A Trust Exercise
One recent afternoon, moments after I’d ended what had been an easy-going telephone conversation, an unexpected wave of trepidation swept over me. I’d been contacted by the director of a women’s professional networking organization and had happily accepted an invitation to co-present a webinar on post-pandemic anxiety. The one niggle of worry I’d had during our discussion was knowing that my schedule was already tight. Taking on a new project on short notice would not be easy. Nevertheless, as a psychologist, I recognized the topic as an important one to address. I brushed my concern about the time crunch aside.
Now however, an hour after having pledged to offer guidance to members of this group who still felt unsteady, anxious or just slow to relaunch, I sat fidgeting at my writing desk. What great strides have YOU made in finding your way back into the social arena? an internal voice challenged. Should anyone really believe that an introvert like you would have answers about how to transition into the ‘next normal’? I slumped deep in my chair. The possibility that I might have nothing to offer our audience—beyond presenting myself as the pandemic poster child for the leery and bewildered—loomed large.
“Wary,” after all, did define my own post-pandemic mindset. Like so many others, I’d become hypervigilant to potential danger and threats over the past year. In particular, I was still trying to discern who, and what information about COVID I could trust. The social mingling that I had expected would be easier as more and more of us became vaccinated wasn’t. As I struggled to quell my anxiety about the webinar, I recalled an incident that served as a reminder about how susceptible I still was to responding to social situations with alarm.
A week before, on a sunny June morning, I’d stopped at our local market to do some serious shopping. There, I learned that the store’s mask-wearing restriction had been relaxed two days prior. The new “honor system” policy, the shop’s affable manager informed me, was that customers who’d been fully-vaccinated could opt out of wearing a mask, while it was hoped that those who hadn’t received the vaccine would mask-up before heading toward the aisles. This is great! I’d silently cheered, before doffing my face covering and rolling my cart forward.
As I headed toward the produce section, ready to smile at each person I encountered, I was surprised to see so many faces still covered in cloth. In our town, because CDC guidelines seemed to have been taken seriously throughout the pandemic, I quickly assumed—without any real evidence—that nearly everyone who could be vaccinated had already been double-dosed. They’re probably still nervous, I decided. Not yet ready to go au naturel in public.
It took only a few minutes, however, before I began questioning my assessment: Why did I take off my mask? I wondered. What if these people know something I don’t? My confidence in my decision fizzled like a poked balloon. Then, worried about how the maskers perceived me and unsure about what to do next, I stepped up my pace to finish my shopping. Harder to avoid was the impulse to explain to those I passed in the aisle that I’d been fully Moderna-injected; that I was “safe” to be around.
Two mornings later, inside another large grocery store--this one located just across our state’s line—I had a wacky encounter of a different sort. Away from the familiarity of my home town and with no store manager guiding the proceedings, the sight of so many mask-free individuals sent my anxiety skyward: Almost no one in this joint is wearing a face covering except me, I groused. I’ll bet they’re all anti-vaxxers. Probably nobody here has complied with a single CDC guideline in the last fifteen months!
Once more, without any hard data, I’d made a presumption—this time about people I immediately labeled as “them.” Hurrying past a long row of boxed breakfast cereals, I felt a suspicion-fueled anger rise in my chest. Clutching my purse tight under my arm, I avoided all eye contact as I strode toward the exit.
As a soft breeze ruffled the papers on my desk, I could see how, although I hadn’t named it as such then, I’d lost perspective in both situations. I’d responded with embarrassment in the one instance; and with indignation, suspicion, and disdain in the other. Each emotion had been an unconscious attempt to buffer myself against anxiety and fear. I’d created hypotheticals and carried them as facts.
I stood up to stretch then, and as I did, a frame for the webinar began to come into focus. Although it might seem redundant to some, I realized that acknowledging the legitimacy of our collective anxiety would be key: the magnitude of loss, fatigue, and ongoing uncertainty we are still grappling with as individuals, as communities, as a nation, is after all, both great and unprecedented. And lamentably, ours is an anxiety that is heightened further by current cultural and political divides: where one’s answer to the question, who do you trust? is too often the deal breaker for whether a conversation continues or is shut down.
Perhaps by sharing my who do you trust vignettes, other “poster-kids” for post-pandemic anxiety will be reassured that assigning negative, even threatening meanings to situations that are ambiguous or uncertain is a common phenomenon. Especially under conditions of high stress. Such reactions, I will remind them, should not be considered signs of weakness or some character flaw. Our common goal, I will add, is to take responsible precautions and use care to avoid allowing our views and our actions to be driven by fear.
Although the webinar format precludes our being in the same space, I’m imagining it now as a trust exercise: a trek through uncharted territory with others who have also felt guarded and befuddled through the worst of our pandemic. I’ll remind them that we are well-served by moving forward slowly; together, when possible. And that hope is a powerful antidote to fear.
Happy Reading!
Best,
