I worry about fairly small things on a regular basis that I have been beginning to learn how to deal with fairly swiftly. However, with prolonged lockdown and the extra time that has given me to overthink, within the last week, I began to feel the full effects of what separation from normal life and mixing with people can do and these little worries started to grow arms and legs and left me feeling the most crippled I have ever remembered feeling.

There were many points when I couldn’t understand or explain what was happening to me. I didn’t recognise or feel like myself. I didn’t completely lose my faith but I did struggle to feel God’s acceptance of me at times. Through a couple of nightmares I had, I wrongly let myself start to question if I was the caring person I thought I was and thought that no one would want to know me. I also struggled to see how and when I was going to get better this time.

There were, however, glimmers of hope that got me through each day. A small example was when I was out on essential business one day, I had noticed once I had taken off my headphones that they were dirty and I immediately went to clean them. I realised that if I still took this care to look after one of the smallest things in my life, how much more care would I still give to the bigger, most important things and people in my life. There were many other bigger examples after that that increased my faith that I and nothing else has changed despite these scary experiences that were not based on reality but this was particularly interesting as I never expected to have a life lesson from a pair of headphones! Most importantly though, the love and understanding from those I shared these struggles with throughout last week and the reassurance that they gave of the normality of feeling like this has been a great encouragement to me.

I feel frustrated that I allowed these feelings to linger for as long as they did. However, I am so glad to be back in a much better place now. I’m also thankful that it was something that I can learn from. I hope that this message will also help others to be assured that when we are in unnatural circumstances like lockdown, it will be natural to feel insecure and like you are losing your identity and although it took me longer to realise this than I would have liked but that there is no shame in it.

Thank you for taking the time to read this and I hope you find it helpful. As always, feel free to get in touch with any questions/feedback/comments, I always love to hear it. Stay tuned for the next instalment.

Until next time

K