How are you handling your pre-existing conditions in the face of coronavirus?

[petra]

gaudior has written a series of essays on coping with the plague. One that I found especially useful was about the way the pandemic exacerbates what we were already dealing with:

...a thing that I keep noticing, and seems worth pointing out, is that everyone has some fairly familiar ways of being in pain, and those are what we end up with around this. If you hate yourself, you probably spend the plague thinking about how awful you are for not doing more to prevent it, and how badly you're dealing with it. If you're anxious, you're probably terrified right now, of getting sick, of someone you love getting sick, etc. If you're super-driven, you're probably overworking right now. If you normally dissociate, you're, like, fine right now, you guess, but for some weird reason you can't seem to get off the couch?

The problem with this is that your particular pain is really devastating for you, and the horror and uncertainty in the world is probably intensifying it well beyond what you're used to. The advantage of this is that, hopefully, you have developed some coping skills and ways of dealing with your pain.

From How to Handle A Plague, 9) New cause, old pain.

Hat tip to jesse_the_k for the link.