Acceptable Risk
“Acceptable risk” is a phrase I’ve seen a lot, and as someone who tends to be afraid of a lot of things, my threshold for risk-taking is pretty low. My family has bribed me into bravery on a few occasions involving ziplines and roller coasters, but when I’m on my own, I don’t tend to take many risks.
Some contracts define acceptable risk in contrast to unacceptable risk, which places an individual’s life or health in immediate jeopardy. That’s how I tend to see things most of the time - I catastrophize, seeing the worst that could happen and using that as an excuse to not try things at all.
I’ve done it throughout my life with all sorts of trying new things. My new therapist, D., says that I do it out of fear of losing control over different things in my life. Just like when I play Dungeons & Dragons, I never know how the dice will roll - I can be prepared for success only to utterly fail, or vice versa. Randomness and chance will affect any of these decisions and accepting uncertainty is the only way to make decisions about these sorts of things.
I’ve been thinking about risk a lot lately thanks to two decisions I’ve made recently - to take a blacksmithing class, which I’ve started; and to potentially go to DragonCon this Labor Day weekend.
The decision-making process is similar for both: Both are activities I want to do because of my immense interest in nerdy things. Both would involve risk to my physical health. And both test my ability to think in a non-black-and-white manner to make a decision best suited for me and those around me.
For the blacksmithing class, the risk is simple to understand. There are 6 people in the room, no one is wearing a mask because of flying embers, and even though we’re not trying to, there are a lot of times when the instructor or his assistant get right up in our faces to explain something or show us how to handle our tools differently.
There’s a COVID risk there, and there are other risks, too. The other new students and I make a lot of mistakes where we hit with the hammers, and I know that if I hit myself hard with a hammer, I’d have one hell of a bruise and likely have to go to a doctor due to my blood thinners. There’s also all the sharp tools we work with and the forge fire, which I’ve burned myself on once already, but thankfully it didn’t do much more than create a large, gross blister and hurt a lot even after taking Tylenol.
It was easy for me to decide that those risks were okay. It also helps that I signed up for the class months ago, before the delta variant became a serious threat. I am fully vaccinated, but thanks to my long history of germophobia, I have become more worried that I could get COVID if I do something wrong.
The problem is, it’s impossible to tell what’s right and wrong. Everyone has their own definition of what they consider an acceptable risk to take at this time, and deciding about DragonCon is a lot more of a struggle.
It’s hard for me to explain exactly what DragonCon means to me, but it’s one of the few times I feel like I don’t have to censor myself at all. I can be as obsessive as I want about the things I love, and find other people like me who won’t judge me for who I am. I cry for joy so many times throughout the weekend and although I’ve never taken any drugs before, it feels like how I imagine a high would feel - and it’s a feeling that’s extremely hard to replicate in other ways.
The closest I can come is to describing it is a weekend of endless euphoria where the happiness is so intense I feel like a balloon about to burst, where my face hurts from smiling so much, and even without much food or sleep, I have endless energy to indulge in my passions in a way I often don’t let myself.
Still, though, there is no way for me to know if, by going to DragonCon, I would catch COVID. There’s no way of knowing if I’d get an “easy” case or a “hard” case. Even though the data says that my worst fear in this scenario - either having to go to the hospital myself or sending a loved one to the hospital by transmission - is extremely rare, it is still technically possible, and I’m not exactly new to experiencing medical things with low odds.
It’s strange to me, then, that I’d even consider going, when I’m so terrified of hospitals and medical things and being sick in any serious way. I wouldn’t consider going to any other gathering as large as this, but there’s something so special about DragonCon and what it does for my mental health that I’m feeling like I’m willing to take the risk to my physical health even though I am ordinarily far from a risk-taker.
I’ve been taking other risks working up to this point, and working on what “acceptable risk” means to me in what’s supposed to be a post-COVID world but isn’t. I have gone to a relatively crowded museum exhibit, I take public transportation regularly, and I have invited most of my friends over to my apartment individually or in small groups to hang out. I could catch COVID from any of those activities, theoretically. Or from going on the elevator in my building or walking down the street on one of my daily walks or flying home to visit my parents even if I decide not to go to the convention.
There’s no way to prevent the risk of COVID entirely except doing what I did last year - hiding in my parents’ house for weeks on end, not venturing out except to take walks outside, and feeding into my fear of going into public spaces of any kind to the point that I felt on the verge of a panic attack the first time I went into a Trader Joe’s last summer.
I’ve spent some time trying to convince myself not to go, using fear and imagining the worst scenarios that could happen. Me on a hospital bed, not breathing, full of tubes and wires, dying alone. Mom, Dad, and Nana, all in the same situation because of me. But when I catch myself thinking that, I can’t help but remember the Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT) I’ve been trained in that teaches me to not think like this. That these thoughts are inaccurate or highly unlikely at best. That if I follow thoughts like this, I will never do anything, ever, and I will give up something that means so much to me for the sake of my own fear. I’ll be letting the “bad” part of my head win, something I’ve always strived not to do.
And so, I’m waffling. I do feel like if I go, I will most likely be safe from my worst fears, considering that I am fully vaccinated and the convention requires masks at all times, plus there will be significant cleaning protocols. But there is also the chance that I won’t be, and for me, it’s a matter of looking at recommendations from the CDC, advice from medical professionals, and medical studies in order to make a final decision.
In the meantime, I think of my friends who I haven’t seen in years, who I made a beautiful costume to dress up with. And then myself, sick. And then how happy I’d feel wandering around the nerd mall and dancing my feet off at the Tolkien dance party and singing in the elf choir. And then Nana, turning 93 later this month, vaccinated but becoming sick because of me. My brain is swinging back and forth so hard that it’s easier to not think about it. I have the plane tickets. I have the time off work. I lost the weight and made the beautiful costume and my friends are going. All that’s left is for me to make my final decision in the coming weeks.
It’s a decision only I can make, and as an adult, I need to be okay with the consequences, either way. I know that many of my friends and family members have opinions, but in the end, I need to come to terms with what I am okay with and make a decision based on what matters most to me.
At the moment, I have not made my decision, but I am really, truly hoping to go to DragonCon. If I go, I will take every precaution I can, including wearing masks throughout the convention, getting tested afterwards, and, if my family would prefer, quarantining in my room, social distancing, and/or wearing a mask at home afterwards. This might change in the coming weeks, but for now, I hope and pray that DragonCon will be a risk that’s acceptable to me.
Ellie, a writer in the Chicago area, was diagnosed with OCD at age 3. She hopes to educate others about her condition and end the stigma against mental illness.