By Mary H
As the UK government started seriously considering what to do about COVID 19 – at least in public – I was on a course in Sheffield. Quite a few of the participants were international. The course leader was in Israel and she didn’t come as she’d have to quarantine afterwards for 2 weeks. Instead she taught from Zoom – which was projected large on a white screen at the front of the room. Some of the participants were from Ireland and they were told not to travel, so they appeared up on Zoom too, albeit in smaller boxes. Over the 5 days people had to leave, to return home, for various reasons and then the next day would appear in a Zoom box on the screen at the head of the room. It was like this was what happened when you died. You crossed over and were gone for a while, but then would appear in a box, having lost a bit of definition, and being more difficult to speak to.
By the 5th day of the course, the number of physical bodies present was reduced from about 33 to 20. Although COVID 19 was affecting the whole course we’d kind of forgotten about it, immersed in the matter of the course. It was the 3rd meeting of a level 1 training in Internal Family Systems – a therapy model developed by Dick Schwartz, that posits that we are all “multiples”, containing many parts, and that the way to heal is to meet all parts of ourselves with understanding and compassion. It is an intensely internal model, so we were travelling between worlds already, and then the outer world was changing daily.
By the last day of the course I was getting antsy about whether I’d get home. Only ‘essential’ travel was advised. Would an official accept my need to get home as ‘essential’? There was a part of me – a strong and unreasoning part of me, that was going to get home no matter what. My train was delayed and I could feel a tension building inside. There were persecutory fears. What were ‘they’ doing? Was there really a safety check on my train causing a hold up? It was a relief when I got on the nearly empty train. For once there were spaces between us. I got 2 seats side by side and could spread out a bit. Nobody asked for my ticket and there was no buffet cart.
Walking home from Waverley Station down Leith Walk at 11pm on a Tuesday night it was clear things were different. People were looking at each other. People were looking at me. There were skaters out on the street. An angry part of me unloaded scorn internally on the skaters. “Dickheads. They think they’re in some post-apocalyptic movie.”
So things have shut down rapidly since then. I work for the NHS and am required to go in. Inside I was revelling. I have 3 legitimate reasons for going out – I can go to work because I have to, I can go for exercise (thank God, I’m a runner and would burst if I was stuck inside), and I can go to the shops for essentials.
We were some of the unlucky ones who didn’t get the toilet roll in time, so we’re making do. We have sawed kitchen rolls in half with a bread knife and that will do until the situation improves. I have a very humorous part that likes to laugh and is laughing now.
I need to wind this up somehow as there’s no end of things to say about it – but when I saw this invitation to blog and I saw the “Category/Theme” box my first thought was either the future-past or the past-future. There is something very familiar and a little comical about all this. As a public we easily make the connection to the zombie apocalypse movies we’ve been watching for some time now – we know about everything changing over night and nothing being the same any more. Also, I keep thinking about growing up in the 70s in the Islands and how there was nothing in the shops then either, and you never saw anyone from one day to the next, apart from family. It is astonishing how we managed to continue with our course via digital video conferencing technology and make it work. We also had a digital meet-up with our pal Nick who we haven’t seen for a couple of weeks but usually run with. Amazing – but sitting in front of a screen doesn’t replace the real life thing. The little tics and hold-ups of internet connection are so so jarring and make me not want to speak. And I get uncomfortable sitting in a chair for hours. It’s probably not a coincidence that me and my partner P have started watching all the old Star Treks on Netflix – there to see our old vision of how sexy technology was going to be. We’d just whizz about, we would materialize and de-materialize at the flick of a button. Then back to the quiet and the restriction. The normal restrictions. It’s raining outside and not very appealing but I need to get out and get some air because I have 3 on-line clients this afternoon and will be doing more extended sitting.
I know I haven’t mentioned the actual virus and its actual seriousness. The nearest I have got to the actual virus was talking to a new patient on the phone last week who may well have it but was too scared to bother anyone to get any help. She was struggling to breathe well and that was horrible for her. Both of us knew it might equally be anxiety, but I gave her the push I think she needed to ask for medical help anyway. I’ve just been getting the people I talk to to air all their fears as freely as they can. Lets take a good look at fear rather than be run by it. The fears are the usual fears; death, loss of loved ones, not knowing what’s going on, the authorities, our neighbours, fear of breaking down. Fear and anger – anger at other people, at governments, at things not making sense.