COVID-19 Friday Five: Anxiety Dreams

I'm having trouble sleeping. When I do sleep I have anxiety dreams. I have lived with anxiety for a long time and, as I grow to understand it, probably even longer than I first thought. It comes - resulting in panic attacks at its most extreme - and goes (although it never goes completely), and most of the time I try to externalise it and can lessen its harmful effects that way. I know I am not alone and that a lot of people have anxiety (approximately 18% according to a recent survey, although only about a third of those seek professional treatment).

I also know that COVID-19 has led to an understandable increase in anxiety and feelings of helplessness, many of which manifest in dreams.  A research paper published in Scientific American found that 37% of people had 'pandemic dreams', many of them marked by themes of insufficiently completing tasks and being threatened by others. Here's an example of one of mine.

I was in a very quiet (English-looking) pub with a group of Aussie theatre friends. I had taken them there to introduce them to 'my other community' (although I don't know where it was and I didn't recognise any of the other patrons). I was trying to get a round in with the help of another person, but each time we thought we had ordered the correct number of drinks, someone else walked in and we had to get one for them too - it took so long to process the order that some people had finished theirs before we had even sat down, so we thought we had to get them another one. 

By the time I finally sat down at the table I realised I didn't have a pint and, although I really wanted one, I couldn't be bothered to go through all the rigmarole again, and so when my friend noticed I hadn't got a drink, I said it was okay and that I didn't really want one anyway, which I did. Everyone else was talking amongst themselves and laughing at something that I hadn't heard, and no one involved me in the conversation. I knew that there were some people missing whom I really wanted to be there, and that they would have made me feel better if they were around, but as they weren't, I was going to have to deal with it myself. 

I nonchalantly got up to go and look at a picture on the wall, and I realised it was actually a jigsaw puzzle when it all fell apart in front of me. The pieces were tiny, but I thought I had to try and put it all back together before anyone noticed - there was a spare table so I scooped all the tiny pieces on to it and frantically started to reassemble it, although the light in the pub was dimming and I was finding it really hard to see the picture. 

A group of people walked in (some of whom I recognised) and asked if they could use this table because they needed to have their meeting. I tried to stall for time by asking them what their committee was, and regretted it instantly when they told me they were the Committee Against Colour-and-Gender-Blind Casting (CACAGBC). The rest of the pub fell silent and all I was afraid it was all going to kick off and somehow it would all be my fault... and they'd notice I'd wrecked their puzzle picture. 

I woke up sweating in fear and gasping for breath. It took a while to calm down and convince myself that I hadn't broken or destroyed anything, from inanimate objects (such as the jigsaw puzzle) to friendships (particularly among my theatre community). I am still tired, emotional and a little bit nauseous. I know this may sound ridiculous to some, but these things affect me on a daily basis. While I cannot stop these dreams, I can identify what is bothering me in them - thoughts and feelings which I try to repress in my waking hours.

5 Anxiety Issues in My Dreams:

• Feeling responsible for things which are beyond my control
• Stress of trying to plan something within shifting and uncertain parameters
• Feelings of isolation - trying to reconcile different aspects of my life
• Feeling overlooked and excluded but trying to pretend it doesn't bother me
• Wanting to 'return' to a time and place but not knowing when I will be able to get there and afraid that things will have changed so much that I won't recognise anyone when I do

Not Always Greener: Marilla of Green Gables

Marilla of Green Gables by Sarah McCoy

Thorndike Press

Pp. 446

In this imagined prequel to the Anne of Green Gables books, Marilla has much in common with Anne. Her relationships with her brother, Matthew, and her friend, Rachel, are explained, and the setting of place and time are clear. At times, however, it becomes confusing as the similarities between Marilla and Anne are great: there is even a parallel story of Marilla’s romantic connection with a Blythe who got away. The author claims she began with the “cryptic un-telling” of a mention in Anne of Green Gables of Marilla telling Anne, “John Blythe was a nice boy. We used to be real good friends, he and I. People called him my beau.”

When Marilla’s mother, Clara, dies in childbirth, her Aunt Izzy continues to stay for a while and Marilla’s life changes irreparably. Aunt Izzy is a strong woman driven by fairness who teaches Marilla to recognise her advantages and privilege. It is on Aunt Izzy that the ‘subplot’ of racism and slavery hangs. In a nod to the Underground Railroad, Aunt Izzy helps people across the border from America to Canada, and introduces Marilla to concepts of self-determinism.

Marilla is not a prototype feminist, but she has got opinions and is prepared to speak her mind. She is highly intelligent, takes her school exit exams early, and gets good results. When John Blythe tells her she is “smarter than any other girl I know”, she is pleased with the compliment and determines that this will be her primary attribute. “Her mother had been virtuous. Izzy was beautiful. She, Marilla, would be smart.” Her thoughts are quite radical in terms of self-identity. “Who said a man or a woman had to be a husband or a wife? Maybe they could simply be, unto themselves. Besides, there were bigger issues in the world than love doves and wedding bells.” Sarah McCoy writes in her Author’s Note, “And now I write again with the hope that readers will understand Marilla for who she is as a woman unto herself… as I am unto mine.” She seems to achieve this ambition.

Sarah McCoy clearly has a great love for the “beloved works” by Lucy Maud Montgomery. In her Author’s Note, she shares, “I wrote from a place of grateful reverence to a fictional landscape that has given me much scope for imagination. I wrote praying each hour that I would honour that world and add to it in a way that would make its creator proud.”

The novel contains instances of homey and rural wisdom, and the chapters have titles like ‘John Blythe Suggests a Walk’, ‘A Return to Hopetown’ or ‘Aunt Izzy and the Three Magi’ This might suggest the novel is intended for a young adult audience, but modern teenagers might not be interested, so it is more likely to be an attempt to copy the style of the original and appeal to the nostalgia of its fans. Sarah McCoy takes a well-loved story and crafts her own version upon it, which is the sincerest form of flattery. It makes sense and it certainly doesn’t do any damage to the originals, although I’m not sure anyone with no previous interest in the Anne Shirley stories will engage with it.

Colleen Dewhurst as Marilla Cuthbert in the CBC Televsion adaptation of Anne of Green Gables