Oops, Dad Was Right
Well shit.
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I was raised with the notion that we were all going to die a horrible death some day. The possibility of societal meltdown or apocalypse was not a matter of if, it was a matter of when. And that moment of “the shit hitting the fan” is, and has always been, just around the corner.
My dad is a self proclaimed survivalist. I was in 2nd grade when 9/11 happened and he had a field day with it. He began collecting guns, water, and survival food. It never got to the point where we had full pantries full of supplies, but we did have a couple bins of rice and peanut butter in our child hood basement.
He spoke a lot about his predictions regarding the state of the world and the U.S, about how if “terrorists” got their way we would get our throats slit, about how we always must be prepared. In a lot of ways he is a small man. This mentality was fun for him because it gave him excitement and a sense of control.
In my adult life I have a lot of anxiety. I believe being raised under this mentality is part of the reason why — throughout my child hood I was always expecting an unavoidable decline in modern society, much suffering, and the eventual inevitability of having to watch my loved ones die horribly before dying myself.
In the past few years that I’ve been in therapy, I’ve been working toward rejecting this crisis mentality in favor of something more reasonable — that we will all be fine, that the world will not end, and that my loved ones (and I) are more likely to die of natural causes and old age rather than a global disaster or terrorism. I’ve made a lot of progress in this. I’ve calmed down a lot.
And just as I’m finally able to get everything subsequent to that anxiety under control for the first time in my life — the eating disorder, depression, whatever — lo and behold, the world is fucking ending and my dad was right after all.
Okay, so I realize that the world isn’t really ending. At least, I damn well hope not.
Yet we have never quite seen anything like what is currently playing out all across the world. Grocery stores are picked clean. We’ve got people stabbing other people over supplies. Whole nations are on lock down, thousands are dying, and life as we know it is basically shut down “until further notice.”
So yeah. Even though it was just a hobby for a bored suburban sad sack, it looks like Dad might have been right all along.
Human behavior is at its worst in times like these, and that is where the real crisis lies. The panic buying itself is partially why COVID-19 is spreading the way it is, at least in the United States. That, and sheer boomer narcissism. We’ve got a handful of families with enough toilet paper and sanitizer to last a life time, yet the rest of the world can’t get soap or TP to wipe their ass with even for the next couple days. In about a week or so the same will be said for groceries, at least in my area. In others, even most food items are already out of stock.
Put succinctly, people are now panic buying because they’re scared of other people’s panic buying. Its an infuriating cycle.
Realistically speaking, the longest any given city in the U. S. will stay on lock down is a month. Realistically speaking, the CDC is working on ways to treat/prevent this virus. Realistically speaking, if we all calm down and re-organize our priorities things would not be as bad as they are right now.
Then again, if the CDC doesn’t develop any solutions, if the virus keeps spreading at the rate it is, if people keep going untested because the tests aren’t available and/or are too expensive, an estimate of 40–70% of the population will become ill in the next 12 months and approximately 1.5 million will die. They will die because there aren’t enough hospital beds. They will die because medical professionals aren’t getting the supplies they need. They will die because panic causes chaos and chaos makes people act like animals.
As someone who has grown up expecting this sort of thing to happen, I will attest that in times of panic it is important to lean into the rational brain, despite the “what-ifs” that echo back. Acting on fear, while understandable, will only make things worse.
This is all, in a very acute way, my worst childhood nightmare playing out in real time. But because I’ve spent my whole life trying to calm down that theoretical anxiety, I’m finding it surprisingly easy to roll with the punches in this current crisis.
My message to everyone is to stop and make a list of what they will need for the next 1 month and no longer. Get enough pet food, dry and canned goods, and medications for 31 days. Keep in mind that even if we do go on lock down or quarantine, there will still be services available. No one will starve.
I also urge everyone to really stop and evaluate priorities. This is enormous and could make all the difference in how COVID-19 spreads.
Do you have to go to disney world next week (I’m looking at you, Boomer down the hall)? Do you — again, realistically speaking — really need to buy 4 family sized packs of Charmin all at once? Do you really need to use the airport when you can drive and save yourself all that contact with other people? If you are having cold or flu like symptoms, do you really need to go out to lunch, to the gym, to the store? Etc etc. Stop putting yourself first, and start working to reduce possible spread of germs.
And most importantly, calm your tits about this whole thing. The next couple months are going to be a dumpster fire but each one of us has the power to keep it from spiraling even more out of control.
