in to keep their bills paid.
Yet, on the flipside, there is science to back so much of this up. It's not that I don't believe in Covid. It's not that I don't believe we have a real potential health crisis and that we need to take care of our frontline workers both physically and mentally. It is that I feel the government's respective responses have been inconsistent, often don't make sense and often seems to depend on numbers that they are in full control of.
Also, I have a real concern that in 2021, we have to worry about how someone screwed up our health care system so much that we are on the verge of catastrophe with 100 people in ICU beds. How did we get to a population of 4.5MM people and have such little capacity? I read in the news a few weeks ago how Red Deer General Hospital is operating at surge capacity – which sends fear into the populous. Here's the rub, RDGH has been running at surge capacity off and on for as long as I can remember. Why? Because the area has been overlooked time and again for health facility expansion that would service the population appropriately.
So, beyond all that, let's go back to the feeling of being trapped. It is not just me. It is my kids, my friends, my family. It is what it is doing to people's mental health that normally do not struggle with mental wellness. People who have never had a taste of anxiety and depression in their lives due to chemical imbalances are now going down into the black hole. My doctor (and I have heard from others who said their doctors are saying the same) has said that he hasn't seen this much depression and anxiety in their careers.
What does that mean for us? It's not just about the inability to travel the world. It is about not being able to see family members and friends. It's about not feeling free to move about as one sees fit. It's about feeling trapped in our homes, our towns, our provinces. Many of us, myself included, work to live, by which I mean, I work so that we can afford to live a comfortable life and we can travel, we can see new places, we can try new hobbies, etc. Right now, and I would wager, even more so for those of us deemed "essential" workers, there is no escape from our daily routine. There is no "refresh" or "reset" for us. We live in the face of the public every day. We take abuse from people who don't want to wear masks and we have to enforce it or our businesses could be subjected to fines. We see people struggling to pay bills and struggling to get by and the despair that is attached to that.
Alternatively, there are those who are working from home who would love to be somewhere other than under their own roof. Rather than being stuck going from home to work and back with the odd grocery trip, they are home and home and home with the odd grocery trip. Then there are the people who have lost their jobs, some their livelihoods and they are simply envious of those of us who have jobs and bitch about it.
In the end, we are all trapped at this time. Some people handle it better than others. Some people are willing to sit at home and grin and bear it as they believe in the restrictions as set out by the various levels of government will curb the spread. That doesn't mean they enjoy it. They are simply doing it because they believe it's the right thing to do. They are no less trapped. There are those that probably feel trapped behind the masks, trapped in the face shields as they go about their day helping people. There are still others who are trapped in a senior’s living facility and cannot see their family in person.
I am only guessing at how some people feel, but I have talked to enough to feel that I have a pretty good grasp on many of the different responses. For me, personally, I find life to be utterly depressing right now. We are in the thick of winter, every time we see a light at the end of the tunnel, someone snuffs it out. I am so grateful for my family being relatively healthy and that I have continued to be employed since the beginning of this pandemic. I am grateful that I have a support system that I can reach out to when I need to and I hope I am part of a support system for others. Though I am grateful, I am sick and sad and frustrated and angry and disappointed and anxious and depressed and I feel trapped in those feelings as much as I feel trapped physically. I need the light at the end of the tunnel to be more than another train coming at us. I really do.
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