A nontraditional approach to fear and stress

"Like 9/11, we have a new reference point touching everyone on the planet: life before COVID-19 and life after. Regardless if you get it or don't, the unknowns and secondary consequences are scary. Life before COVID was scary, too, minus the urgency.

Before COVID, we sensed the weight of living on a sick planet. We felt powerless to change the tide of forces affecting our lives for the worst. We normalized the slow spiral down the drain of political divisions, economic inequality, costly health care, deteriorating education, unreliable information, and unsustainable living. We let our existential fear buzz like a refrigerator's white noise.

COVID innocently shines a floodlight on our curious collective permissiveness. It illuminates silent fear."

Ruchi Puri is an obstetrics-gynecology physician and can be reached at her self-titled site, Ruchi Puri, MD.

She shares her story and discusses her KevinMD article, "COVID illuminates silent fear." (https://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2020/07/covid-illuminates-silent-fear.html)