Corinne Carhuff-Pickell, March-June 2020
As a person with mental illness, particularly anxiety, I have literally been expecting a catastrophe for most of my life. Here it is, my very first pandemic.
When we were first quarantined, I thought, I’ve got this. I have coping skills. I’m prepared to thrive through crises. I even started an unpublished blog called Thriving in Quarantine. I was ready to climb up Corona Mountain and proclaim, “I did it and I did it well!”
The first time I wore a mask, I had a panic attack just taking it out of the package. The first time I walked into a store and saw everyone in masks and tape on the floor to encourage social distancing, I panicked and spent four hundred dollars on food. I had no plans to return to the supermarket until this crisis was over. I didn’t hoard toilet paper or paper towels and cleaning supplies. I wasn’t afraid of a food shortage. I was afraid of going back to the supermarket. That was new.
Another change was teaching my daughter while simultaneously working full-time from home. I’ve been a special education paraprofessional for fifteen years. It doesn’t matter how much experience I have or how many certifications I carry. Teaching my own child is the hardest job I’ve had as an educator.
I am not the only mom struggling with being everything for everyone. That’s what super moms do. Normally we must be in twelve different places at once. Now we’re stuck in one place with twelve different jobs and nowhere to escape to, except maybe the car or bathroom for a few minutes.
For the first month, I held it together, though. But when I realized that I wouldn’t be heading back to school to help my students, and this was reality for God knows how long, my resolve began crumbling. My daily life had been working full-time, parenting, and getting to extracurricular activities and appointments. Then there were the domestic demands—cooking, cleaning, paying bills. My life was a circus.
Then COVID-19 came to town and the circus suddenly stopped. I picture the quarantine like a scene in a movie—some supernatural moment when the world around a person suddenly freezes. But in Hollywood stories, the moment passes and the world starts moving again. Not this time. This time the world literally stopped. Businesses closed. Schools closed. People lost jobs. People died and are still dying.
Add managing mental illnesses on top of all that and Corona Mountain can feel like a volcano. Corona Mountain is so big that some days I can’t see myself ever getting over it. Then I remember that I am a warrior and I forge forward. I reach out for help, and I help others. I make myself a priority because my family needs me. The added pressure I put on myself to not only survive but thrive may seem like a lot, but it keeps me climbing. That pressure has brought me to places of peace in my life that I would have never expected. It brought me here, writing this piece to reach others and let them know that if I can do this, they can, too.
We all may not be climbing Corona Mountain with the same gear or facing the same obstacles, but we are climbing the same mountain and we are not alone.
Corinne Carhuff-Pickell is a mom, a survivor, an educator, and a writer. Her Nan, who wrote with her from a young age, still inspires her today.
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