Learning to Talk to People With Anxieties Regarding Covid-19

Last night, something kind of strange happened.              

I was at work (yes, I am still going to work, for which I feel blessed), and there was a call from someone.              

There were other guys (only guys) there, but it was me who picked up. There was a woman who works for the company, but who called because she had just closed her location. She said that it was a big deal, and she sounded uncertain and, frankly scared.              

So, I tried my best to comfort her, despite the obvious limitations for my being able to do so. I told her that hopefully, things will return back to normal within a couple of weeks, that hopefully this will boil over before we know it. I sympathized with her fears and her feelings of being sad and overwhelmed, because that seems like something that we should all be relating to right about now. Unless you are living in a cave, this is an entirely new experience for all of us, and not something that we necessarily can feel any comfort in.              

We just spoke like that for a few minutes. I offered what help I could, even though what she really wanted, most likely, was just to talk to someone and vent. To share her fears, her uncertainty, her sadness. Here she is, basically just having been told that her workplace will now be closed until the end of the month. The normal routine that she – and most likely all of us – had taken for granted is now over, and most likely, we will never have the same level of security about our normal jobs and lives again, truth be told.              

Of course she just wanted to be able to talk, to hear a friendly, sympathetic voice. It’s only natural. It’s only human.              

We did not know one another. To my knowledge, we had never spoken before. But for a few moments, we shared a human connection at a time when human connections are literally being discouraged. We expressed frustration about events that are well beyond our control, and which have reshaped this world, and our lives along with it.              

Afterward, we hung up. The other guys in the office asked me what that was all about, and so I told them.              

It was a woman who had just called us because she was feeling uncertain about everything. She had just wanted to talk, was just feeling fearful and uncertain about things that were beyond control, and so she wanted to talk about it. She had mentioned to me that this was a big deal, and I agreed with her.              

The other guys kind of shrugged. Said that they would have cut the conversation short. Would have hung up way earlier than I did. That’s not what we’re paid for, seemed to be the consensus.              

Maybe not. But listen: we are all human beings. Those guys are supertough guys, very macho. Into hot cars and trucks and such. That they could hold their own in any conversation about cool cars or trucks and such.              

The coronavirus is something very different. Again, life stops on many levels from what it was before. Things are likely not to just return to normal ever again, frankly. The economy is tanking, and there are reports that many people are going to lose their jobs. Even for those who are going to maintain their jobs and/or financial stability, life will probably never return quite back to what we considered normal before all of this. Once this has happened, it is no longer unthinkable that it could happen again. In fact, many people – myself included – are almost surprised that something like this had not happened earlier.  

But it has happened now.  

And we have to learn how to deal with it, which also means being able to talk about it with other people.  

Dismissing such a call, and suggesting that they may have made a point of hanging up much earlier, just is not the kind of talk that any of us should engage in. Frankly, I do not believe that they were fully joking.  

We need to be able to relate to other people, and to understand and appreciate the fears and uncertainties that other people are facing, and we need to learn to listen when it comes to other people simply expressing themselves: their frustrations, their sadness. Yes, even if it does not directly impact us, personally. Just listen to people. Talk to them.  

I am not a trained psychiatrist. This woman, a stranger, called, and so we talked. I did not have any more answers about any of this than anyone else. How could I possibly know what is going to happen? This whole thing took me by surprise, just like it did everyone else. All that I could do was listen to her concerns, and express my empathy. Lend her my ear, and commiserate with what she was going through and, to some degree, share our sense of grieving for what we all have lost with all of this.  

We need to learn to communicate better.