The Isolation Diaries

The past few days have been difficult, I'm back in isolation and yesterday was the darkest I've felt in a while. The last time I felt like that was after a really difficult counselling session, where I closed my curtains all day, lay on the sofa under my duvet and drank, endlessly.

 
I write from my one bed, upstairs, outside-space deficient flat in England, where the rules on Coronavirus here currently are live your life, if you test positive, isolate. So here I am, testing positive, and isolating. This is my 8th isolation period since March 2020 when covid hit the UK. I've not always had to do the full isolation period, some have been due to symptoms, but mostly due to contact at work, but i've listened to government rules, and I've done as I'm told. But its getting harder now.

 
I've had my curtains closed for the past two days, turned my phone off and just existed. I think every so often I need a day like that, where I disassociate from the world and sit with my sadness. So when I come back, I come back much brighter.

 
I've  learned i'm a very emotional person, I am very intouch and aware of my emotions, and every emotion I seem to have, I feel and I feel it hard. Be it elated happiness, bursting excitement, gut wrenching heart break, shaking anxiety, sickening sadness. I've never done emotions by half. 
Isolation changes a person, we weren't meant to be inside, alone. And even someone like me who tends to always see the silver lining, can get seriously effected by long periods of time in my normally very comforting and happy home. And when I am confined alone with my emotions they run away with me, I'm not very good at supressing when I am alone. So I go through phases of content, seeing the best of the situation and within a matter of hours I am down, hibernating, in a dream, floating over a grey empty version of myself with tired eyes. 

 
I feel clearer today, i'm writing for one, that is always a good sign i'm in a good place. Writing is solitude for me. 

 
I don't often feel like I did yesterday, so when I do it scares me. But what I am so so thankful for is the people I have in my life, that fills me with absolute heart-bursting, eye watering happiness. When I woke up from my daze and turned on my phone I had voicemails from my best friend just spoting absolute sh*t, bringing a very welcomed smile to my face. I had messages from friends in the drivethrough asking if I want food dropping off. Sometimes you don't realise you have these people in your life until they pick you up from rock bottom, and when those few do, you can't remember what you would have done before. Isolation can be tough, but we keep being told how we are all in this together, I am reminded daily I'm not alone in my one bed flat. Millions are going through similar. This sad relief works for a while, but what I find does help is music, books, phone calls to my friends, and gazing out my window to the world that when I can get to again I will take on, with full storm.