Coping with the crisis: What we know
This is the first of a weekly series of columns by Dr. Ryan Sultan, a board-certified adult and pediatric psychiatrist, and an assistant professor of clinical psychiatry at Columbia University Medical Center. His family has been on Shelter Island for over 60 years.
COVID-19 has changed life. We are all living in an unprecedented time of disruption, change and fear. This is serious, and it is entirely normal for you to feel scared, anxious and overwhelmed.
Uncertainty is everywhere and it’s making us all feel as if we’re carrying a 20-pound weight on our shoulders.
We’re worried about the physical, financial and mental well-being of ourselves and our loved ones.
A casual glance at the news reveals that even experts are unsure of the severity of the situation, or how long it will last. No reliable medical treatment exists for the COVID-19 coronavirus yet; questions remain regarding how easily the illness spreads and how to predict who will have more severe illness.
Essential workers are putting themselves and their immediate family members at risk, while others have lost their jobs, and millions are living with the uncertainty of whether their jobs will survive the crisis. And the majority of us are being told to stay home —-all the time.
I reiterate these facts not to scare you, but to validate you. We are all feeling unsure of what the future holds. Questions haunt us: Will I get sick? Will there be resources to treat me? Will my job be cut? Will my business survive? What will happen with the stock market?
These are all appropriate concerns.
As a life-long, part-time, resident of the Island, I feel the effect on our community. As a psychiatrist and psychotherapist, I work to help my patients navigate these feelings. I’d like to share some of what I think about our situation. I hope it will help all of us get through this together.
Our minds are designed to fear anything we can’t predict, plan or control. This keeps us safe from danger, but it also adversely affects our mood, sleep and behavior.
Further, concentrating on the uncertainty of this situation breeds deeper and deeper worry and anxiety. How do we combat this? With all these unknowns, we must concentrate on what we do know.
We know that the path of restrictions that scientists and doctors have laid out for us is working. It is saving lives. Is this path hard on everyone? Yes. But it is working. We know our town is working tirelessly to continue to keep everyone safe.
We know we’ve faced challenges before and Islanders have come together — year-rounders, snow birds, part-timers and summer people. We know that every one of us has faced challenges in our lives before. And we have gotten through them.
When I concentrate on what we know, I become certain that this will end. I become certain that our special Island is strong. I become certain that we are resilient.
Finally, I become certain that if we follow the path, we will emerge from this crisis together.
