COVID-19 and the lockdown effects on mental health.

[al78]

I suggest that you have little understand of what many people especially the young need.

Despite what you might think about youngsters being glued to their screens all the time many like real social interaction with their friends. My son should have been working his backside off for his A Levels now. He’d psyched himself up for the task ahead and was in control. Now he has a period of uncertainty until August not knowing what will happen. The rug has been pulled from under his feet. Fortunately he seems to be coping quite well.
Yesterday we went on a long bike ride together and he was telling me how some of his friends were coping badly from a mental health point of view. They can’t get out of the house, they can’t go and play football. If they had a job that’s been taken away along with the income.
If this doesn’t end soon we are going to have a bigger crisis than the disease itself and longer term the effects will go on many years into the future as opportunities are destroyed all because “we had to save the lives of old people” - that’s not my words but the thinking amongst some younger ones.

As for me in my fifties it is starting to get to me. The 200 channels of TV are rubbish and I can’t go out on the train, see friends, go to the pub, have a meal out etc.I feel I am just “existing”....I can put up with it for about a month or so longer. I’m sure I’m not the only one.

I have unfortunately seen people trying to trivialise the situation as though it is all about not going to the pub for a drink. I wonder if such people are machines that are emotionless and have need for nothing other than the essentials for survival. Whilst I can appreciate the reasons for the lockdown, and it seems to be having the desired effect of keeping the hospital admissions to a level where the NHS can still cope, the effect it is having on a lot of people is that it has removed a lot of activities and experiences that make life worth living. Sharing love and affection with friends and family. Socialising and sharing problems. Getting out and enjoying hobbies and making memories. All that has gone, and I find it ridiculous that some people just don't get it, in fact I wonder if they are just trying to antagonise people for the sake of an ego trip.

For the record, I am coping fine at the moment, I am lucky enough to be able to do my day job from home, and I can enjoy a couple of hobbies under the umbrella of permitted exercise, but it is a long way from ideal. My only real fear is this ends up being a new normal, which means goodbye freedom to enjoy hobbies and the company of others forever, would anyone of rational mind really think that is trivial and unimportant?

 

[al78]

I do think the point about exams is well made. I’d have been pretty dispirited to have got to the point of being within touching distance of exams and then, as you say, having had the rug pulled out from underneath. I’d certainly have been infuriated at any suggestion of teachers making up grades or going off a mock exam. I don’t really feel enough has been done to cater for this group.

At my university and on the MSc course I assist with lecturing, some of the exams have been substituted for coursework which the students can carry out at home, which I think was an excellent idea.

 

[yorkie]

The worst part for me is worrying about others; in particular young people I know through work, colleagues, and also the livelihoods of many people. I worry that people I know may lose their businesses. I'm not worried about myself; I am not particularly concerned about getting viruses and I am not going to start worrying now. I am fortunate in that my jobs are secure and continuing. My usual workplace is open and I have been going in occasionally and am looking forward to going in next week.

In the short term I can cope with the current situation; I have a routine of going for long walks (while chatting to people - if anyone reading this thread would like me to call you, send me a message!) of typically 6 to 10 miles taking 2 -3 hours, online socialising with forum members every evening, work to keep me occupied.

I'd be able to cope much better if I could be assured that the economy won't collapse and that many people will not lose their livelihoods and that people I know are going to be okay and that the future is going to be okay. If I was assured of all that I'd be absolutely fine!

There’s something seriously wrong if a few weeks of pretty weak lockdown is having such a major effect on people.

Today we have the world inside our houses in the form of the internet, something we wouldn’t have had 25 years ago, as well as good communications in the form of mobile phones, which again pretty much everyone has nowadays, when 25 years ago it would have been one landline per household (quite probably with calls charged per minute), no social media and certainly nothing like FaceTime. There’s more TV channels than ever now, again 25 years ago for most people it would have been four channels, and the only way to get stuff on demand would be to tape it and watch later.

I think you misunderstand; the effect it is having on me is one of worry for the future (particularly of others) rather than the experience of the present.

I get that this whole situation is pants. It’s pants for everyone in different ways. But being stuck at home with plenty of things to keep positively occupied with *shouldn’t* be the end of the world it’s being made out to be.

Yes but when you speak to a parent whose child is really upset and struggling because
1) they cannot do any of the sports they enjoy (they are really sporty)
2) they cannot see any of their friends (they are really outgoing)
2) they cannot see their Dad & brother, who they are close to and previously saw every week
and you know that child is normally a really happy child, and that child has previously thanked you for helping them, and you had been promising them an opportunity all year that you can no longer fulfil and know you know they are miserable because their life isn't fulfilling to them if they can just watch media and play games, how would that make you feel? And that's just one example; I could go on and on...!

And when you speak to business owners who are passionate about their business, really care about their customers, who are extremely worried about the future...

I’m increasingly coming to the conclusion that it is best just to get everyone back to work

Although I'd give the caveat that I'd like us to learn from what other countries are doing (e.g. Germany, Denmark, Sweden etc) and we need time to re-open in a phased manner, yes I agree.

. In my area at least the lockdown is non existent, and what’s the point in spending billions of pounds protecting people to collectively fail to derive the maximum value from that expenditure?

But this comment is absurd.

... the effect it is having on a lot of people is that it has removed a lot of activities and experiences that make life worth living. Sharing love and affection with friends and family. Socialising and sharing problems. Getting out and enjoying hobbies and making memories. All that has gone, and I find it ridiculous that some people just don't get it, in fact I wonder if they are just trying to antagonise people for the sake of an ego trip....

I quite agree!

For the record, I am coping fine at the moment, I am lucky enough to be able to do my day job from home, and I can enjoy a couple of hobbies under the umbrella of permitted exercise, but it is a long wa from ideal. My only real fear is this ends up being a new normal, which means goodbye freedom to enjoy hobbies and the company of others forever, would anyone of rational mind really think that is trivial and unimportant?

And yes this sounds familiar to me too (except I am even more fortunate in that I can't do all my work from home, which means I actually get to go in some days, which is probably going to be the highlight of my week next week!)

 

[yorkie]

'It would be better to die': Italy's lockdown cost

As Italy eases its restrictions, the damage caused by lockdown is being felt across Naples.

www.bbc.co.uk

Coronavirus: Naples feels the cost of Italy's lockdown

As Italy begins to ease its lockdown measures, residents in some of Naples' poorest neighbourhoods share their stories of how the global pandemic has left scars on their city.
Takeaways and parks are reopening, small funerals can resume and some businesses are restarting.
But the shutdown has left deep wounds in a country with already serious economic problems.
Mark Lowen has been speaking to people whose lives have been changed.

I can't bring myself to watch the video, but those who dismiss the economic and mental effects of lockdowns should be forced to watch it, in my opinion.

 

[Bantamzen]

'It would be better to die': Italy's lockdown cost

As Italy eases its restrictions, the damage caused by lockdown is being felt across Naples.

www.bbc.co.uk

I can't bring myself to watch the video, but those who dismiss the economic and mental effects of lockdowns should be forced to watch it, in my opinion.

I've just watched it, and you are right. The naysayers really need to watch it, there are people in the short piece whose lives are being devastated by the lockdown.

 

[bramling]

'It would be better to die': Italy's lockdown cost

As Italy eases its restrictions, the damage caused by lockdown is being felt across Naples.

www.bbc.co.uk

I can't bring myself to watch the video, but those who dismiss the economic and mental effects of lockdowns should be forced to watch it, in my opinion.

I do think some thought needs to be given to why mental health among young people is now apparently so fragile that so many people are apparently struggling with a few weeks of lockdown.

Perhaps I’m fortunate in having had a few difficult things to contend with during childhood, which I’m in no doubt has made me a lot stronger as an adult. Is life just too easy nowadays?

 

[Bantamzen]

I do think some thought needs to be given to why mental health among young people is now apparently so fragile that so many people are apparently struggling with a few weeks of lockdown.

Perhaps I’m fortunate in having had a few difficult things to contend with during childhood, which I’m in no doubt has made me a lot stronger as an adult. Is life just too easy nowadays?

Mental health is not so black and white. People can be able to cope one minute and not the next, regardless of their backgrounds.

 

[Domh245]

It could just be that Mental Health is taken much more seriously and is talked about than it was in years gone by?

(Not saying that it is taken seriously enough still but it seems to be leaps and bounds better than what went before)

 

[HH]

We need to get this into proportion.

In this country in just a few weeks we have had over 28k deaths attributed to covid, and that's despite the lockdown. Experts are talking about 40k deaths in total during this wave.

Annually there are around 6k suicides in the UK.

When the medical experts talk about the morbidity rates, they talk first about the direct covid deaths, then about the deaths from lack of treatment and people shying away from hospital (for which there is no thread), and lastly about the long-term effects of the lockdown and these are mostly about the economic effects on deprivation.

Is there actually any hard evidence that suicides are increasing now, because I haven't seen any?

 

[bramling]

We need to get this into proportion.

In this country in just a few weeks we have had over 28k deaths attributed to covid, and that's despite the lockdown. Experts are talking about 40k deaths in total during this wave.

Annually there are around 6k suicides in the UK.

When the medical experts talk about the morbidity rates, they talk first about the direct covid deaths, then about the deaths from lack of treatment and people shying away from hospital (for which there is no thread), and lastly about the long-term effects of the lockdown and these are mostly about the economic effects on deprivation.

Is there actually any hard evidence that sucides are increasing now, because I haven't seen any?

There certainly doesn’t seem to have been any spike on the railways, IME.

Obviously much will depend on the longer term economic effects, which as yet are hard to predict.

Being brutally objective however, there will be a long way to go before we reach some of the six-figure death predictions made by certain models regarding what might have happened if we hadn’t gone into lockdown.

 

[HH]

There certainly doesn’t seem to have been any spike on the railways, IME.

Obviously much will depend on the longer term economic effects, which as yet are hard to predict.

Long term I certainly see the risk, but that will be mostly from economic factors. The government certainly need to address those.

 

[Steveoh]

Yes but when you speak to a parent whose child is really upset and struggling because
1) they cannot do any of the sports they enjoy (they are really sporty)
2) they cannot see any of their friends (they are really outgoing)
2) they cannot see their Dad & brother, who they are close to and previously saw every week
and you know that child is normally a really happy child, and that child has previously thanked you for helping them, and you had been promising them an opportunity all year that you can no longer fulfil and know you know they are miserable because their life isn't fulfilling to them if they can just watch media and play games, how would that make you feel? And that's just one example; I could go on and on...!

As a parent I quite agree with these sentiments. It is absoltuely what my children are experiencing (well apart from no 3, I could go on and on too). They don't have the age or experience to communicate via social media. It is just not the same. Their education is suffering and they are regressing to habits from earlier ages. They are angry and sad, 95% of the parents we communicate with say the same thing about their children. It's heartbreaking to see what it's doing to them. At the other end of the scale their great grandparent feels like they aren't living, they're existing, being protected from us. It tears both generations apart that they cannot interact.

Our kids are some of the very lucky ones. They have attention, we are attempting to educate them, I still have work, we have food. What this must be like when you're stuck in a flat and you've lost your job and there's little hope for the future in terms of employment in the sector that you work in, I just cannot being to comprehend.

It's a terrible balancing act to perform, but it's going to take an enormous effort to put society back together. There is risk in all area of life whether we like it or not and it's right that we consider the whole picture, and it's important that the whole picture is presented and taken into account. Mental health, employment, paying back the cheques we're cashing now, life expectancy are all imporant factors.

 

[Domh245]

Annually there are around 6k suicides in the UK.

There were 6.5k suicides in 2018, and that was a large increase on the year before. Also worth noting that that's just 'successful' suicides, there will be many more failed attempts and other mental health issues short of suicide.

Is there actually any hard evidence that suicides are increasing now, because I haven't seen any?

No, as explained previously it takes several months to go through the process of being registered as a suicide after coroner's inquest and based on when the ONS data for 2018 suicides was released, we won't see the data on what's happening now until September 2021

 

[scotrail158713]

It could just be that Mental Health is taken much more seriously and is talked about than it was in years gone by?

(Not saying that it is taken seriously enough still but it seems to be leaps and bounds better than what went before)

That’s what I believe it is. Yes there may be a small chance that mental health is more fragile than before, however the above is much more likely in my opinion.

 

[HH]

There were 6.5k suicides in 2018, and that was a large increase on the year before. Also worth noting that that's just 'successful' suicides, there will be many more failed attempts and other mental health issues short of suicide.

Surely nothing to do with the current lockdown, and possibly indicating that we should expect an increase anyway, for whatever reason. I note that the majority of failed attempts are by females, who actually 'attempt' more suicides than males.

No, as explained previously it takes several months to go through the process of being registered as a suicide after coroner's inquest and based on when the ONS data for 2018 suicides was released, we won't see the data on what's happening now until September 2021

Precisely. So all this talk of gloom and doom on mental health is based on nothing other than people's feelings.

 

[bramling]

Long term I certainly see the risk, but that will be mostly from economic factors. The government certainly need to address those.

To some extent they already are with measures like the furlough scheme.

Obviously that’s by no means a silver bullet, but there’s no doubt it’s a *very* generous deal for mitigating the short-term impacts on a large number of people who would have otherwise struggled to pay bills.

I do struggle to see how elements of the hospitality industry are going to survive though, as social distancing is going to make many business models unviable without some serious adaptations. Ultimately the government, or more correctly all of us, can’t bail everyone out.

 

[bramling]

That’s what I believe it is. Yes there may be a small chance that mental health is more fragile than before, however the above is much more likely in my opinion.

It’s certainly the case there’s greater awareness nowadays. Certainly thinking of my family mental health is a completely taboo subject for those in the 70+ age range, in fact that probably goes a fair bit below that as well. As a topic it’s simply in the “too difficult” box, and a lot of that is for pride rather than practical reasons.

 

[HH]

It’s certainly the case there’s greater awareness nowadays. Certainly thinking of my family mental health is a completely taboo subject for those in the 70+ age range, in fact that probably goes a fair bit below that as well. As a topic it’s simply in the “too difficult” box, and a lot of that is for pride rather than practical reasons.

Suicides always drop in times of war.

Also, there was an uptick in suicides 1945-1964 that turned out to be caused by Carbon Monoxide in Coal Gas. I do wonder if air quality is a factor.

 

[Domh245]

Surely nothing to do with the current lockdown

Well duh, and I fully expect we'll see a spike amid the general increase in numbers but obviously as that's a couple years away, it'll be long past the point we can do anything about it.

Precisely. So all this talk of gloom and doom on mental health is based on nothing other than people's feelings.

I mean, @yorkie's views on it seem to very much be evidence based, as are many other peoples views, where either they, or people they know are struggling with it. Mental health, being what it is, is always going to primarily be about feelings, but most of what I've seen has been people reporting widespread struggling, rather than "I suspect that lots of people would struggle"

 

[Mag_seven]

Can we please stick to the thread topic which is the effect of the lockdown on mental health. There are plenty of other threads for discussion of the effect of the lock-down / social distancing on other areas.

thanks

 

[Esker-pades]

Precisely. So all this talk of gloom and doom on mental health is based on nothing other than people's feelings.

Actually, no. There has been a measureable increase in mental health problems precisely due to COVID-19.

The Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM) reported an increase of 40% of people using their confidential webchat & hotline services in the first week of lockdown. The extension of the lockdown by another 3 weeks increased this further.

 

[westv]

The Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM) reported an increase of 40% of people using their confidential webchat & hotline services in the first week of lockdown. The extension of the lockdown by another 3 weeks increased this further.

Could that perhaps be due to the service receiving publicity (assuming it did) due to CV so more are aware of it??

 

[Esker-pades]

Could that perhaps be due to the service receiving publicity (assuming it did) due to CV so more are aware of it??

My emphasis.

I haven't seen such increases in publicity until after the situation. The news articles about Coronavirus and Mental Health have tended to be advice rather than targetted at those in crisis. Some have put the Samaritans number at the bottom in case people reading it are in crisis (as they do with any mental health article), so the publicity for specific services was unchanged at the point that those stats were generated.

 

[Huntergreed]

In Scotland Nicola Sturgeon essentially just confirmed that the Lockdown will, in Scotland at the very least, be extended for another three weeks. I was hopeful that it would be taken to weekly review but going by what she says this doesn’t sound likely at all. I must admit this is worrying me a little as people I know who have been fine so far are starting to struggle and the fact that it keeps getting pushed farther and farther back isn’t going to help with mental health in any way.

 

[HH]

I mean, @yorkie's views on it seem to very much be evidence based, as are many other peoples views, where either they, or people they know are struggling with it. Mental health, being what it is, is always going to primarily be about feelings, but most of what I've seen has been people reporting widespread struggling, rather than "I suspect that lots of people would struggle"

The evidence is all apocryphal. If it were on any other subject it would be pointed out that is no basis for an informed discussion.

 

[HH]

Actually, no. There has been a measureable increase in mental health problems precisely due to COVID-19.

The Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM) reported an increase of 40% of people using their confidential webchat & hotline services in the first week of lockdown. The extension of the lockdown by another 3 weeks increased this further.

Firstly, people will have lost some access to their normal methods of dicussing their problems; secondly, people have a lot more time on their hands; thirdly, it's a stressful time, so it would be very surprising if the numbers hadn't gone up. None of this points to an increase in actual suicides.

 

[Esker-pades]

The evidence is all apocryphal. If it were on any other subject it would be pointed out that is no basis for an informed discussion.

No it isn't. Example: what I said in post #52.

 

[Esker-pades]

Firstly, people will have lost some access to their normal methods of dicussing their problems; secondly, people have a lot more time on their hands; thirdly, it's a stressful time, so it would be very surprising if the numbers hadn't gone up. None of this points to an increase in actual suicides.

"Oh, I have a lot more time on my hands. I might as well ring up a mental health hotline?" That's not a thing.

It points to an increase in mental health problems, of which suicide is a consequence of.

 

[HH]

No it isn't. Example: what I said in post #52.

No, what you said in post 52 was not related to actual suicides.

"Oh, I have a lot more time on my hands. I might as well ring up a mental health hotline?" That's not a thing.

It points to an increase in mental health problems, of which suicide is a consequence of.

No, it isn't. Claiming something does not make it true.

 

[Steveoh]

How about this then from the ONS BBC article entitel Coronavirus: Money worries in pandemic drive surge in anxiety

Nearly half of people in Britain said they experienced "high anxiety" as the country went into lockdown, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) says.

Anxiety levels were highest among an estimated 8.6 million people whose income fell, according to the weekly survey on the impact of coronavirus.

Renters and the self-employed were also particularly affected.

Measures of well-being were at their lowest levels since records began in 2011, the ONS said.

The survey suggested that more than 25 million people - 49.6% of over-16s in Britain - rated their anxiety as "high", more than double the amount who did so at the end of 2019.

Those suffering the greatest level of worry were an estimated 2.6 million people who said they were struggling to pay bills.

The survey data suggested that 8.6 million people had seen their income fall, with this group also reporting anxiety levels 16% higher than average.

Women reported anxiety levels 24% higher than men on average, with the ONS saying the difference might be because a larger proportion of women were either economically inactive, in lower paid jobs or working part time.

Lucy Tinkler, head of the quality of life team at the ONS, said: "All measures of personal well-being, which include anxiety and happiness, are at their worst levels since we began collecting data in 2011."

"The most recent data showed a slight improvement in anxiety compared to previous weeks, but remained much higher than before the pandemic."

The ONS is carrying out a weekly opinions and lifestyle survey of about 1,500 people to understand the impact of the coronavirus on Britain, and comparing it with the results of a similar survey it normally carries out monthly.

It found the average reported anxiety level rose from 2.97 out of 10 at the end of 2019 to 5.18 at the end of March as the lockdown was beginning.

In the most recent survey, from 9 April to 20 April, that fell slightly to 4.2.

The proportion of Britons reporting low happiness also rose sharply from 8.4% at the end of 2019 to 20.7% at the end of March.

Finances were the biggest worry for an estimated 5.3 million people, while 6.2 million were most concerned about their work and 8.5 million most concerned about their well-being, the survey suggested.