When quarantine anxiety didn't fully explain one writer's constant tears, she turned to the experts.
The most logical answer seems obvious—quarantine, dummy!—but at the same time, it doesn't fully explain my sudden 24/7 sobfest. I've been through harder things in my life than holing up at home for a while, and I've been lucky enough not to have my health or livelihood compromised by COVID-19 thus far.
As I searched for clues, I realized I wasn't the only one in my group chat to have turned into a major crybaby lately. My friend Kate was reduced to tears because her boyfriend gently suggested that he'd like to have some input over the decoration of their new apartment; my friend Maya sobbed when she saw a tweet pointing out that
. What's happening to all of us? We've all been known to weather actual problems without shedding a tear, so why are we now crying aboutAccording to New York-based psychotherapist and relationship specialist Lisa Brateman, the inclination to cry at minor things in this stressful time has some psychological basis behind it: "Minor stress is connected to more frequent crying. Even a small increase in conflict or fear tend to trigger the need to cry.
Brateman's explanation made sense when I thought about my usual methods of dealing with stress. I'm a pretty verbal person, and I make sense of problems by talking them out with my therapist. Since quarantine began, though, therapy has begun to feel like an exercise in futility. After all, I tell myself, I'm dealing with the same fear and loss of control that pretty much everyone else is, and sometimes I feel like I'm talking in circles.
What's truly unique about quarantine is the fact that for the first time in my life, I have no social context. I'm alone 24/7, except for brief weekly grocery runs and occasional visits from the UPS guy. Is that part of why my tears are flowing so freely? Am I always this much of a crybaby, and social norms just keep me from expressing it most of the time?
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