Letter to the Editor: Managing anxiety during this health scare

6 mins read

I worked in a period of increased anxiety such as that now faced by this community’s health care workers. I want to share with you now the experience in the hope that they may take from it something of value to them as they face such a challenge.

The period of which I speak were the years and months following the September 11, 2001 attacks when rumors had so many convinced that the terrorists responsible had entered the United States from Canada, leaving cells in hiding there to carry out future attacks. Having recently returned from service in a region where al Qaeda was said to be targeting diplomatic, military, and intelligence personnel of the United States for kidnapping I felt equipped to take up the challenge of maintaining relations with our allies to the north. The tactics of evasion I’d learned to keep me safe on my last assignment with the Marine Corps would surely keep me safe in Canada and, I hoped, would allow me to dispel rumors that terrorist lay in wait for unsuspecting American travelers.

I embarked on that mission in February of 2002, traveling north to Halifax, Nova Scotia where an investigator working crash site of Swiss Air 111 in September of 1998 made his suspicions that the flight, frequently used by United Nations personnel traveling between New York to Geneva, was downed by terrorists. While the government of Canada forced him to officially declare that an electrical malfunction was to blame, this investigator later maintained that he felt an incendiary device was to blame. That and the fact that Halifax International Airport had bravely accepted the bulk of the aircraft diverted from U.S. airspace on 9/11 made it seem as good a place as any to begin.

I set off for Halifax in a gap between storms to meet up with the one person in Canada I knew, if only online. I traveled there with the repeated warnings of the Bush administration reverberating through my head. Warnings that urged me to be suspicious of every Muslim I saw on the streets and of those who might set upon me if they but glimpsed my Veteran plates and the American flag sticker on my rear window. I experienced an intense anxiety even though I suspected those warnings were ridiculous and may even have been made up in an attempt to prevent Americans seeking to avoid service in the war to come from seeking sanctuary there as many had during the Vietnam War.

After that trip went off without a hitch I was encouraged to make more, delving into other regions of the country where terrorists might be hiding. I laugh about it now, as I occasionally did then, but it’s a laughter that is tempered by the anxiety that proved a challenge to overcome regardless. At any rate, I made frequent trips like this and was there when the Bush administration announced that we would invade Iraq in March of 2003. That was a particularly troubling time as it caused me to recall the many warnings offered by those who had considered conducting the invasion to begin sweeping up weaponry and deposing unstable leaders left in the Middle East from our Cold War dealings.

While the visions I had proved less frightening than the events actually set in motion with the invasion of Iraq I believe the opposite will be true of our current health scare. Either way, you’ll have to learn how to manage the anxiety they leave you with though. Personally, I prefer meditation, outdoor excursions, and yoga to distraction and medication because they allow you to learn to manage thoughts that will return no matter how often you dispel them. I highly recommend what Jon Kabat-Zinn of the UMass Memorial Medical Center refers to as Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction as it offers guided meditation and yoga recordings that can be found on Audible and elsewhere online. There is also an 8-week course that can be taken online or in person.

As I think more of those who are affected by this health scare I realize that I would be remiss if I did not include all those deemed essential workers at this time. You hardware and grocery store employees, maintenance workers, mechanics, members of law enforcement, pharmacists, and everyone else asked to keep our community going through this anxious time deserve our appreciation and support as well. Please know that we are all grateful for the sacrifice you are making even if we don’t always show it.

Jamie Bealieu
Farmington

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16 Comments

  1. Thanks, we learned two things from this long boring post. Overuse of the word ‘I’ is extremely annoying and yoga can heal a bullet wound. Or something like that…

  2. Dear JB, Contiually ruminating through your military traumas and anxieties is NOT
    helpful to you or to the community at this, or any other time of your life. You are repeatedly harming yourself and others in already anxious community.
    Ask yourself, before you allow your anxiety to compel your back to your immune supressing electrical magnetic frequencies,
    Is what I am about to put out into the universe-
    Thoughtful?
    Helpful?
    Intelligent?
    Necessary?
    Kind?

    Keep the focus on your spiritual survival throughout this current crisis. Yesterday is gone, tomorrow is not here, all we have is this moment, this hour, this day. Pen to paper journaling is very theraputic when we are ruminating with anxious thinking.
    Meditation is NOT what you think, it is training your mind to ignore those thoughts an concentrate on your breathing. This is how to quiet your mind and discover your true and humble self.
    There can be no happiness if what you believe is different than the things you do. Forgive everyone every night before you go to sleep. Each one of us finds in others, the very fault they find in us. The world is changed by your example, not by your opinion.
    Do not let the insecurity of others get inside you. A loving interchange among community members will help us be ready and greatful to receive the priceless gift of serenity.
    We are here to see each other through, not to see through each other. May peace be with you. And thank you for your service.

  3. One guy made mention of an incendiary device and of the 300 to 400 people who investigated Swissair 111, none of them concurred with the lone RCMP officer who made the claim after seeing a report that the plane’s cockpit area contained high levels of magnesium. But he being a law enforcement officer not an aircraft engineer nor familiar with how metals react to heat, the cockpit and nose section as well as other load bearing structures uses a magnesium-aluminum alloy to give strength but keep them lightweight, the frames that hold the plane’s avionics in the nose, and the flight control area are made from the rigid but lightweight material. So naturally, metals tested from this region would show high levels of magnesium when they were analyzed and not indicative of an incendiary device. The burning of such metal gives off magnesium oxide, a white powder that can become airborne and deposited elsewhere.

    And the 9/11 attacks killed more than 3000 Americans, and we went to war to stop the people who did it, which we have yet to do. COVID-19 has killed over 7000 Americans, also, in many instances, it has killed almost as many as have recovered. In less than 6 weeks 277,985 people in America have been confirmed to have it, 12,283 have recovered and 7,146 have died. If the flu killed at that rate, a third of the world’s population would be dead already, but unlike the flu, which SARS isn’t like the flu at all, the flu has a vaccine that keeps billions of people healthy, COVID-19 has no vaccine, health scares don’t kill people, health threats do.

    If we could go back in time and tell people to avoid flight 93 or to stay out of the twin towers for the day, 9/11 would have happened anyway, because nobody listens, because nobody scares them into listening. COVID-19 is very real and very dangerous.

    A short analogy,
    2 impala hunters are standing on a plain in Africa, the first one thinks he glimpsed a leopard and takes off running in the opposite direction and lives, the second hunter takes a moment to try to confirm if it is a leopard and gets killed by it, which hunter would you rather be? The one who thinks the threat is real and treats it as such, or the hunter who has to know if it is real and get killed?

  4. Jamie… Interesting but… in these times a good book can help… I have had lots of spare time this winter and still have some.. I try to get outside for awhile each day doing yard work and enjoying the sun and fresh air.. I have done lots of reading this winter… I have read lots relating to WWII and it is interesting… some of those incidents still send chills up my back when I think of them… After a few of those I have moved on to the life of Gandhi, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. books…… but when I really need to get away and relax I get out a Louis L’amour book… I find them good at helping me get away from the serious daily, minute by minute stuff going on nowadays…. I suggest you give it a try..

  5. Why do many military veterans speak of their past experiences? Because they cannot forget them. They are forever affected by what happened, what they saw, what they did, perhaps why they lived when their friends did not.

    Have a little compassion for all who have suffered, are suffering.

  6. hmm…. not sure about nasty and unacceptable… but, I wrote suggesting fresh air and a good book to get away from it all…. It evidently was unacceptable…. so did not make it. I guess I try harder or just give up…

  7. The thought comes to mind that maybe the poster (Jamie Bealieu) may be operating on a (maybe) faulty premise re the “manageability” of the anxieties that probably do exist currently can be effectively managed outside of real world professional help

    My guess is those same/basic anxieties probably lurked subsurface/dermally in another form prior to the current mess we are all in

    Disclaimer: I’m o.k., so my therapist tells me!

  8. My stress is reasonably OK. And, after reading the letter, so is my insomnia.

  9. Mr Holt- your post had not been there when I wrote ,I was responding to Captain Planet and the first sentence of Old Crone we just don;t need that stuff sir Your post was not up:)

  10. There is danger in dwelling. Rumination is the focused attention on the symptoms of ones distress and on its possible causes and consequences as opposed to its solutions.
    Ruminating is self harm. Many citizens manage a history of emotional and physical harm, traumatic brain injuries, and post traumatic stress not involving military service. There is plenty of help available when we take personal, logical responsibility for our discomfort. HBOT, EMDR, knowledgeable psychologists, all avoiding phamaceuticals.
    Knowledge is power. Take what you like and leave the rest.

  11. Anxiety? Turn off the darn TV! The people I know that are most worked up about this entire thing have the TV on all day long! Turn it off, go for a walk, go for a drive, do any number of other things other than the mind game going on with today’s media.

    HB, It could have been equally possible that the first guy didn’t see a leopard, (confirmed by the second guy) but he did run into one in his uncontrolled run of fear!

    My prediction: Corvid 19 “numbers” will come in essentially about like the flu or less. There will be great debate about whether the economy should have been shut down. Arguments will run along party lines.

  12. Nothing here surprises me, sadly. This is America unfiltered. It’s full of people who don’t know and don’t care. The type that will pretend that the act of being patriotic in some way benefits us all. Those people care only about what effects them directly and use patriotism in an attempt to improve their standing in the community.

    These folk were easily manipulated after 9/11, which is why they ended up supporting the response supported by politicians rather than the one that military and intelligence leaders never could quite get them to support adequately. They flushed trillions of dollars down the toilet as they cheered a strategy that made the Middle East even more accommodating for the extremists they feared. And they’ll surely flush more down the toilet in an attempt to deny the damage they’ve done in their ignorance.

    As for me, I joined the Marine Corps 30 years ago and I think I heard every insult there is since then. Criticism doesn’t frighten me, particularly when I know it comes from people who don’t know what they’re talking about. As I’ve said before, I was educated by highly experienced officers of the Marine Corps and Navy, people who served in every conflict since the Korean War. The fact that their predictions and mine turned out to be correct gives me a great deal of confidence.

    As far as continuing to talk about the subject goes, there’s nothing unique in it. Everyone, civilians included have topics that they find interesting enough to discuss even though many around them aren’t interested. This is an area of interest for me, like Geology is. More importantly, I shared my experience here in an attempt to pass along information that might help those dealing with a particularly stressful situation. Some of you may want to give that some thought.

  13. The truth is, I struggle to accept what has become of the hope we all had as Americans. It’s not easy for any of us to weather challenges like these and remain supportive of one another, for even when we share an objective we may not agree on how to accomplish it. This will be true for us as we work through our current predicament.

    I’d like to see us come together as a nation as we move forward. I think we all would. And, I realize that means putting the past behind us and working with what we have, not what we wish we still had. I’ll admit that’s been a problem for me.

    Stay well everyone.

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