Isolation Brain?

Normally, I pride myself on my ability to communicate effectively.

I am careful with what I say. I weigh the possible impact of my words before I say them. I try to see the other person’s perspective so I can imagine how they arrived at the conclusion they did. I examine what I am saying for possible bias, privilege, and all of the (mostly) invisible things that come along with those things.

But now, in the last three days, I have made several fairly upsetting communication errors that have caused me a lot of stress.

(I’m not vague-blogging here, the details of the errors are just not relevant.)

I’m wondering if the switch to mostly digital communication has made it trickier to use the skills I have. Or, if the combinations of ambient stressors right now has just made my skills less sharp.

I have been saying that this whole isolation thing has affected me less than it has affected many others because I already work from home and my whole family is full of homebodies. Not having to go out is not a source of stress for us (at least not a conscious one.)

But the frustrations of the past few days are making very curious about the subconscious effects of this whole situation.

Or, you know, maybe I’m just out of sorts. 😉