Real and Imagined: My First Experience with COVID-19 Panic
How the effects of quarantine made my journey outside a living nightmare.
Today marks the 87th day that I’ve been in my New York apartment. Sometimes, I take the trash out. Or, if I feel like it, I’ll go downstairs to the basement, do laundry, or try to get something done in our large co-working space. I have a job that I am able to do remotely, although I am continually finding it difficult to focus. Oftentimes, I stare out of my bedroom window into the backyard which has become horribly overgrown with weeds and is now enjoyed by a menagerie of birds. I share this apartment with two other female roommates — much younger than me — who don’t realize that I’m terribly afraid of one of them standing too close and breathing on me. They believe COVID-19 is a temporary setback, a hindrance to attending mimosa brunches in Manhattan, making drunk trips to Coney Island, or traveling to their friends’ summer weddings and bachelorette parties.
Since we’re not on the flip side of this pandemic, I can’t honestly say what kind of person I’ll be once this experience of mandatory quarantine is over. Who can?
I mean, technically, I’m aware that I can wear either my carbon-filtered face mask or stretchy bandana — as long as they are covering my nose and mouth — and go outside and take a long walk. And I did so once. I felt really brave and energetic that day and had finally slept through the night. So, that morning, I went right out the front door of my Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn apartment building, down the stoop, took a right, and started towards the end of my block. It was back in April, on a very cold and rainy day. I wore gloves, a face mask, a short down-filled coat, and carried my umbrella. I was aware that I looked like an urban mummy, but was stupidly happy, for at least a few minutes.
On this very brief trip, I saw a total of two people outside, both wearing masks, looking straight ahead, and walking with purpose. I had stopped to look at the empty basketball court at the school across the street from my building. I was quite comfortable, meandering about and taking a stroll.
I walked to the gate at the far end of the school building, hoping to get to the street on the other side, but it was locked. I realized that the gate had probably been locked since schools had shut down due to COVID-19. I turned to walk back to my street when I saw someone walking towards me. He gave me the look, “Girl, you’re too close to me,” as he crossed in front of me to walk to the corner.
Then it happened: I felt like I couldn’t breathe through my face mask. Just moments before, I had enjoyed breathing the cool, fresh air. But now, my legs started to feel tired and lethargic. At the same time, my lower back began to ache, and I felt a tightness that hindered my movements. It was like I was walking through mud. I started to wonder: Why am I out here? After all, I had not planned on buying anything, and I didn’t really need anything. And truth be told, I was too terrified to go into a small, packed, air-locked bodega to buy food in packages that hadn’t been properly sanitized, whether or not they actually needed to be.
Still, I continued on my walk, hoping to go farther than I had originally intended. Just as I was about to cross the street, and nearing the end of my block, I saw an ambulance across the street on the next block over; its lights were on but there was no siren. A police car had parked in front of it, unintentionally preventing voyeurs from seeing what was happening, and also seemed to be protecting the ambulance from cars entering the block haphazardly from the intersection.
I started to panic.
I couldn’t tell if someone was being carried out or taken away in the ambulance. Just a few minutes earlier, I watched someone walk past me, going in the opposite direction towards the train station. He was wearing a face mask and walking with a quickness. He didn’t seem to care that an ambulance and police car were parked nearby. I thought: What was wrong with him? For some reason, at that moment, I started feeling depressed. And I thought he’s probably a New Yorker while I’m just an imposter from out of town stuck in the City during a pandemic. (At that moment, even though I had been living and working in New York for a few years, I didn’t feel that I had the right to grieve whoever was being put into that ambulance.)
As soon as I realized what was likely happening to me, I turned around — almost as quickly as I had ventured out — and headed back towards my brownstone.
I was having a panic attack.
Never had I ever experienced such a fear of being outside, in broad daylight, on a beautifully quiet, rainy day, with hardly anyone around. This episode felt even more surreal based on the fact that I had been quarantined for several weeks.
In truth, it’s always a choice how we decide to go about handling our anxieties. At that moment, you ask yourself questions in a fleeting attempt to remain calm and stay rational.
At this moment, I thought: Do I see things through, take deep breaths and forge ahead? Or do I give up, at least temporarily, and plan to be brave on another day?
As my back tightened (I was wearing a back brace, whether or not it was actually necessary), and I struggled to breathe (my face mask felt like it was suffocating me), I knew.
My first and last trip going outside during quarantine had lasted a total of ten minutes.