Here are Some Reasons Returning to the Office is Filling You with Dread and Anxiety.

And here's what you can do about it.

Remember those blissful summer days in June when we were just kids, and September felt so far away?

I can still feel that summer sun on my face, its spill of secrets, the warm, confident trust offering what no one else could—safety, tangible on my skin.

So long as the summer sun was charged and glowing, it held at bay my fear of returning to school, of leaving that cocooned pocket of time, for the larger reality of “regular” life, inside which I felt incompatible and ill-prepared to face without a manual.

Me as a kid, during the last days of summer. Photo by Edwin H. Stern

Time is a promise of reliability, never stated, but always seen. Time is the rise and fall in temperature, light, hunger, energy level, elasticity, invisible scales, the seesaw that sees your childhood lifting and lowering. Adults will inevitably fail you, but the sun won’t—it won’t leave you forever in the dark. Every day is religious—each one is always reborn.

Whether you were a city kid, running through the hard spray shooting out from an open fire hydrant, pulling leeches from your skin after swimming in the camp lake, or rinsing sand off your hands and feet in the community foot shower at the public beach, the summer sun seeped into all of us.

We felt time slow down, bedtime pushing farther away, and the possibility of what could be discovered before the darkness swelled.

As we went about our summer business, the days grew imperceptibly shorter, and before we knew it, it was August, and the days slipped earlier and easier from our grip.

Safety once lay warm on our body, replaced by a breeze, prickling its unmistakable melancholy as the approaching return to “regular” life and the weekdays we would no longer control. And underneath that, another feeling—dread.

Those weeks leading up to my return to school in September expressed themselves inside me as sensations. The consistent late summer smells became landmarks in the air, markers that kicked up my dusty apprehension. Independent of touch or interaction, my inner world is entangled with the world outside me, separated but connected.

The singe and hiss of heat underneath an iron press at Johnny’s T-Shirt City transferring decals permanently onto the skin of kid’s cotton Hanes tees also transferred permanency inside me.

To this day, I still feel it. In this, I am not alone. The strange, sad homesickness of returning to school after the summer remains with many people well into adulthood, perhaps forever.

And now, here we are, after two years of staying at home, with the unmistakable mist of dread marked by summer’s end.

Only, it’s not summer.

Amanda Stern / Vinalhaven sunset

As we pretend the pandemic is winding to a natural conclusion (it is not), many of us are being called back to work. Some of us are excited, but many are encased in a familiar low-grade dread. What is this dread called? When have we felt it before?

It’s so unmistakably familiar, but many of us are having trouble naming it.

My theory?

It’s homesickness.

Or, more precisely, pre-homesickness.

Returning back to our old office, or starting in a new one, returning back to our old social life, or trying to create a new one, feels heavy and daunting like we’re kids without parents or anyone else to guide us.

Because that’s who we all are now.

None of us knows what we’re doing—even more than usual.

While I have always worked at home, and that specific transition won’t be what impacts me, I have not been to an in-person book party or book-related event for over two years now, and I feel like I don’t know how one behaves at a party. What does one talk about?

What is there to say?

What did I use to talk about?

What did I use to say?

How are you? and What’s new? hold no meaning. Our old questions are just that—old.

We need new ones.

My social anxiety has returned after lying dormant for decades.

After being home for two years and living through the initial traumatic period, trying to figure out where in your house or apartment we can get work done while helping the kids focus in Zoom school, AND having to feed everyone, deal with our partner, or the lack of a partner, do laundry, clean, and put out every last fire at work and home simultaneously, now we have to RETURN??

Now we have to get real dressed?

And make real small talk?

GETTY IMAGES / We Are

Many people have developed mental health conditions they didn’t have before. For those people, working from home may have provided solace, a place of security and safety they are not ready to forsake. Many of us have developed rituals and mechanisms for coping, or for taming growing dread and panic that we won’t be able to carry out in a public setting—in a place that isn’t our home.

And what about all the people who moved away? Now, on top of everything else, they have a torturous commute before them with tons of other people, many of whom will pretend that the pandemic is over, which is why they’re not wearing a mask.

As though commuting through a time period we haven’t seen in 100 years isn’t enough travel.

Two years ago, we were forced into physical isolation. Since then, our in-person contact with others has been limited and, for some, nearly nonexistent. As a result, there has been a significant increase in social anxiety, especially when returning to in-person work.

Being at home has taken away all of those in-between moments we experience with others: conversations in the kitchenette, waves or handshakes down the hall, and quick FYIs at the printer.

We tend to overlook how important interacting with others is for our overall well-being and mental health. We are wildly out of practice.

For those with existing mental health conditions, the pandemic exacerbated a unique challenge.

GETTY IMAGES / Nick Dolding

We’re living through an uncertain time, and now the certainty of working from home is being upended. To return to our pre-pandemic lives is to deny the opportunity to create a new way of living that reflects the nature of this pandemic-impacted existence.

It’s like a philandering partner saying, “Let’s just forget this happened and go back to how we were before I cheated on you with your sister.”

So, how do we cope?

First, if you can, try to identify what makes you anxious: Is it the social aspect? The commute? The distance? The separation from your dog, children, partner, and home?

Once you identify the most distressing parts of returning, you can address each thing. Like most fears, the best way to lessen their charge is to walk through it.

Let’s say it’s public transportation—it might help to rehearse the part of your commute that’s weighing on you the most.

Take the route you’d typically take, either in your car, on the bus or subway, or on foot.

You don’t need to travel the entire route. At the very least, get to the neighborhood where your office is located and walk around, reacquaint yourself in the days or weeks beforehand so you’re not flooded for the official return.

Original art for How to Live is by Edwina White

I’m a big fan of visualization, even though I despise the word “visualization” in this context—I prefer to think of it as watching. Watch your perfect day play out in your head. What would you like to have to happen?

Watch it like a movie.

Imagine yourself as the star.

If your mind decides to mess with you and starts making you stumble or trip or show up naked, that’s okay. Just rewind and start again. Force your ideal version onto your brain screen. I used to do this before I had to appear onstage, and it’s beneficial.

I like to think of these sorts of preparations as rigging the game in your favor. Make contact with co-workers you haven't seen in a long while so you feel bolstered and less alone. Refrain from texting or emailing, which only cements the distance you feel.

Close the gap by picking up the phone or Zooming. Do the hard thing now so that later, when it counts, you’ll recognize that you set yourself up for success.

Try to stick to a “Rig the Game” mentality and schedule in the lead-up, including getting into bed simultaneously. Turn off all electronics an hour before bedtime. If, for whatever reason, that feels impossible, try my hack and put on tinted blue-light-blocking glasses (I use these) as soon as the sun goes down. This helps with sleep.

Note the things you do during the day at home that has been self-regulating or helpful to you.

Do you take walks outside, go into your garden, make a specific tea, exercise, meditate, or play with your pet?

What can you bring with you to work?

Keep track so that you can choose what to ask your supervisor for to make the transition easier for you.

What tools can you assemble to help if you have a panic attack at work? If you feel flooded or dissociated, download a breathing app to your phone or computer. Learn simple and discrete breathing techniques, standing meditation, and/or meditations that you can do while sitting at your desk.

Make a list of the self-regulating tools you use and tape it to your computer or the side of your desk because often, when we most need to self-regulate, we’re so anxious we've forgotten what even helps us.

Remember that when you are stressed, sensory experiences can jolt you back to attention. Head to the office fridge and grab some ice. Rub it on your wrist, the back of your neck, or run it down your jaw.

You can also splash cold water on your face.

If you feel you need specific accommodations to ease you back into the workplace environment, you can ask for them without disclosing your mental health diagnosis or concerns. Couch everything in the language of the pandemic. We all lived through the same thing and had similar experiences to varying degrees.

Focus on transitioning from one set of circumstances (working at home) to this new set (returning to work) when you ask for what you need.

GETTY IMAGES / Sam Edwards

Some things you might want to ask:

Which spaces in the office will be shared? What are the plans for high-traffic areas? Will people be required to wear masks? Will unvaccinated people also be returning to the workspace? What will happen to those who break protocol?

Will there be a designated room in the office if you need to escape and ground yourself?

Will leniency be built into the schedule so people can call or Zoom with their kids, partner, or other family members?

Can you bring your dog to the office, at least for the first two weeks? Or, perhaps, two days a week? Can you go for walks outside? How might they allow employees to set their own pace until they are acclimated?

Must you work in the office every single day? If you have a specific schedule or want to propose some ideas to ease the transition, write it up and ask your boss if you can share it with them.

Be your advocate.

If you want to create a hybrid work schedule, let your boss know why that would help the team as much as it would help you.

Other ideas:

Create a “branch” group with colleagues you trust.

For three years, I’ve been part of a meditation circle. During the pandemic, we met online for two years (we’re still meeting online). In early 2020, Rabbi Sara Luria (who started the group) created a branch system for our community.

In her email, she wrote, “Just as branches are connected to the same nutrient-rich trunk and root system, yet grow their buds, leaves, and flowers, we invite each of you to connect to a branch of our larger tree.

Each branch, consisting of four to five meditators, and a volunteer facilitator, will gather online once or twice a week to check in and offer each other support in this time of uncertainty and distancing …. May the strength of the trees be our guide.”

If you feel as warm toward your colleagues as my meditation group feels toward one another, consider proposing the idea of branches to your co-workers.

If not, then make plans for coffee, or communal lunches. Start a themed book club, a literary journal club, or a TV show club!

Whatever you are dreading, try to address it in the lead-up. Rig the game in your favor. Are boundaries an issue? Plan what boundaries you need to work on and how you might employ them with your boss and coworkers.

GETTY IMAGES / Japatino

Things to Keep in Mind:

I just had a birthday, and it was the first time in three years that I was able to see my friends in person. As I sat in the restaurant garden at the table with two friends, waiting for the other 12 people to arrive, I was struck by something—maybe I’m no longer a group type of person.

After two years of only socializing one-on-one or in tiny groups, I realized that I preferred a more intimate gathering, one where I was present with each of the people I loved.

Someone, I can’t remember who, said of productivity: “Don’t be in the thick of thin things.” I understood at my birthday dinner that I wanted to have hours alone with each person at the table, instead of having thin, diffuse engagement, and while being together after so long was WONDERFUL, I felt less connected than I used to feel in the same setting.

What once felt like a special night with friends, pre-pandemic, now felt different—like I was forsaking proper one-on-one engagement with each of these beloved friends by bringing us together to be in the thick of thin things.

We are social animals, and we need interaction. The longer we remain separated, the more prone we are to mental health conditions such as depression. Yet we’ve become adept at being with fewer people and are out of practice and sync with others.

The expectation is that we return to the people we once were.

After all, most of us will be returning to the same places, but this is a false equivalency.

Many of us are not those same selves, and that’s okay. We don’t have to live up to unspoken and irrational expectations we think other people might have for us. We need only to try to live up to our expectations.

GETTY IMAGES / Jonathan Knowles

I no longer experience pre-pandemic life as a pre-pandemic person. My needs for engagement have changed. What’s vital and essential to me now is different, and I would not have known that difference had I not had that dinner.

Heading back into the world now is a bit like going on a first date. It’s not about having a good or bad time, it’s not about being your “best self.” It’s about information-gathering. That’s all we’re doing right now.

We’re going back out there, not to find our old selves in our old worlds but gathering information about what we need and who we are now.

Allow yourself the time to learn who and what makes you feel alive and safe as the person you are now. Allow for curiosity. With loss comes change. Allow it.

Finally, if you feel comfortable, ask your supervisor if mental health resources are being offered and use them. If there aren’t, and you are not in therapy or involved with a support group, seek one out if you think that would be helpful. You can start here: NAMI.

You got this.

And if you don’t, that’s okay too.

Are you feeling nervous to return to the office? How are you going to help yourself through this transition?

Let me know in the comments!

Thank you for reading.

Until next week, I am…

Amanda

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