However You’re Feeling Right Now Is Totally Normal
A helpful glossary of pandemic emotions
Right now, every day, hour, and minute feels different. Some mornings, I wake up hopeful; other days, I’m filled with despair. One minute I’m feeling healthy and adjusted; the next, I’m scared to go outside to walk the dog.
In the face of a crisis, experiencing a strange mix of emotions is normal, says Ryan Howes, PhD, a clinical psychologist in Pasadena, California. “Some people are running on fear and adrenaline, others are feeling exhausted and burned out,” he explains. “People are wondering: Why can’t I sleep? Why did I just spend six hours on Twitter? Everything they’re feeling is a normal reaction to stress.”
Problem is, it can be difficult to put a name on this swarm of (mostly) negative feelings. “Our culture is not emotionally literate,” says clinical psychologist Ellen Hendriksen, PhD, author of How to Be Yourself: Quiet Your Inner Critic and Rise Above Social Anxiety. “When it comes to describing how they feel, most people only know a few basic terms, like sad, mad, glad. But these are just catchalls for a huge range of emotions.”
The thing is, learning how to identify specific feelings — like grief or anxiety — is crucial because doing so can help you work through those emotions. “If you know, for example…
