COVID-19 and the lockdown effects on mental health.

[GRALISTAIR]

Yes this is my fear too.

Absolutely my big fear too.

 

[ValleyLines142]

The more I read about how awful the next year is potentially going to be, I personally feel that if I had a choice I would rather take my chances with the virus. Not that the choice is available, but it is very difficult for me to accept. As I said before it's more about the impact on so many others that's bothering me. I am struggling to see how the 'cure' is going to be better than the disease for most of us. I fear for many people it could be far worse.

The one thing that really makes me irate throughout all of this is the people that say 'well we're all in the same boat'.

No. My reply to that is 'we're all in different boats sailing through the same storm'. Some people are coping, other's aren't.

I've just finished my first year of a part-time Masters in Transport Engineering & Planning at UWE Bristol. I already had a bit of a wobble over Christmas and changed courses in the new year. Thankfully it was the best decision I made. However, moving forward to now, trying to learn online isn't the same.

For my assignment I needed to use software that was only available on campus in uni. I couldn't work from home. I've submitted a truly shocking assignment, and I'm far from happy because I couldn't use said software, although the university have taken a 'no-detriment' approach to assessments. But, it still doesn't feel right, even though we can have an uncapped resit and all students have automatically been eligible for extenuating circumstances.

I'm furloughed from work so I'm okay financially, but I know others aren't. I've put on almost a stone during this lockdown due to constantly eating with the stress. My mental health is all over the place. My anxiety is through the roof. My sleeping pattern isn't particular great anyway, but it's even worse at the moment, especially given the relatively nice weather we've had which makes sleeping impossible in the night. I miss my boyfriend terribly, and vice versa.

But despite all of my feelings, because I haven't contracted the virus, some people have said to me that my opinions and values are worth northing, and that I should just 'get over it'. I understand that some are at high risk, and 30,000 people have died. I get it. But comments/opinions like that, to me, are absolutely abhorrent to my principles.

 

[Ianno87]

The one thing that really makes me irate throughout all of this is the people that say 'well we're all in the same boat'.

No. My reply to that is 'we're all in different boats sailing through the same storm'. Some people are coping, other's aren't.

Totally agree.

What is true, and hopefully is a source of re-assurance to many, is that if you are finding your own circumstances challenging then somebody, somewhere, is also having a near identical challenge. You are not "alone" in that sense.

What I don't like is the people whose day to day lives aren't massively affected during lockdown lecturing everybody else about how to deal/cope with it, and what people should/should not be doing or feeling.

 

[bramling]

What I don't like is the people whose day to day lives aren't massively affected during lockdown

How many people aren't massively affected by lockdown? Most people are pretty affected, albeit in different ways.

 

[ValleyLines142]

Totally agree.

What is true, and hopefully is a source of re-assurance to many, is that if you are finding your own circumstances challenging then somebody, somewhere, is also having a near identical challenge. You are not "alone" in that sense.

What I don't like is the people whose day to day lives aren't massively affected during lockdown lecturing everybody else about how to deal/cope with it, and what people should/should not be doing or feeling.

Spot on. The only cure through this lockdown for me is for everyone to raise each other up, not to knock them off the top of the mountain and make them feel even more s**t than they did before.

 

[Ianno87]

How many people aren't massively affected by lockdown? Most people are pretty affected, albeit in different ways.

"Different" often means much easier to cope with than others.

 

[Scotrail12]

What I don't like is the people whose day to day lives aren't massively affected during lockdown lecturing everybody else about how to deal/cope with it, and what people should/should not be doing or feeling.

Same here. Have a Facebook friend who I have had several disagreements with over lockdown. He seems to be a bit of a hermit in regular life - almost never leaves his parent's house unless he's at university. His regular life seems fairly similar to my life over the past 7 weeks. Yet he's been telling me that anyone against the lockdown is 'wrong' and 'selfish' and that we just have to get through it. Easy for him to say when it barely affects him! It's like he can't see anyone else's situation.

It's tough for my mental health because I'm so used to being out and about and not being able to do much makes me feel totally trapped. My life was beginning to go somewhere so it came at a rubbish time. Many people do have it far worse though, I'm glad that I'm at least not having to support a family and live in a decent sized house.

 

[Bletchleyite]

This is certainly a time for the introverts, who are usually suppressed because the world is so extroverted. Maybe redressing a bit of a balance in some ways - both really should be equally respected for their upsides.

 

[HH]

BBC reporting a new ONS survey:

People in lockdown are more worried about their mental wellbeing than their general health, an Office for National Statistics survey suggests.

Just under two-thirds of 16- to 69-year-olds surveyed were most concerned about boredom, stress and anxiety, and the ability to make plans.

And those aged over 70 were even less likely (6%) than the under-70s (13%) to be worried about their own health.

Most of the under-70s did worry about their loved ones' physical health.

But, in general, those surveyed were considerably more worried about their friends and family's mental wellbeing.

And the over-70's were much more likely to be worried about their family's work (62%) being affected than their health (27%).

Living costs
Their own access to groceries, medication and other essentials was another major worry for the over-70s.

But the under-70s were more concerned about the impact on their work.

Just under three-quarters of all the people surveyed said the pandemic had reduced their household income.

Just over a third said they were using savings to cover their living costs.

And when asked how the pandemic was affecting their own wellbeing, more people expressed concern about the future than other, more immediate, worries such as being alone, strain on personal relationships or challenges working from home.

Key workers
More than 85% said they had enough information to protect themselves from the virus.

But only about half said they had enough information about the UK government's plan for dealing with it.

Although there were high levels of support for and compliance with lockdown measures, only 24% of those self-isolating for the past seven days had not left their home for the whole period.

The survey, conducted among households in England and Wales, excluded people staying in hospitals, care homes or other residential facilities.

The results were weighted to reflect the make-up of the population of Britain, including the proportions of key workers and people with health conditions.

The proportion of adults with high levels of anxiety fell from a high of 50% at the end of March to 37% between 17 and 27 April.

But a separate survey, by University College London, suggests it has risen again in the past week.

"Life-satisfaction ratings had been returning to pre-Covid-19 levels but this improvement has now halted," it says, linking this to the uncertainty created by speculation around exiting lockdown.

One in 12 of the 80,000 people surveyed by UCL was worried about their future and twice as many about their finances.

And these figures were even higher among those under the age of 60, with lower household incomes or a mental-health diagnosis.

The interesting aspect for me is that people's anxiety stems from worries about the future, not stress from being locked down now. That doesn't surprise me, but I fear it will come as a big shock to some on the forum.

 

[greyman42]

Same here. Have a Facebook friend who I have had several disagreements with over lockdown. He seems to be a bit of a hermit in regular life - almost never leaves his parent's house unless he's at university. His regular life seems fairly similar to my life over the past 7 weeks. Yet he's been telling me that anyone against the lockdown is 'wrong' and 'selfish' and that we just have to get through it. Easy for him to say when it barely affects him! It's like he can't see anyone else's situation

Take someone like that who is working and being payed 80% to sit at home and you can understand why they don't want the lockdown to end.

 

[Scotrail12]

Take someone like that who is working and being payed 80% to sit at home and you can understand why they don't want the lockdown to end.

He's never worked in his life. His ignorance on this situation really gets on my nerve.

 

[alxndr]

Unfortunately it's not just the general public who can have this horrible view that people should just get on with it. I've got a friend who has been struggling with their mental health for years, and is having a particularly bad time at the moment, unrelated to lockdown. They got in touch with their mental health team the other day, only to have a nurse tell them that they should just "grin and bear it" until the current situation is over.

 

[bramling]

Unfortunately it's not just the general public who can have this horrible view that people should just get on with it. I've got a friend who has been struggling with their mental health for years, and is having a particularly bad time at the moment, unrelated to lockdown. They got in touch with their mental health team the other day, only to have a nurse tell them that they should just "grin and bear it" until the current situation is over.

Is it any more horrible to imply that people should “just get on with it” than it is to advocate that elderly people or those with underlying issues should just be allowed to die?

 

[Ianno87]

Is it any more horrible to imply that people should “just get on with it” than it is to advocate that elderly people or those with underlying issues should just be allowed to die?

Who is saying that?

 

[Jayden99]

Is it any more horrible to imply that people should “just get on with it” than it is to advocate that elderly people or those with underlying issues should just be allowed to die?

This just goes to show that there's really no happy medium, if we open the economy people will die of the virus but if we maintain current restrictions a totally different group of people will likely die of any number of other factors. Glad I'm not making the decisions

 

[Huntergreed]

Is it any more horrible to imply that people should “just get on with it” than it is to advocate that elderly people or those with underlying issues should just be allowed to die?

Not at all, nobody is implying that. It’s about finding the right balance between suppressing the virus and keeping mental health at a good level to prevent as many deaths as possible, I do however worry the government will be too busy focusing on the former that they’ll not realise the importance and scale of the latter until it’s too late.

 

[Ianno87]

This just goes to show that there's really no happy medium, if we open the economy people will die of the virus but if we maintain current restrictions a totally different group of people will likely die of any number of other factors. Glad I'm not making the decisions

It's also about starting to carefully re-introduce small elements of normal life back in a slow, careful, managed way (introducing other precautions if necessary) so as to not to blow the R value back upwards again.

 

[bramling]

Who is saying that?

Lots of people, IME, sadly.

 

[Ianno87]

Lots of people, IME, sadly.

OK, yes, I forgot about Dominic Cummings!

 

[yorkie]

Same here. Have a Facebook friend who I have had several disagreements with over lockdown. He seems to be a bit of a hermit in regular life - almost never leaves his parent's house unless he's at university. His regular life seems fairly similar to my life over the past 7 weeks. Yet he's been telling me that anyone against the lockdown is 'wrong' and 'selfish' and that we just have to get through it. Easy for him to say when it barely affects him! It's like he can't see anyone else's situation.

Does that person want lockdown to last until a vaccine is available?

 

[bramling]

Does that person want lockdown to last until a vaccine is available?

Are there *seriously* people advocating that?

It would have helped a lot if we collectively knew *exactly* why we have lockdown, and what we were hoping to achieve by doing it. We have suspicions, and many here are no doubt better informed than the population in general, but Boris should have made the reasons clear from the start. Instead it seemed like a rushed reaction.

I’d have hoped to see the number of active cases in circulation to have reduced now, but disappointingly they don’t seem to have done to quite the extent we needed.

 

[Scotrail12]

Does that person want lockdown to last until a vaccine is available?

Nope, but he seems dead set on nothing being lifted until the end of June or possibly further. When I pointed out that people just won't obey eventually, he said it would be really selfish, putting everyone at risk, stupid and short-minded not to follow them.

He also does think that they need restrictions until a vaccine is available. Maybe more logical but still easy for him to say when he's not having to worry about finances or mental health.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I’d have hoped to see the number of active cases in circulation to have reduced now, but disappointingly they don’t seem to have done to quite the extent we needed.

I'd like to know how many are "in the field" i.e. bouncing around the general population. I have the impression that a great many are in care homes etc.

 

[duncanp]

Yet he's been telling me that anyone against the lockdown is 'wrong' and 'selfish' and that we just have to get through it. Easy for him to say when it barely affects him! It's like he can't see anyone else's situation.

This is so true. I have unfollowed a couple of my Facebook "friends" because I can't be bothered arguing with them about it every day. (They want to keep the lockdown going, I want it lifted (in stages) as soon as possible). They will post something like "..I would rather stay in lockdown the whole summer than lose one of my loved ones... Share if you agree, I bet 99% of you won't..."

I don't like these sort of "gulit trip" Facebook posts at the best of times, but they are especially annoying now.

 

[takno]

Lots of people, IME, sadly.

I don't think very many people are saying that in an explicit "i don't care" way. There are a three more nuanced points that might sound similiar.

The first is that the effect on the economy and mental health could be so serious that the numbers dead from the lockdown actually get higher than the numbers who were likely to die from the disease. While this probably isn't true in the UK, it could well prove to be the case globally, where the kind of economic shock that comes from developed countries locking down (and even more so from LDCs directly locking down) will be enough to drive hundreds of millions of people to starvation and quite possibly death.

The second, and more applicable to the UK is that of good years saved. In working out what treatments are viable, and how to stretch out a limited health budget, doctors often look at how many years of reasonable quality life the patient can expect to enjoy with or without the treatment. If you apply that across the country, then the deaths from Coronovirus are mostly of people who expect to have less than 5 years left anyway, and in a large number of cases have nothing but a few fading months of pain and dementia. The people who are likely to die from untreated health conditions, suicides and poverty have at 10 or 20 times the life expectency, and therefore to an extent it's quite justifiable to feel that their lives are worth more.

The final way of looking at it is that even for people who don't die or have their lives shortened by the lockdown are effectively losing a portion of their life. Sure, you can say that it's only three months, and it's not the same as being dead, but it's not terrible to suggest that they've lost on average perhaps 25% of what makes life worth living for that period. If a full 1% of the population were saved by the lockdown (which is unlikely) and they have an average of 7 or 8 years life left in them, then you are effectively talking about an equivalent amount of loss. Add on deaths from suicide, health conditions and you can absolutely make a reasonable for accepting those deaths.

This isn't a particularly kind way of looking at things, but in practice it's the kind of decisions that are made every day on a smaller scale when people are allowed to die in return for a much smaller benefit to everyday life. We do it every time a road is declared not-accident-prone enough to upgrade, every time we decide that motor transport is important enough to overlook the deaths from it, every time we don't increase the NHS budget to pay for every cancer treatment available or spend some of it on non-fatal conditions, every time we don't fund twice as many people to do research into life-saving drugs.

Every possible decision on lockdown is unkind to somebody, and it's not cruel to have an ethical framework for deciding who loses out and how.

 

[Scotrail12]

This is so true. I have unfollowed a couple of my Facebook "friends" because I can't be bothered arguing with them about it every day. (They want to keep the lockdown going, I want it lifted (in stages) as soon as possible). They will post something like "..I would rather stay in lockdown the whole summer than lose one of my loved ones... Share if you agree, I bet 99% of you won't..."

I don't like these sort of "gulit trip" Facebook posts at the best of times, but they are especially annoying now.

That sort of passive aggressive post would really annoy me. People who use emotion over logic are ones who I would never want to talk politics with.

 

[Bletchleyite]

That sort of passive aggressive post would really annoy me. People who use emotion over logic are ones who I would never want to talk politics with.

I've done a bit of unfollowing (not unfriending) for those reasons too. I'll put them back on when this is over.

It is not the time for party political points, and I've just got bored of peope making them. The Government we've got is the one we've got and we have to work with that. There'll be plenty of time for a GE afterwards if we want to deliver a verdict then.

 

[alxndr]

Is it any more horrible to imply that people should “just get on with it” than it is to advocate that elderly people or those with underlying issues should just be allowed to die?

I'm not sure what the point that you're trying to make is.
I don't think it's an either/or situation where they either provide help to people who are struggling (or in my friend's case, continue to provide help) or they open everything up and risk lives.

There is no infection risk from a phonecall, for example, and face-to-face appointments are continuing in some healthcare settings where it is unavoidable, with precautions being taken (I had one myself this morning).

What we must not do, however, is use the current situation as an excuse for failing people, or suggest that they can magically just pull themselves together if they try hard enough so not to inconvenience people. Believe me, if it was that simple no one would have mental health issues.

 

[bramling]

I'd like to know how many are "in the field" i.e. bouncing around the general population. I have the impression that a great many are in care homes etc.

Surely in the latter case that would mean they *are* in the general population, for as long as people are going in and out of care homes?

 

[Huntergreed]

I'm not sure what the point that you're trying to make is.
I don't think it's an either/or situation where they either provide help to people who are struggling (or in my friend's case, continue to provide help) or they open everything up and risk lives.

There is no infection risk from a phonecall, for example, and face-to-face appointments are continuing in some healthcare settings where it is unavoidable, with precautions being taken (I had one myself this morning).

What we must not do, however, is use the current situation as an excuse for failing people, or suggest that they can magically just pull themselves together if they try hard enough so not to inconvenience people. Believe me, if it was that simple no one would have mental health issues.

I know multiple people who I would class as having been mentally strong normally who're struggling mentally. This is an unprecedented time and I'm finding that the overwhelming majority of people who I try and talk to with mental health issues currently are telling me that the public view seems to be that they're at the bottom of the priority list, with Covid at the top and physical conditions above this. It's terrible how poorly mental health is taken by some people and I fear that unless something bad happens, which I really hope it doesn't, then the government will simply either be unaware of the impact or turn a blind eye to it to prioritise the suppression of the virus.