I’ve been uncertain about writing this post for weeks.

However, I’ve been swayed by each conversation I have with friends and family. I’ve been swayed the more I read and watch stories about people having cabin fever. I was swayed the more I heard about people becoming anxious because governments around the world started enforcing strict social distancing and social isolation (Link to Mayo Clinic) rules roughly six weeks ago to combat the risks associated with infections and deaths from the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

The more convinced I became the more I felt the need to write about this. I needed to write this because very little has changed in my life, since governments started enforcing social distancing and social isolation rules in the past six weeks.

For the majority of the past seven years, I’ve spent my time housebound and alone because of chronic pain caused by a chronic illness. At the beginning of it all, I thought I might lose my mind because until that point my life had been a very active one.

I was a workaholic, which meant I invested a lot of time and energy into work that I loved. After an injury forced me to give up running, I used to walk for hours throughout the city regardless of the weather, instead of riding public transit, taking taxis, or driving. In the summers, I rode my bicycle through the streets and, whenever I could, I traveled to other countries. I spent most of my weekends with friends or family for get-togethers, going out to eat, going out to dance, watching movies, or just shooting the breeze about the week that had passed over drinks.

It felt as if I was never home. The exceptions were for showering and changing my clothes or grabbing a bite to eat before going out again; or sleeping at night to rest before going to work in the morning.

Then my illness and its accompanying debilitating pain arrived and EVERYTHING changed.

The onset of my illness caused me unbearable pain that has never stopped. Some days, the pain makes it nearly impossible for me to move around within the walls of my home; and it wiped out my ability to go out to live an active life the way I’d been used to.

In fact, my life came to a complete standstill. I could no longer work. Going out was reduced to scheduled medical appointments or treatments, and no end of emergency visits to the hospital because the most basic activities, like walking, still cause me to have mind-numbing pain flare-ups.

This change in my health that changed my life meant that if I wanted to see my family and friends, they had to come to me. It became too painful and exhausting for me to go out, or to go through the motions of getting ready to go out. If I visited them, I had to plan to stay for days so I could rest my body after the painful trip there and before the painful return trip home. At times, this has felt like more of an imposition than a fun time together.

The incessant pain and unpredictable pain flare-ups mean my life has become one long tentative plan dotted with repeated cancellations. Over time, because of my poor health I have seen fewer and fewer friends, many of whom have left my life along the way because they’ve been unable or unwilling to accommodate the things I need to do to care of myself. Consequently, I’ve spent most of the past seven years alone in pain-fuelled isolation.

Early on, it became clear with each passing day that I needed ways to fill the seemingly endless hours of my days. Since being physically active or engaging in activities that made it necessary to frequently leave my home were out of the question, I had to find things I could do that required little physical exertion, yet stimulated my mind and that I could do comfortably at home. What I finally settled on was to start a creative practice—my own version of art therapy—involving writing and making art (mostly drawing). I also increased my efforts to maintain connections with the people in my life that I care about and who made it clear they reciprocate that care.

I͟m͟a͟g͟i͟n͟a͟r͟y͟ ͟F͟l͟o͟r͟a͟l͟ ͟B͟o͟u͟q͟u͟e͟t͟ ͟o͟n͟ ͟B͟l͟k͟ ͟P͟a͟p͟e͟r͟ ͟-͟ ͟A͟p͟r͟i͟l͟ ͟’2͟0͟

I write this not to belittle any person’s feelings of isolation and/or boredom. I write it as confirmation that since I’ve survived nearly seven years of social isolation forced on me by a chronic illness and chronic pain, then everyone forced into social isolation in recent weeks can survive too. From my experience, the biggest part of surviving this social distancing and social isolation, because of the risks associated with this viral pandemic, is focussing on self-care, primarily our individual mental health and emotional well-being, and working to maintain (or build) connections with our friends and families.

My hope in writing this is that people understand that every one of us is resilient. Whether it’s six weeks of social distancing to contain the spread of COVID-19 and reduce deaths caused by it; or seven years of social isolation from being housebound by an illness, we can cope with significantly more than we believe we can.