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Lessons in Empathy Kathy Wolff gives a brutally honest account of how and why the stress she, as a naturally anxious person, has experienced during the pandemic has helped her gain a more profound understanding of what anxious dogs experience throughout their daily lives em∙pa∙thy /ˈempəTHē/
spinning sequences that you see on TV; the one where the director is trying to convey confusion and disorientation (funny but not funny). My own fears about how COVID would affect me and my family complicated mat ters to the point that I was properly para lyzed by my amygdalaly dominated nervous system. My digestive tract ramped up to warp speed. Without going into unpleasant descriptives, let’s just say there was a lot more coming out than was going in. The strain of it all caused me to lose my voice – both physically and emotionally. And, speak ing of emotions…wow! Talk about wearing them on your sleeve. I am naturally more of an emotional person than I would like to admit, but now I was always on the verge of tears, ready to run away screaming. Many of my clinical colleagues, who of course had much more of a practical learn ing skill set than I did in situations like this, tried to quell my panic and lack of response. But, even then, I knew at least some of them could never really understand what I was going through. That knowledge was embarrassing and created a new self loathing as I chastised myself for not being able to just get it together! “What the hell is wrong with me?” I would constantly ask my self. The initial physical and emotional mani festation of COVID was truly devastating on so many levels.
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ccording to Wikipedia (2021), empathy is the “capacity to understand or feel what another person is experiencing from within their frame of reference, that is, the capacity to place oneself in another's position. Definitions of empathy encompass a broad range of emotional states.” “Hi, my name is Kathy, and I’m a Nervous Nellie.” At least, that’s the cutsie polite little name we used to call it when I was younger. I was someone who always saw the glass half empty, worried about what was going to happen next; took the “what if’s” and blew them so far out of proportion that the situation prompting the re sponse was so distorted from reality it was mindbog gling. I believe the clinical term for this is “catastrophizing.” But whatever term I use to try to tie it up in a neat bow, it is lifealtering and deeply troubling. Now that the first anniversary of the COVID birthed new world has been and gone, I feel com pelled to share my own thoughts and experiences over the last year or so with the world. I submit to you, then, the Nervous Nellie perspective. For frame of reference, I have worked in the med ical profession full time, not as a clinician but as sup port staff, for 32 years. Dog training is my parttime gig. As support staff, you are the front line of contact for many: coworkers, patients, family of.... You are the pipeline for all the information that everyone needs to know and you’re relied on to move everyone in the right direction at any given moment. To say there is a lot of pressure on that pipeline is an understatement, but when COVID hit, the pipes burst.
The COVID Effect
Everlasting Impact © Kathy Wolff
Since my department’s daytoday activities “The most important skill we need to teach Fear and anxiety were at the kind of high that was reduced dramatically during the first weeks our dogs isn’t found in ‘obedience’ rhetoric, physically palpable. You could see it in faces; you after our new world disorder, some of us but rather in finding peace in the daytoday living of life” Kathy Wolff, with Cree could feel it in the air. Dare I say, in our primal ances were able to have time off to regroup. For tral way, we could even smell it. Every time the phone me, that regroup meant, breathe. Just rang, or my colleagues or patients came to me seeking information and breathe, every day. Get up after a really bad night of some sort of direction, their desperate energy hit me full on, over and over. My “gift” pseudo sleep, and breathe. That’s it. If I got through the day without as an empath was not helping me here either. The openness of access going crazy and disappearing down a jagged chasm of panic, I called to their visceral responses drove hard, directly to my soul, biting deep. that a win. If I could make myself something to eat, take minimal care of Often, I could not sit still, I just had to keep moving. Sitting still my dogs, and keep my home from falling into complete disarray, I had a made me feel like I was going to explode. At times, it was hard to good day. Don’t ask me for anything past that. My longlost agoraphobia breathe or to think. I felt as if I had no train of thought. There was no came to visit, so going out at all took herculean fortitude. But that was way to cohesively put thoughts together in a sequential state to try to okay with me: stay where I know I can be safe, and maybe, just maybe find some solid ground in all the chaos. I could not make decisions be I’ll be okay. cause I could not reason. If asked to do a simple task, it was monumen I hope I didn’t make you feel uncomfortable while you read this. But tally challenging to make any type of critical thinking process happen. In I do hope that what I was describing sounded familiar to you. It did to an ironic twist of cruel comedy, I could envision myself in one of those me. You see, as I sat in my house day after day, just breathing and trying 62
BARKS from the Guild/July 2021