Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

It’s 10 past midnight, I’m lying in bed, ready to drift into sleep when It arrives. The gentle but punctual pain that shows up in the left region of my chest, It’s my nightly heart attack that arises when things go quiet and I can feel the beat of my, eventually doomed to stop, blood engine. According to my doctor, this might just be my pectoral muscles being sore from all those hours I dedicate to lifting my phone. Yet, how could she be so sure?

This is just one of my daily encounters with the reminder of how my relationship with my body is a lot like the one I have with my parents: I love them but I’m not sure I like them. The smallest thing they do irritates me, every tiny twitch means they have given up on me, and if things have been quiet for a long time, it’s cancer.

I know you might be feeling like this new virus threat has turned the world into a scary disease minefield where the only way to survive is to constantly squeeze sanitizer on your hands until they are so dry you can use them to sand-down the wood they will use to build your coffin. But I’m here to guide you away from the psychotic germophobe’s perspective into the sweet approach of a seasoned Hypochondriac.

I’m talking about not wiping-down everything and everyone because they are contaminated but instead embracing how it’s your own body the one who is trying to kill you. I don’t touch my face because of germs I might have picked up on my commute, I keep my fingers away from my features because every time I do I find a new tiny bump that turns today into my last day on earth. I wash my hands constantly not because I touched a handrail, but because I’m so sure I’m dying I never stop sweating toxins out of every pore and I don’t wear a surgical mask in order to make sure there’s enough left for healthcare workers and sick people — I refuse to use one out of fear of getting Co2 poisoning from my own breath. A simple mindset approach to take control and shift the source of potential death away from others and towards myself; which happens to also apply to my relationship with my parents.

Therefore, try not to panic. You might think that the imminent encounter with a life threatening disease leads to constant stress, but I have learned to stop saying “Oh no” during my nightly heart attack and instead proclaim a smooth “Oh well; if this is it, I had a good run”.

I guess that what I’m saying to you is: don’t take precautions because the world around you is infected, take them because your body, like a printer, is designed to fail.