Editor’s Note: Jack Gray is supervising producer for CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360” and author of “Pigeon in a Crosswalk: Tales of Anxiety and Accidental Glamour.” The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own. View more opinion at CNN.
2020 wasn’t supposed to be like this. It was going to be, I told myself, the year I rebooted my life. Less stress and a clearer mind, a better attitude and bigger dreams. Back – shudder – to dating. This was finally going to be the year, as Dolly Levi would say, when I rejoined the human race.
All that’s now on hold, as it should be in a responsible world. It’s fine, except when I think about it too much, which is daily. And while I’m acutely aware that wallowing in one’s existential detours is a luxury afforded to the lucky – those whose paychecks and good health remain intact – the isolation still chips away at my mind.
Detached and distanced and days piling up and alone, so alone. In the nearly 20 years since I was diagnosed with depression, I’ve become adept at sensing the dark waves. But this one snuck up on me.
Zoom, FaceTime, they help a bit, sure. But it’s not the same as someone with you on the sofa. You text old friends, you email great aunts, you think about adopting a cat, though you decide not to because this is New York and you never bothered to get window screens and the last thing you feel like dealing with right now is a dead cat seven stories down.
Eventually, you run out of things to say and people to call and the unwelcome clarity comes roaring back: there is nobody around in my apartment, no one to hug, no one to whisper that everything is going to be all right.
It’s easy these days to slip into a downward spiral, easier still for those with pre-existing mental health problems. If there was ever a time to stay in touch with therapists and be up to date on medications, this is it. I try to stick to a routine, something approximating normal, a concept that means less with each passing day.
The cupboard in my apartment is filled with anti-depressants and pasta, staples that make pandemic life bearable, albeit bloated. It would probably be helpful if I took twice as many showers and listened to half as many Billie Eilish ballads.
There is the occasional irony: the sole in-person interaction I’ve had this month has been with the pharmacist who dispensed my anti-anxiety prescription from behind sheets of plastic, hung floor-to-ceiling at the drugstore. I embrace the reminder that the stress of solitude is nothing compared to the risks faced by health care workers.
Perspective, though, comes and goes. The hours teem with the temptation to project all my grievances with life onto coronavirus. Roads not taken, hopes deferred, the one that got away – they have nothing to do with the pandemic, but the crisis has nonetheless underscored them tenfold. I spin and spin as they dominate my internal quarantine.
Loneliness is a petri dish for depression; it’s when I need a friend the most – someone to vent to, someone to pull me out of the abyss, someone with whom to share daydreams and plans, however uncertain the calendar appears.
Always reach out, always. Tell a loved one you’re not doing well, tell them you’re in a dark place. Interrupt their day, wake them up at night.
A couple miles away from where I live, the theaters of Broadway remain closed until at least June. One of the shows that’s gone dark is a revival of the celebrated Stephen Sondheim musical “Company,” a story of being adrift in New York.
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In the penultimate number, “Being Alive,” the main character sings “…alone is alone, not alive.” It’s an achingly beautiful song, one of life’s great theatrical anthems. But “Company” is not set in the time of coronavirus. We are alive right now despite the loneliness. We are alone, but not alone. And you can always get a cat.
For those dealing with emotional stress from coronavirus, the free and confidential National Disaster Distress Hotline is open 24/7, 365 days a year. Call 1-800-985-5990 or text TalkWithUs to 66746 to connect with a trained crisis counselor.