Lucy Puryear, M.D., is medical director of The Women’s Place: Center for Reproductive Psychiatry, co-director of The Menopause Center at Texas Children’s Pavilion for Women and associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology and with the Menninger Department of Psychiatry at Baylor College of Medicine. She spoke to TMC News on April 1, 2020.
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The best piece of advice I have for my patients during this time is to focus on what’s right in front of you, and what’s right in front of you are the things you can control, which include social distancing, washing your hands—and if you’re about to have a baby or have a new baby—focusing on getting ready for the baby and doing those normal things in the here and now that bring you pleasure and bring you joy. This is not the time to spend all day worrying about COVID-19, which you have no control over, other than washing your hands and social distancing. Allow yourself to really continue getting ready for the baby and to enjoy your new baby.
Compartmentalizing is extremely helpful. It’s OK to watch the news and see what’s going on for 30 minutes a day, but then turn it off. Take it one day at a time. I was talking to somebody yesterday who had a baby due in six weeks, and she was worried about what’s going to happen in the hospital six weeks from now and if her husband will be able to be in the delivery room with her. I said to her, none of us has any control over what the next six weeks are going to look like—that’s not something you have to worry about today, because worrying about it is not going to change anything. Keep painting the nursery and keep looking forward to all those things you’ve been looking forward to. It’s really about living day to day and not forecasting something in the future you have no control over.
You know, what’s interesting as a psychiatrist is that my job is to hold onto everybody else’s anxiety and fears and to help them tolerate theirs, but I also have my own. So, I allow myself some time during the day to feel my own fears and my own anxieties, and then the next thing I do is say, OK, I need to stop feeling that way now for the time being. What will I do for self-care? Am I going to watch something? I finished ‘Schitt’s Creek,’ so now I need to find something new on Netflix that is just totally ridiculous and distracting. I’m also knitting, and I also try to make sure and get outside every day. I can walk to Hermann Park and I find walking around the park actually really joyful. It clears my head and I can find some joy in just being outside and looking at the beautiful gardens. And I do allow a little bit of time on Twitter and the news, but then I turn it off. I have to remind myself that I can only do the best I can do, and you have to be kind to yourself.
—Lucy Puryear, M.D., as told to TMC Pulse Senior Writer Alexandra Becker
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