My Mental Health and a Global Pandemic

In some ways, I've been preparing for this pandemic my whole life! At various times, I've suffered from and been treated for generalized anxiety disorder, major depression, and vague one called adjustment disorder.

Leila freaking out with birds in her hands.

Which is why I am completely baffled by the fact that I am NOT freaking out right now. At all! And I am as stunned by this realization as you are.  

Today is Friday, March 20, 2020. My fifth day of teleworking from home, and my seventh day of staying inside, practicing social distancing. 

COVID-19 has officially been declared a global pandemic for over a week now. Tom Hanks and Idris Elba have both tested positive for this virus. Schools, businesses, restaurants, and bars are closed. 

Both Saturday Night Live and Last Week Tonight with John Oliver are on hiatus (until further notice). Normal society has come to a screeching halt. 

But I'm okay. And I think I'm okay because I've been working on my mental health almost non-stop for over a decade!  

I started seeing a therapist regularly in 2009, when I was so crippled with anxiety and depression that I could not sleep or eat. Humans need to eat and sleep in order to live. When I could no longer do either, I finally faced my fears and got the help I needed. I talked through those fears with a wonderful therapist, and my new-found psychiatrist prescribed me much-needed medication to get me eating and sleeping again.

Leila in 2009, not eating or sleeping.

Over those 16 months, from 2009 through 2010, I learned to face my fear (of talking about my fears), and I learned that I was not a slave to my emotions. I learned that I could take an emotion from a "10" and turn it down to a "6," just with the power of my breath alone. I learned to stop being so afraid of my own damn thoughts and emotions.

I went back to therapy in 2014 after a traumatic flight left me with PTSD. I was flying to Mexico to visit my dad who was in the hospital after a stroke. I was flying from Washington, DC to Dallas, TX, and I planned to change planes at DFW and continue on to Aguascalientes, Mexico. 

We had just begun our initial descent into DFW when I felt our plane tilt forward and to the left. It felt like a nose-dive. Passengers started screaming. Then 10 seconds later, we were back to normal, and the flight attendants didn't seem fazed. The pilot never told us what happened, and we landed like normal. The passenger next to me told me he was sure that we were going to be on the news that night.

I had about two hours before my next flight to Aguascalientes, so I found my way to the nearest airport TGI Fridays and immediately ordered a Long Island Iced Tea (having worked at TGI Fridays as a teenager, I knew that the Long Island Iced Tea was the most potent drink on the menu).

Long Island Iced Tea from TGI Fridays.

Once I finished that first one, I immediately ordered another. That was when I texted my partner and told him about my flight. He looked-up my flight on a public flight-tracker and told me that my plane had dropped 10,000 feet in a matter of seconds. 

I was pretty shaken-up, but by the power of TGI Fridays, I was able to muster-up enough liquid courage to get on my next flight. My week in Mexico was mostly spent in the hospital with my dad. I didn't have time to think about my return flight until the day I left. There was no TGI Fridays in the Aguascalientes airport, but I bought two cans of beer and chugged those as quickly as possible. And I eventually made it home. 

After returning home, I had nightmares every night about crashing planes. I had to get out of bed in the middle of the night and sit in the living room, flipping through Facebook or Twitter to calm myself down. I decided to go back to therapy because I had developed a full-on phobia of flying, and I didn't know how I would ever walk onto another airplane again. 

After just a couple of sessions with the Kaiser Permanente therapist and with the  psychiatrist, I started to attend a weekly group therapy session with other people who suffered from anxiety and panic. I loved this "anxiety class" (as I called it)! I learned about my "overactive amygdala." 

I learned about tactics like "worry time" and "categorizing your thoughts."

After a couple of weeks with these new tools, I had stopped having panic attacks. 

I went back to therapy in 2017. I had a whole new list of worries. The election of Donald Trump. My cousin had terminal cancer. My new boss at work had fired my closest work-friend and other co-workers were quitting in protest. It was a hard time.

I returned to my Kaiser Permanente therapist. She encouraged me to start reading books about "Adult Children of Alcoholics." These books blew my mind!!! They were about ME!!! The peacekeeper. The overachiever. The perfect daughter. I couldn't believe that there were other people just like me!

After that, I was hooked on self-help books about addiction. I realized that the root of my weight problem was that I was a food addict! And I would need more than Weight Watchers to tackle this addiction. I devoured Russell Brand's book Recovery: Freedom From Our Addictions. 

His booked advocates that EVERYONE can benefit from a 12-Step program, not just winos and junkies.

But ironically, it was around this time that I started relying more and more on alcohol to get me through the day. I would come home and have a couple of White Russians for dinner. Why not? I had a rough day, and I deserved it. And they were delicious and made me a happier person to be around. I started drinking at work. I would mix little bottles of Tito's Vodka into my Diet Coke bottles. Why not, right? I could still do my job. And it made me a more pleasant person to be around. 

But everything changed in November of 2018. That was when I met my sponsor. She was volunteering at a health and wellness fair that I attended, and her table was full of flyers about Alcoholic Anonymous (AA). I was immediately drawn to her. She was kind and engaging and started to talk about the services that they offer. I said to her, "I think I need this," and I burst into tears. This angel gave me her personal phone number and email address and told me to email her that very day! I went with her to my first AA meeting two days later. 

Hi, my name is Leila, and I'm an alcoholic. My sobriety date is November 17, 2018.

Over the next year, my sponsor took me through the 12 Steps. She bought me my own copy of the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous. The 12 Steps taught me how to live without the emotional crutches of alcohol. They taught me to give up control and turn it all over to a higher power. They taught me how to stop being so damn afraid all of the time.

So here I am on March 20, 2020. In the middle of a global pandemic. I am sober. I am not worried. I am present. I am following the instructions of the CDC and staying at home.

I am continuing to do my job remotely. I am keeping in contact with friends and family. I am reaching out. Because all I want to do right now is connect. That's all.

If you're feeling anxious, fearful, nervous, or worried, please reach out to me. Find me on ALL of the social media platforms (Leila Hernandez, in Washington, DC, I'm not hard to find). I want to share my experiences with you. I want to laugh with you. I want to talk with you. I want to know how you're doing and how you're getting through the day. 

It might not feel like it, but we are more connected right now than ever before!
All will be well. We've got each other. What could be better than that?