When Cassie was first diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer 19 months ago our lives were turned upside down. We were scared and overwhelmed. We didn’t know what to do or where to turn. We woke up anxious and went to bed the same way. We didn’t sleep. Our normal routines were upended. We were consumed by fear and uncertainty. Sound familiar?
Everything that we felt then has come rushing back these past weeks. It has reminded us that one of the first things we did when Cassie was diagnosed was to try to reduce other things that were causing anxiety in our lives. Primary among those was the daily onslaught of news and (for Dan) social media. We have both always been avid consumers of current events — reading multiple papers daily, staying engaged and using our I-pads and phones to check the news throughout the day.
After we found out that Cassie was sick we pulled way back. Dan got off social media altogether, we limited our news consumption to once a day and we focused on connecting with each other and trying to address the new and extreme anxiety that cancer had brought into our lives. Being less obsessive with following and tracking the news helped — a lot. We settled into our new normal and while we remain engaged with external events it was to a far lesser degree than we had previously.
As the months progressed, we resumed our historic patterns but then Coronavirus hit. Given Cassie’s compromised immune system and being far away from our support system, we’ve both been filled with extreme anxiety (Dan more than Cassie, actually.) So we decided to again limit our news consumption to once a day. That allows us to still track what’s going on but to otherwise disconnect from seeing the same scary news over and over again. “Breaking” news isn’t really breaking all that much anymore. Instead it’s the same information repackaged across different sites and under different headlines. We can easily learn what we need by checking once a day and use our found time to focus on things that are less anxiety producing whether that’s taking a walk, a new book, TV series or a game.
To be clear, disconnecting from the news wasn’t easy for us nineteen months ago and it’s not easy now. We have to (gently) remind each other constantly. But, desperate times call for desperate measures and we hope that social distancing from the news will flatten our anxiety curve.
This is very very wise advice for all of us going forward: ““Breaking” news isn’t really breaking all that much anymore. Instead it’s the same information repackaged across different sites and under different headlines. We can easily learn what we need by checking once a day and use our found time to focus on things that are less anxiety producing whether that’s taking a walk, a new book, TV series or a game.”
Thanks for finally talking about >Social Distancing
From the News – Meaning & Stuff <Loved it!
Hello. This post was extremely interesting, especially because I was looking for thoughts on this topic last Thursday.
Best regards,
Lunding Hessellund