My mind is like a rollercoaster; how to take care of your own mental health during this time.

By Ma Cyndy

Today when I was shopping, another customer cut off the line at the cashier in the supermarket. I was angry and confronted her and told her to wait for her turn. Normally, I let people go and say nothing about this kind of behavior, but not this time. I don’t know why I behaved differently and was so angry at her. I feel my mind is like a roller coaster nowadays having many different emotions at once.

Some of the emotions I have felt strongly during the last weeks and how I tried to manage coping with these:

1. “Feelings of anger” – Try to reduce your anger by taking a time out. It could be reading, watching your old favorite movies or cooking the food you like. Another way is to bang the metal pots at night time.
2. “Dissatisfaction” – Look at this difficult feeling as a sign of a good heart, soft and loving. There is a basic goodness beneath all of our difficulties, and we just need to stay focused and notice this goodness.
3. “Losing Hope” – You can help this feeling by praying, meditating and believing things will get better, try to think positive; at the end there is always a solution.
4. “Being Afraid” – This is quite common feeling for people at the moment. You can change your fear by staying close with people that you love; family, friends or neighbors.
5. “Feeling Unsafe” – Safety is connected with being afraid of unseen circumstances. Once that happens, be careful with your home locks when you go out and be careful where you are going and who you are going with.
6. “Worries”- This is another common feeling for everyone. Hope, being afraid and feeling unsafe will make you worry. Try to talk to others within and outside of surroundings. Share your feelings and tell them how you feel and keep in touch with them.
7. “Losing ambition” – Don’t forget you have your own dreams before. Don’t let the situation destroy your destination and stay ambitious. Yes, you might have to adapt your plans but try to keep having a goal.
8. “Helplessness” If you are feeling helpless, try to help other people in any way to make yourself feeling better. Offer food, drinks or other things to people who need it, volunteer for a charity etc.
9. ”Tiredness” – you might get tired from all these the feelings above. In such situation, try to listen to music sleep well and eat healthy.
10. “Easily distracted” – You might get distracted easily due to this situation. Therefore, try to focus on what you have been doing, ignore all the news for a while and do what you have to do. Make a time schedule in the morning how you want to plan your day and stick to it.

When I got home from the supermarket, I realized my anger to the lady skipping the queue was caused by many other emotions I had during the last week. We may feel angry because of being afraid, worried and tired, we may feel worried about getting home in time for curfew and feel tired of running around to get food and walking out in the sun.

I dropped my groceries and drank a lot of water to avoid dehydration. I did nothing for 10 minutes to calm myself down and talked to my neighbors. I called my parents and friends to make sure they are fine and safe. Then, I cooked healthy food and invited neighbors to have dinner with me. We had great time! Finally, I went to bed soundly and totally forgot about the incident in the afternoon.

I realized it is normal to have so many different emotions during a day and it is tiring sometimes. I just want to share these thoughts with you during this time; don’t give up – stay mentally strong!