At the start of the pandemic there was a meme going round on social media saying people with anxiety are best prepared because they’ve already spent many months worrying. Back in February, when cases in the UK had just started to rise, I laughed at this and shared it with my friends who have long put up with my endless anxiety. It seems strange now that all the worrying I’ve done over the years had actually become justified.
I’ve always had chronic health anxiety, but it was only in 2016 when it took over my life in a full-blown way. I was 19 and had just finished a year-long apprenticeship at the Daily Mirror when I started on a manic year of overworking to pay for a journalism qualification. I was working 10am-6pm in one newsroom, then hotfooting it across London to start at 7pm to do an evening shift in another, all in the hope of saving up the funds to do a course.
Once I had enough, I needed to support myself through the programme. As it ran full time from Monday to Friday, I worked every weekend and evenings on Fridays at another paper. I was selling freelance stories, trying to revise and maintain a 20-year-old’s social life. It felt like a student lifestyle on steroids and frankly, without the fun. I was tired, lonely and worried about my future.
By the end, I was exhausted. I started having panic attacks. They crept in slowly. First came anxious thoughts and palpitations, which progressed to lying awake all night listening to my heart beat in my ears. I’d cling onto a cup of tea that I wasn’t drinking, and was terrified that I was dying.
I’d fall into hours-long Google holes about rare illnesses, and obsessively check my arms, legs, eyes, mouth. I’d check my pulse, suddenly concerned my heart would just stop one day. It was debilitating.
Each time I found a new spot, bump, potential symptom I’d cry, exhausted that I had to be consumed into a Google black hole for the next four hours. One “symptom” would lead to another and suddenly I’d be twelve pages deep into medical studies. Even now I ban myself from Googling illnesses for this very reason. I started taking medication and counselling and thankfully, everything began to level out last year. I managed to go to a check up for diabetes in January, getting over my chronic fear of medical settings. It felt good.
But then coronavirus hit. Then things began to move very fast—rising deaths and lockdown laws.
Being Type 1 diabetic, as I am, means you are more at risk of complications if you contract Covid. A couple of weeks ago, a report was released saying 1 in 3 Covid deaths in the UK were related to diabetes. Type 1 diabetics are three-and-a half times more likely to die if they catch Covid than a non-diabetic, studies found. Suddenly, when I searched for the latest news update I didn’t have to go very far to find articles shouting about the risk I and others faced.
The general advice when anyone—anxiety issues or not—says they are getting overwhelmed by Covid is to stay off Twitter and don’t watch the news. But for me and other people with chronic health conditions, it’s important we stay on top of the advice at all times. I can’t live a semblance of a normal life, going out on a walk or popping to the shop if there’s information that I don’t know. I have to confront my health anxiety head on and acknowledge that while usually my earlier worries may have been irrational, this time there was a real, present and quite pertinent danger.
Although I didn’t feel like this at the start, it feels like I’m no longer protected. And if I feel like that, how are the people in a more vulnerable position than me meant to feel? As lockdown is lifting, more people start to socialise, parks are full and so are beaches. I want to see this. I want to take part in it, but I’m scared—I feel like there’s not been enough information to people like me or people more vulnerable than me. It’s just been a slap of overwhelming news I’ve been left to simmer in. Ultimately, we can’t afford to avoid the news in the name of self-care, so what are we meant to do?
It's important to remain aware of what's going on in the world. For me, it’s been about being vigilant and even though it goes against my usual coping strategies (not avoiding the news.) It doesn’t help that I feel the messages have been confusing all around, and government advice unclear—but I’m doing what I can to strike a balance between my mental and physical wellbeing.
