We Need to Talk About Carl: How to cope with a pandemic
Written by: Andrew Bingman, Psy.D.
I’d like you to imagine a guy named Carl. I’m going to be referring to him throughout this entire blog, so this will probably be a lot more entertaining for you if you imagine Carl as being ridiculously attractive.
Once you get an image of our new friend in your mind, let’s imagine that Carl is usually a pretty likeable dude who balances his demanding job and active social life like a boss and enjoys outdoor activities, like kayaking or spelunking or something like that. For the past few couple of months, though, Carl has become more and more isolated from his friends and family, and he isn’t running around in caves (I think that’s what spelunking is - ??) or getting outside as much as he usually does. Also, he’s been procrastinating on work assignments and various tasks around the house, and he’s spending most of the time in front of the television watching shows that don’t make him proud like Love is Blind or reruns of The Office. He’s also noticed recent, not-so-great changes in his sleep routine and eating habits.
If you had asked me “What’s up with Carl?” back in 2019, I would have told you that it sounds like he might be experiencing depressive symptoms and recommended that he take some time to explore that. But this is 2020, and it sounds to me like Carl is doing the best he can during a FREAKING PANDEMIC.
Let’s just take a second to acknowledge that this pandemic totally sucks. Most of us, like Carl, have had to make some pretty major adjustments, and it’s still pretty unclear how long these adjustments are going to last and what they’ll look like moving forward over the next few months. Taking all that into consideration, it’s not that surprising that the COVID-19 pandemic has taken a toll on mental health. According to data from a recent poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation (2020), 45 percent of adults in the United States report that stress associated with COVID-19 has had a harmful impact on their mental health, and this is especially true for folks who have been sheltering in place, are experiencing economic insecurity, or are worried about loved ones becoming ill.
Although these results can be somewhat alarming, one takeaway that I hope you’ll get is this: If you have been feeling sad, worried, angry, guilty, and/or countless other challenging emotions as a result of COVID-19, you are NOT alone. Let’s be real – you’re navigating a global health crisis the best way you know how, and that is tough. If you’re struggling right now, I get it, and I’m also here to help.
So that said, here are three steps to help you manage challenging emotions during the COVID-19 pandemic (oh and there’s a bonus – these steps will help you even when there isn’t a pandemic!)
Step 1: Validate your Emotions
Step 2: Externalize your Self-Critical Thoughts
Step 3: Do the Opposite Behavior
Remember Carl? I miss him and his perfect jawline, so let’s revisit him for a moment and imagine a recent scenario. Let’s say that Carl and his college buddies have an annual tradition where they reunite and do some sort of adventurous activity (like spelunking!). Sadly, they’ve had to cancel this year’s reunion due to social distancing guidelines, and Carl is feeling disappointed, sad, and lonely. Once Carl recognizes that he is feeling sad, he starts thinking that other people have it way worse than he does, so he shouldn’t be so selfish. Even though he knows that he should be getting a head start on this work assignment that is due in a few days, Carl is too distracted by his self-critical thoughts to concentrate, so he sits down on the couch and binge-watches Tiger King. Seven hours later, Carl starts thinking that Carole Baskin clearly killed her husband and that he is stupid and lazy for putting off his work assignment. Consequently, Carl starts to feel guilty and frustrated, on top of feeling disappointed, sad, and lonely.
One of the primary assumptions of cognitive-behavioral therapy is that our emotions, thoughts, and behaviors are all interrelated and influence each other. As you can see in this example, Carl’s feelings and self-critical thought patterns resulted in procrastination, which ultimately contributed to an increase in self-criticism and painful emotions. This is a classic example of what I like to call a “vicious cycle,” where folks get locked into this repeating pattern of feelings, thoughts, and behaviors that keep them stuck in a painful headspace. So, let’s go on a rescue mission and get our friend Carl and his washboard abs out of this vicious cycle.
Step One: Validate Your Emotions
The concept of managing or controlling your emotions is a bit misleading because human beings actually have very little control over their feelings. So let’s find a more helpful route. Emotions are an automatic, neurological response to something going on in the present moment, either externally (e.g., watching a sad movie) or internally (e.g., recalling a sad memory). If you feel sad, then you feel sad, and you are not going to simply snap your fingers and make that sadness go away. That said, you can make that sadness feel a bit more manageable by validating it.
I’d like you to imagine that you are standing in a pool (preferably next to Carl) and you have a beachball in your hand, and that beachball represents your emotions. When we experience painful emotions, many of us try to suppress or dismiss these feelings, and we tell ourselves that we are weak, selfish, and so forth for having them. This is similar to pushing your beachball underwater and holding it there. The problem is that you eventually will have to let go (unless you plan on spending the rest of your life standing in the pool) and, when you do, that beachball won’t just rise to the surface; instead, it bursts out of the water and leaps into the air. If you try to “control” or suppress how you are feeling, those emotions will ultimately become more intense, turning sadness into despair, anger into rage, anxiety into panic, etc.
Therefore, it is much more effective (and requires a lot less energy) to validate your feelings. All you have to do is take a few deep breaths and check in with yourself to see how you are feeling. Once you have identified the emotion or combination of emotions you are currently following, repeat after me:
“I am feeling (insert emotion here) right now, and that is okay.”
This is the psychological equivalent of letting your beachball float in the pool with you while you go for a swim. The difficult emotion will still be there, but you will no longer be wasting energy trying to fight or suppress it, leaving with you more energy that you can devote elsewhere.
Step Two: Externalize your Self-Critical Thoughts
Many of us (aside from the occasional sociopath) have what I like to call an “inner critic,” which is the voice inside our heads telling us that we are not good enough. We all have insecurities, and our inner critic loves to draw our attention to these insecurities in an effort to convince us that we are unlovable and incapable. Inner critics also have a mean-spirited tendency to kick us when we’re down, which is something we saw earlier with our friend Carl. When he was feeling sad and disappointed about cancelling a reunion with his friends, his inner critic told him that he is selfish, stupid, and lazy, which ultimately resulted in greater emotional pain.
But listen – critics get it wrong all the time.
The movie Hocus Pocusis rated at 34% on Rotten Tomatoes, meaning that 66% of critics have no clue what they’re talking about. Need more evidence? I once had a friend tell me that Beyoncé is overrated and it damn near ruined our friendship. If someone can be so wrong about the queen herself, your inner critic can definitely be wrong about you. When we get deep down enough, we often find there is no reason to believe that your inner critic is telling you the truth or that other people in your life will have the same perception of you that your critic has.
This brings us to the second step, which is to externalize your self-critical thoughts. When you recognize that you are having negative thoughts about yourself, imagine that your inner critic is a separate person (you can have a bit of fun here and give your inner critic a name) who is saying these negative things directly to you. By visualizing this, you can gain a different vantage point that allows you to examine your self-critical thoughts more objectively, rather than accepting them at face value. This also can create an opportunity to challenge and/or dismiss your inner critic.
Let’s see how this might play out with our friend Carl, who has decided to name his inner critic Sharon, after an ex-girlfriend who used to criticize him constantly throughout their relationship. When Carl has the thought that he is stupid and lazy, he imagines that his inner critic Sharon is sitting across from him, telling him that he is stupid and lazy. Upon recognizing that Sharon is being spiteful and kicking him while he is down, he responds, “Screw you, Sharon! Don’t come for me unless I send for you.” Carl might also have some remaining emotional baggage there but that’s for another blog.
Step Three: Do the Opposite Behavior
Look – I get it. When I’m having a really bad day, my mind tells me to eat a pint of ice cream and spend all day in bed watching Gilmore Girls. As tempting as this might sound, though, Lorelai Gilmore isn’t paying my bills and I’ve got things to do. While taking a personal day and having some down time can be good for the soul from time to time, we can sometimes get stuck in a behavioral pattern that creates problems for us, causing us to procrastinate or remain inactive for extended periods of time. When we are dealing with challenging emotions, many of us tend to experience fatigue and a lack of motivation, and this gets really challenging for professionals in particular, sometimes resulting in missed deadlines, poor performance reviews, and/or increased stress as a result of excessive procrastination.
When folks experience a lack of motivation, they often put forth a lot of energy trying to build intrinsic motivation so that they can complete whatever tasks are needing to be done. This can lead to an internal conflict because they are essentially attempting to convince themselves that they want to do something that they simply do not want to do.
For example, our friend Carl easily could have experienced an internal conflict when he was watching Tiger Kinginstead of completing his work assignment: “I would feel so much better if I got a head start on this work assignment and got it out of the way, but it’s just one more episode. What difference is one more episode going to make?”
This brings us to the third and final step: do the opposite behavior. When using this skill, there is no need to establish intrinsic motivation or convince yourself that you want to do something. Instead, this skill allows you to acknowledge and validate what you are genuinely thinking and feeling, thus leaving you with more energy to focus on changing your behavior. Suppose you are feeling guilty because you have been ignoring work emails and are having difficulty motivating yourself to respond to them.
First, identify how you are feeling and what that feeling is driving you to do (“I am feeling guilty right now, and that is okay. My guilt is driving me to avoid responding to these emails.”) Second, identify the opposite behavior (“The behavior that is opposite of ignoring these emails would be to respond to them.”). Third, do the opposite behavior.
Feeling overwhelmed? Well, I have some good news! Remember that our emotions, thoughts, and feelings are all interrelated and have an influence on each other. I’ve walked you through three steps to address each of the three points in a vicious cycle, but a positive change in one point will ultimately lead to a positive change in the other two, so you really only need to master one skill in order to reap the benefits. My personal recommendation would be to start with step one and practice validating your emotions.
Let me remind you that you are navigating a GLOBAL HEALTH CRISIS and it would be surprising and low-key weird if you weren’t experiencing some painful emotions right now. Your feelings are normal and valid, and there is absolutely NOTHING wrong with you. You are doing the best you can do, and that is enough! So let’s end with a celebration. I want you to take a moment to acknowledge what you’re going through and celebrate the fact that you are handling a pandemic for the very first time and you’re still hanging in there like a pro. And if you need some extra support, you know where to find me (I’ll be at Carl’s house).