[CanisLupusArctos]

It's been 5 or 6 years for me, too. 2014 Family meltdown in the wake of my sister's murder on a mission trip in Nicaragua. The resulting domino string took me away from all that I loved before, led to a mental breakdown, I started falling apart at work (got told to step back) and I went to a therapist. I learned a lot about human psychology and psychiatry as well as my own.

After visits with 3 other mental health professionals (and 4 UNH psych-social professors I randomly met at a dinner presentation) I got a unanimous diagnosis: "Normal person who went through too many drastic changes and losses of certain types in too little time."

They taught me all humans have a mental breaking point that's somewhat adjustable but has an absolute limit, it's why people need boot camp before they can become soldiers, it's why soldiers need intense training before they can function as special forces, and in modern western culture most civilians aren't aware of their own limits until something pushes them to breaking point.

They told me how brain cells gradually re-adjust to new situations and how to tell when enough of them were past the meltdown and ready for work/ normalcy again. I got the "clear of diagnosable issues" last fall and noticeably experienced the signs of "ready for return" in late February. I was all set to ease back into working and begin a new season.

And then....

i got up one morning and took a while to realize I wasn't having an apocalyptic dream -- it was actual reality, worldwide.

I didn't have a job to lose (had hoped to regain much of what I had) but I do have a battle plan from February whose status is now "under continuous review while monitoring and attempting to predict the changed and rapidly-evolving environment."

Amid the chaos and drastic changes, I'm glad to see familiar names here! I'm glad to see the same Webmaster breaking up the same rabbit-trail arguments!

I had a second surreal experience when I started listening to peoples' statements and stories on news reports and comment threads with my newly-psych-trained ears. I quickly realized many individuals are now experiencing things that are psychologically similar to what I did, but in a matter of weeks instead of years. Applying everything I learned about mental health from the professionals and from my first-hand experience, I arrived at various predictions through emotionless deductive reasoning that left my eyes wide.

I'm still a weather guy as much as I was before. I'm eager to get back into it. The therapists said activities like that are good for getting the emotional side of the brain to relax while the logical side takes over. I have found that to be useful.

What's changed--I have a different outlook on life and death than I did before my sister's murder: I expect to see her again. Others may differ if they wish, but I prefer to save the moment of potential disappointment for when I'm newly "dead" -- wait, how can I experience disappointment if I'm dead? Ahh, I'll either see her again, or I'll be forever numb to the rude awakening. A win-win.

What else has changed--I became a mental health advocate. Stigma OUT. Awareness and treatment IN. Mental health is just like any other segment of healthcare. When I saw there are many sub-topics in the COVID-19 event, I felt it necessary (to avoid becoming overwhelmed as many now are) to pick one as my primary angle and a couple of others in a descending order of focus- and make a conscious effort (however imperfect) to avoid getting led into other subtopics. I picked the mental health aspect as #1.

#2 is "weather and natural events," because they don't stop when mankind wants several months of perfect weather for managing a pandemic. Oh, no -- weather and geology have never agreed to such terms. April-June is the peak of U.S. tornado season, which has already devastated a major city (Nashville TN.)

If I had to pick a #3 it would be the financial subject, because I went through personal bankruptcy right before my sister's passing led to meltdown, so the last few years have been unexpectedly very hard. My lawyer was GREAT, and took the time to teach me many things about finances and numbers using my own numbers (spread out on his table) as an example. I see a few numbers "out there" that he said never, ever work on any scale -- and I learned the hard way on the individual scale. I learned the relationships between poverty and health (mental and physical) first hand. That's been giving me many thoughts about what I'm seeing in various reports.

Interesting world we now live in! At least Lake Winnipesaukee has not (yet?) turned to Jello, and the ancient volcanic caldera we call "the Ossipees" is not giving off any sign of reactivation (though the northeast HAS had a swarm of small earthquakes in the last couple months.)

Lots to follow! With that, I'm glad to join RLW in saying, "I'm back." Good to see you all!