Herald science reporter Jamie Morton, with son Harry. Photo / Jamie Morton
It's odd, right?
That feeling your whole concept of reality has been torn up.
Like you're in the thick of a bad dream about missing a flight, or turning up at the office in your pyjamas.
What's happening is strange and uncomfortable. And when the world becomes unpredictable, how do our brains cope with uncertainty?
Not easily, science says.
Over recent days I've seen some reach for that line Franklin D Roosevelt immortalised, around about the same time as his country was emerging from an economic disaster this pandemic is now being compared to.
The one about having nothing to fear but fear itself.
The quote I've been pondering more was an old motto of the late Hunter Thompson.
"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro."
Things have been pretty weird for my family since August 2018, when our 2-year-old, Harry, was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder.
At the severe end. The scary end.
We never saw it coming.
We had those certain hopes and dreams for him, as all parents do, and it was a brutal and sudden shift in those expectations that probably knocked us hardest.
It felt like that strange dream we couldn't wake from. But the most worrying thing was that uncertainty about the future.
Would our son be able to read, write, or even speak?
Were we up to the challenge of caring for this kid?
It's the same kind of anxiety we're all probably grappling with right now.
"Uncertainty is difficult to a certain extent because we live in a society that likes to plan and know what's coming," clinical psychologist Sarb Johal tells me.
"Uncertainty and change can make us feel vulnerable. Potentially huge and unpredictable disruptions can make us feel anxious and on edge."
We'd all like to turn the clock back to a month ago, back when the Black Caps were beating India at the Basin Reserve and our nightly news bulletins were free of terms like global recession and community transmission.
Harry and Meghan, anyone?
Faced with all of this weirdness, it's worth considering why we don't get so anxious about other things that can afflict us.
Take the flu.
We know it can be deadly for some, but it also has some predictability.
It happens every year and we can prepare for it.
"But because the coronavirus came seemingly out of nowhere," Johal explains, "the unfamiliarity combines with the uncertainty to increase our anxiety".
And that's likely to be an evolutionary legacy of how our brains respond.
In the face of an unfamiliar risk, erring on the side of caution may have proved a better way to survive to our ancient ancestors, rather than just assuming everything will be fine.
If that all seems a little abstract, just think about some peoples' buying patterns lately.
Presented with uncertainty, we all look to see how others behave to take our cue.
If we see on social media that stocks are running low on supermarket shelves, we assume there's a shortage because people have bought them, and that they must be buying it for a reason.
Our emotions ping messages to ourselves, motivating us to hop in the car, race to Pak 'N Save, and join the throng.
So if you're now feeling a little silly and selfish about all those extra packs of pasta and loo paper you're hoarding, rest assured, that was simply a result of anxiety doing the job human evolution has taught it to.
In other times, these emotions can simply be paralysing and prompt us to shut down.
After Harry's diagnosis, my wife and I stayed in bed for days.
Things took time and, eventually, we realised Harry had always been Harry – a monkey of a kid with a mess of blonde hair, a sweet grin and mad giggle.
We just hadn't really met him yet. He's going to be fine and so are we.
It turned out to be that seismic shifting of the ground beneath us that had thrown us.
We were able to adapt to our new normal by anchoring ourselves to those things that hadn't and weren't going to change.
Mental stability could be found in a pile of unread paperbacks.
In a dishwasher in need of emptying or a lawn in need of mowing.
In re-watches of The Sopranos and Parks and Recreation. In Friday night Thai and Saturday morning short blacks.
I've turned back to some of these trusty helpers over the past few weeks that I've been writing about this fast-unfolding event.
The garden has never looked better.
Again, it's evolution - the biological mechanisms that control our attention - and we need to be able to process our emotions to regain that sense of control.
Like me, people can do something practical.
Even just writing in a journal or notebook can do wonders, so long as you let those fears go once you've put them on paper.
As for all of those alerts popping up on your phone, consume only what you can handle.
You don't have to keep watching live news, have notifications turned on, or even use social media.
Limit your exposure to new information.
You can be strict with yourself, by deciding to only watch the news at 6pm, or read an update on the virus once a day.
While you're at it, limit the amount of time you spend reading or watching things which aren't making you feel better - and make use of your friends and family instead.
Time and time again, psychologists have found social networks - not the online kind - to be the biggest protective factor when we're going through a crisis.
"When people are going through tough times and they are not able to be physically close to each other," Johal tells me.
"For example, grandparents and their grandchildren in this context, it's doubly important to make sure that we find ways for that social connection to continue on."
After all, this pandemic is most likely going to be something we'll be dealing with for quite some time - not just a matter of a few weeks.
So pace yourself. Be gentle with yourself and others.
Keep eating well, find ways to exercise more and get out into nature.
As our editor told us all this morning, before another hectic day of Covid-19 coverage, stay cool.
I only had to look at a happy, beaming Harry as I dropped him off at kindy today to know that I would be.
When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.
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