So you’re like the rest of us here in the *entire freaking world*… “stuck” in the house with your family members or friends (depends how far on the extrovert scale you are for how strong the term “stuck” is)! Well, as I live it with you, here are six suggestions for surviving the quarantine with your Boyfriend/Parents/Kids/Roommate/Anyone.
SET A SCHEDULE
Life is all kinds of wacked up right now. One of the biggest factors of stress and anxiety is feeling a loss of control over your daily life. Now TRUE, there is a lot you can’t control in this time, but your schedule (within reason) is one that you definitely can.
Try setting a daily or weekly schedule for yourself or your entire household. Consider when to work, relax, take a lunch break, workout, watch tv, walk the dog, learn a new hobby, do chores. Test out a few different schedules and see what works best for you. Write it down and post it on the fridge.
OR SET GOALS
If setting a schedule sounds like hell on earth to you, super restricting, more stressful than the quarantine itself? Try setting weekly goals instead. Get out a notebook and handwrite goals you have for the week. Set a number of goals you want to achieve each day. Check out my free guidebook on goal setting, I tell all of my clients to do this, trust me, it will help.
OR DO BOTH
Maybe you’re wanting all the control you can find… like tell me where it is goddamn it level…try doing both goal setting and schedule setting. Get your life organized as shit.
FIND GOOD TOGETHER TIME
Because it is likely we’re all a little crammed in… our together time is a bit confusing. Does together time include sitting in the same room working? Is it watching tv and playing on our phones? Eating together? What is your definition of ‘good together time’ and how can you make sure that is happening regularly? For me, good time is time off our electronics, outside with the doggos, hanging out. Going on a walk to the beach. Making dessert. Watching youtube videos on the tv.
Good together time also means each of our needs have been met. Has each person had enough sleep, water, food, time to decompress? Forcing time together will likely backlash, make sure everyone is taken care of.
SPACE IS GLORIOUS
Space is hard to come by in a quarantine, but so so so so so important. Find the time to give yourself space. Whether that is putting on headphones and watching netflix. Going on a walk. Doing a quick meditation on your bed. An hour of alone time for the family in your designated corners.
AVOID YOUR DAY-TO-DAY ARGUMENT DANCE
All relationships (romantic, platonic, and family) form habits. In therapy this is often referred to as a “dance”. For example, your partner is tired from a long day at work and hasn’t given you much attention. They are playing on their phone rather than engaging in the conversation you are working hard to have with them. You snip, repeatedly, for them to get off their phone because “they are always on it”. They yell back to stop nagging them.
We’ve drawn our weapons, rather than shown our hearts. We don’t let our partner know that we really want to spend time with them and when they are paying more attention to their phone it makes us feel unimportant, unwanted, and unloved. So instead we block our hurt and throw shade.
It happens in every kind of relationship.
So instead of getting into daily riffs over the same old thing, try being honest about what is underlying. Change the step in your side of the dance and the dance will no longer be the same.
Close quarters ask for petty arguments and annoyances. Take a deep breathe, get space, and make sure your needs are met and you’ll be in a much better place with your quarantine buddies than you were ten minutes ago.
You’ve got this. We all do. Now let’s save the world.
Rachel Cohen, LCSW is the owner and therapist at Seaside Counseling Center in Jacksonville Beach, FL. Rachel works with lonely, frustrated, and overwhelmed teens and 20 something’s online and in-person.