We're constantly being warned that the pandemic and its lock-downs might have spread a secondary virus: mental illness. A contingent of the polled public reports an experience of depression. Are they depressed at having been locked-down, or at the threat of having to come back out? The media know that keeping the viewer engaged requires the right mixture of fear and hope. We hope for “building back better” and “finding the new normal” and “the light at the end of the tunnel” (if you hope for the end of cliches, forget it). Now, we're told also to fear the emotional wreckage the pandemic is said to be leaving behind.
Might it have left emotional gains, though? Maybe these feared mental illness syndromes are examples of adaptive strength, and one person's mental illness is another person's mental health.
Hoarding: we're hoarding new-found privacy and space – some folks won't throw those away with the great “re-opening”. We'll hang on to having time to think, time to ourselves.
Agoraphobia: we might wish to continue avoiding crowds, predatory huggers, the misery of public transport (which never was hygienic). We're like groundhogs who poke their noses out at the first hint of spring and then hustle back into their burrow if they don't like the look of things. What's so bad about hibernation?
Isolation: is this another word for self-regulating self-sufficiency? Embrace your inner hermit.
Obsessive compulsive disorder: if we practise orderliness and non-forgetfulness, is that bad? Asking yourself, is my mask in my pocket? Is my extra mask in my pocket? Have I turned off the lights and stove? (Since you've been working from home the electricity bill has soared. Who wouldn't check?)
Hand-washing: remember when that was the hallmark of OCD? Now it's a legal requirement.
Missing contact with relatives: come on -- you used to dread seeing half of them.
Walking in nature, being with pets, reading many books, doing yoga and crossword puzzles ... are such new habits unhealthy? Is habit itself obsessive and inhibiting? No: humans develop habits instinctively; if we resist one, another will take its place. So choose them wisely. If someone calls that obsessive, fine: obsess away.
One day we'll look back on the pandemic with nostalgia, like people look back at World War II with its shortages and its “making do” inventiveness, and being “all in it together”. We might look back nostalgically at all-staying-apart – with its possibilities for peace and privacy. In fact, for some people the whole thing has been a holiday from the stress of what we called ordinary life.
Maybe “opening up” at the end of COVID is what will drive us mad.
