Adoptees: 3 Ways to Fight Isolation During Covid Lockdown!

An adoptee knows what loneliness means. Besides, it's challenging to be left home alone with a humongous amount of time to think about life. If you are practising it (and you should!); COVID-19 self-isolation gives you that kind of mindset since we are all obliged to stay home with no other human contact or stuck with your roomy/partner/family. 

I am an adoptee in isolation (in a 20mq place with a very chatting boyfriend and a lovely sometimes extremely annoying cat) and a participant to the Northwestern University | Social Media Marketing Specialization on Coursera. I decided to share three simple actions to put in use for this unforeseen - a more then a month in - situation based on two exciting pieces I’ve read on the subject.

You might all want to listen to CNN podcast by Chief Medical Correspondent Dr Sanjay Gupta in conversation with Scott Kelly - US former astronaut who spent 340 days living in a Space Station - advising on how to live confined in limited space for a long time. Kelly said is good to have a routine - to schedule work meal and training time; take care of your beloved crew or roommate[s]; develop a hobby, and to concentrate on what you can control and try to keep fears away. Of course, if he had to choose between isolation in space or at home, he would rather his apartment because of standard comfort are unavailable in Space. In conclusion, he highlights how in this globalized world, we are deeply connected, for better and for worse. Kelly’s testimony is featured in the article “Living an isolated life: Astronauts, Antarctic doctors and climbers share their advice.”  by writer Ashley Strickland on the CNN website.

Photo description “This is what happens when you leave me inside your home alone with my camera....” on Pxhere (https://bit.ly/2VdtcGx)

Brent Crane made a great point in “The Virtue of isolation.” article published on The Atlantic where he pieces together positive and negative aspects of isolation. There are sociologists, psychologists and neuroscientists, who studied the effects of solitude and loneliness who consider solitude to be the cause of anxiety, and loneliness is the right way to acknowledge and perceive oneself place on society. Beside other thinkers and philosophers that only see benefits. A common trend in studies says that for isolation to be taken positively, it needs to be voluntary, and warns about armful side-effects such as depression. In conclusion, Crane takes after Italian author Tiziano Terzani, which during long moth isolation in Japan - had time to find the time - and produced “A Fortune Teller Told Me”. Crane says this experience lead Terzani to think that our inner self is the real master - is the only thing we need to learn and listen during confinement truly.

Since during COVID, we must endure social distance, alongside World HealthOrganization (WHO) necessary protective measures, I want to share with you three recommendations that have worked from me in this month-long of confinement with my partner:

• Be active 

- Start your day with the right foot and plan your fight

- Sing from the balcony / Italian style when you feel down
- Read a good book

• Act real 

- Chat call or talk with your confined mates and neighbours or other fellow adoptees

- Look at family pictures

- Make peace, if not love

• Reach out 

- Focus on your well-being & if you need help, seek it. 

(adoption podcasts and adoptee groups can be useful)

- Do not wait for the end to come, ask the questions you always wanted to ask (you'll feel relieved)

- Do what you are keeping yourself from doing 

(the more you push things away, the hard them will get back at you) 

In other words, to fight isolation set BAR in motion! Enjoy yourself, take the pleasure from little things focus on the present, not on the future - you should give it a try; I did, and it changed it all for me.

Alessia Petrolito - Born in the U.S. adopted and raised in Northern Italy. She gained her BFA at the Academy of Fine Arts in Turin, Italy. She lived in Chicago, where she obtained her MA in Visual and Critical Studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) in 2016. She presented at the 5th ICAR - International Conference on Adoption Research in New Zealand. She currently lives in Italy where she is working for a no-profit organization while writing on her Italian blog (arpadoptic.com) about adoption and other visual metaphors and taking the Northwestern University | Social Media Marketing Specialization on Coursera.

@Alessia Petrolito on Linkedin
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