Long Island mom Diana Berrent, 45, learned that she tested positive last week for the coronavirus after coming down with a 102-degree fever. Today, she opens up about how she’s managed her anxiety during what has been a “really stressful” experience.

I’m on day 11 of having COVID-19 and in isolation. Seven days to go, I think. My physical symptoms are sort of stable: a pretty constant headache, a lack of appetite and a return of the abdominal pain. There’s fatigue but I can’t sleep from the stress, so I’m not sure that’s attributable to the virus. The symptoms are manageable and I’m tremendously relieved to be out of the woods in terms of my lungs.

I want to talk about something more personal today, but also really important. This has been really really stressful. It’s stressful if you don’t have the virus because you’re scared out of your mind you’re going to contract it. It’s stressful if you show any symptoms because how do you know if this is just seasonal allergies or in fact COVID-19?

It’s stressful when you get sick and you can’t get a test. It’s stressful when you’re waiting for the results of the test. It’s stressful when you get a positive result, like I did, because you don’t know if you’ll be one of the success stories, or in the hospital.

Did you, God forbid, infect anyone else? And, if you have a negative result, you are right back in the pool of people back to being stressed about contracting the virus. It’s all just really really stressful. Add to that the lovely fact that COVID-19 comes in two phases so just when you feel like you’re all right, you still stand the risk of taking a major setback.

And then there’s the news, which is getting scarier and scarier by the day. Especially here in New York where we are apparently now the world’s epicenter.

So, here comes the personal part. I wasn’t doing so great before all of this. I had kind of been struggling. I had just started pretty intensive therapy, and then this happened. And our entire world as we knew it (which didn’t exactly seem so hunky-dory at the time, but positively idyllic in retrospect) has been turned on its head in the course of a week.

My heart drops into my stomach with every notification of another person, young and healthy, intubated in the ICU. If you’re not stressed, you’re not paying attention.

Most people would describe me as a pretty tough cookie, but it didn’t feel that way in the middle of the night last night when I somehow decided the floor of my closet would be a perfect change of scenery to have a good hard cry. I mean, big ugly tears. And it wasn’t the first time this week, and it won’t be the last.

I know everyone is intensely interested in my every physical symptom but I’m finding that taking care of my mental health is just as important. And it is for you too. I haven’t stopped going to therapy because I realize my mental health is as important as my physical health right now, and so is yours.

So, this week I went to therapy, just via Zoom. And I went to group therapy too, also on Zoom. I had a fever and I was wrapped in a blanket, but I was there.

My point is, do what you need to do to keep yourself sane and calm. I find it helpful to meditate even just a little every day. And it’s so hard to turn off the news, but I know I feel better when Lizzo is the voice blaring in my isolation bedroom.

That said, my radio is still tuned mostly to the news. If you don’t have trouble with drinking, make it a double (I mean, I doubt you have anywhere to be tomorrow morning). If you do, I hear that AA online is way better than anyone expected.

Just when I thought I was done with Facebook, it has changed my life. It has been a lifeline, both metaphorically and literally.

Eat all the carbs. Pick up the phone and call a friend, but be understanding when your friends aren’t as worried about you as you would like or expect because they are too busy worrying about themselves.

We’re all worrying. We’re all stressed. These are not normal times, so be kind to each other and please be kind to yourself. And don’t try to reach me this evening because I’ll be in group therapy, online.