Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC and on anxiety about returning to normal social life, Diana in Brooklyn. You're on WNYC. Hi Diana. Thanks so much for calling in.
Diana: Hi, Brian. I love you and your whole team. I'm feeling nervous about getting back out there with the pandemic ending. I'm an outgoing person who you would think of would be very excited to see lots of people and yet I've gotten so used to being alone and to regulating myself with just a very little, few social interactions. I'm worried that I'll get out there and I'll do too much. I'll overextend myself. I won't be able to regulate myself. Maybe I even feel a little bit like I could let other people down somehow, and I've forgotten how to do it.
Brian Lehrer: How do you think you would potentially let other people down?
Diana: It's a great question. I'm not sure. I didn't realize I felt that way until I said it. I just think that we all have so many needs built up right now, emotional needs, social needs. On the one hand, I want to get those needs met by other people, but on the other hand, I'm really aware of my own vulnerabilities now. Not in terms of physical vulnerabilities, but just more emotional that I need to take care of myself too. I guess I feel like I might not be fun enough or something.
Brian Lehrer: Diana, thank you for starting us off. I think it's helpful to hear something like that articulated. I could just imagine the heads nodding out there like, "Me too." Max in Brooklyn. You're on w NYC. Hi, Max.
Max: Hello. Huge fan. Thank you for having me.
Brian Lehrer: Thank you.
[crosstalk]
Max: I just want to say I'm somebody who has dealt with social anxiety my entire life. I used to turn to drinking too much to handling it. This last year, well, it's been terrible. I have felt a little bit of a reprieve from that. I got fully vaccinated, started to volunteer again, walked up to the group of people, and got so afraid that I immediately bee-lined it out of there, took a breath, and realized walking around the park is the best thing you can do to warm up to a social situation. Just be around, hear people's laughter in the sun, families together, friends together. It eased me back into being around people. I walked right back up to the group. Everything was fine.
It was [unintelligible 00:02:35] at a park, so it wasn't the greatest day of my life, but it was fine. It's a great way to ease yourself back into being around people. I know that sounds lame and almost creepy because you're like, "Why is this guy listening to people in a park?" But if you see someone who's been alone a lot for the last a year, just being around people having a good time and laughing, and since they don't know you and you're just walking through the park, there's no social pressure on you. You're just taking in the energy from people and it helps really calm down and get you back into the mode of dealing with people for the first couple of times.
Brian Lehrer: What did you learn about yourself through that story you just told?
Max: At that point when I was about to go home instead of-- Oh, what did I learn about myself?
Brian Lehrer: Yes.
Max: Sorry. Just when I was walking through the park and I realized that just being around the people-- because they were gathering on the outside of the park. I turned and walked around, being in the sun, seeing the people have fun again, I'm not just staring at my TV, that really-- I got a warmth and it wasn't just from the heat. It was just the energy that people gave off to each other. Again, I'm not a social person, but just feeling that energy from people that I don't know, but they're excited to be around and happy again, it really revitalized me in a way that I didn't expect. I thought that I was going to miss my days of isolation, but just having that energy again is something that I think I took for granted before the pandemic.
Brian Lehrer: A little approach and avoidance. Anxiety, in your case, Max. Thank you so much, Claire in Hell's Kitchen. You're on WNYC. Hi Claire.
Claire: Hi Brian. Thanks for having me on.
Brian Lehrer: Thanks so much for calling.
Claire: Yes. I have been lying to people about the fact that I've had my second injection, and that it's way past two weeks because I really just don't want to go out there and sit in some restaurant and talk about how cool it is and how we've survived and all of this when so many people haven't. It feels like some weird survival guilt that I'm experiencing that's giving me this anxiety.
Brian Lehrer: Wow. Do you think you feel guilty that you were able to get a vaccine when so many people are still looking for their shots?
Claire: Yes. Also with like sitting in an outdoor situation and people, especially in my neighborhood, there are a lot of people who are without permanent housing, a lot of people who are really hungry, and like flaunting it a little bit. It's a little bit like that.
Brian Lehrer: How are you going to re-enter? You can't lie about your vaccination status forever.
Diana: Forever. It's true. I think in small doses like maybe going to people's homes who have also been vaccinated, having people over to my place, meeting outside in the park, as the previous caller said. That's neutral territory and bringing a coffee is a little less intrusive than sitting and eating a $15 margarita and lobster business,
Brian Lehrer: A little less conspicuous consumption if you're visiting somebody in their home. Claire.
Claire: Exactly.
Brian Lehrer: Thank you so much, Claire, with a conscience. Alison in Nassau County. You're on WNYC. Hi Alison.
Alison: Hi Brian. I lost my husband at the very, very beginning of the pandemic.
Brian Lehrer: I'm sorry.
Alison: Thank you. I appreciate that. Something that I'd like to put out there is something that I'm anxious about, is when people first hear about my loss, the things that they say, some of them have been fairly horrific, and I'm hoping-- I am anxious about, as I come out in public more, it's been a year of tremendous isolation and more people learn about it, some of the things that people say, I am anxious about. I have people wanting information about how he got it. They want information about-- I've had people ask me how long he was on a ventilator. I've had people blame the doctors or use it as an opportunity to soapbox about politics. If people are listening, and I'm sure they are, I'd ask that you understand when you first hear about someone's loss, that your questions may be asking them to relive the most traumatic moments of their lives. Make sure that what you're saying or what you're asking is less about yourself and your anxiety than it is about them and their loss.
Brian Lehrer: It's always good advice. It's so often, even in more normal circumstances for people to ask questions that sometimes hurt, even if they're not intended to somebody who's lost somebody and in the pandemic, all those things that you raised, "How did he get it? How long was he on it?" All of those kinds of things where people may just be curious.
Alison: [inaudible 00:07:58] still trying to make sense of it. It's a shock when you share that someone has passed that you weren't expecting it to. It's completely normal to ask things like, "How did he get it? Oh my God. I'm so sorry." But just some mindfulness and some tenderness in the upcoming weeks as people emerge.
Brian Lehrer: Alison. Thank you for raising that. I hope a lot of people hear it, who will take it to heart. Susan in Manhattan. You're on WNYC. Hi Susan.
Susan: Hi Brian. I actually can stay on to talk because I'm going into a therapy session to discuss this very topic. I have to say that being isolated for a year and staying at home, staying with my sisters for a year, and not participating in the socializing the way I pushed myself to before that, it feels like as if this is the experience where I worked so hard to get out and be social and participate, and now COVID just pushed me all the way down to the bottom. It's very, very hard. I almost think we should start a group. Everybody who feels like it's difficult to get out there, we just form a group. It's tough. It's very, very tough.
Brian Lehrer: It's two and a half minutes to 12. You'll still make it on time to your therapy session.
Susan: [laughs] Thank God it's through Zoom.
Brian Lehrer: Thank you for giving us a preview. Maybe your therapist was listening and you can start two steps ahead of where you would have. We have just enough time for Jack at Seton Hall University to get the last word. Jack, can you do it in 30 seconds?
Jack: Great talent, great show. Unusual experience, Easter Sunday afternoon with my family for the first time in a year, delighted. Socially, it all went well. I had a personal experience like the character in Our Town, who comes back to life into her home. Everyone was there, and I felt I was almost an out-of-body experience. My sister-in-law understood. I had to walk through every room in the house downstairs and upstairs. What a joyful feeling like on a cloud. I just had to verbalize.
Brian Lehrer: To be in the company of people again.
Jack: It's still the same and your role here, just like in Our Town.
Brian Lehrer: A pep talk from Jack at Seton Hall University. Thank you all for calling in. I know we could do a whole other one for parents with children who might be having social anxiety at re-entry, and maybe we will. Listeners, thanks for all your candor and all your calls. I think it helped a lot of other people.
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