Mental Health and the Coronavirus

As some readers might happen to know, May is Mental Health Awareness Month. Given that fact, I think it is time for me to talk about something that I probably should’ve covered on my blog long ago: the topic of mental health and the Coronavirus.

That being said, given the trauma that some of us have experienced and may be continuing to experience from the sicknesses and losses of family members, coworkers, neighbors, and or/friends, the topic of mental health and the coronavirus is still very relevant, I think.

I am not a mental health expert. However, my own experiences, the experiences of family and friends over the past year, and the stories I have heard about other similarly traumatic events have taught me a few things that I think a lot of us should keep in mind going forward:

1. Different people deal with the same challenging, even traumatic, events in different ways. Each person’s body is different, and each person’s mental health state is different. As such, each of us is going to deal with events like what happened in the past year in a different way.
2. It is not abnormal for some of us to deal with phobias related to a traumatic event long after that event is over. On a personal level, due to terrorist attacks involving airplanes on September 11, 2001, I’ve had a fear of low-flying airplanes ever since that day. Even though we are nearly twenty years removed from that dreadful day, it is a fear that has never gone away, and it’s a fear that may very well stay with me for the rest of my life. I’m not sharing this story to freak people out, but to instead remind us that we should not be freaked out if some of us may likewise grapple with phobias after other traumatic events, including what we’ve been through with COVID during the past fourteen months or so.
3. Because of the difficulties (even traumas) some of us went through, it may require a little bit of patience with ourselves when we struggle emotionally do certain things for the first time since before things shut down as a result of COVID-19. I remember the hesitation I had when I took public transit for the first time since things shut down as a result of COVID, for example—there was definitely a bit of a mental barrier that I had to get through. Such will be the case for others of us, I’m sure. To make it more challenging emotionally as we sort out what things we can do (in spite of any fears we have) and what things we should avoid is the fact that COVID is still very much around and deadly—as a result, unvaccinated individuals, in particular, will need to continue acting with some level of caution.
4. Dealing with the emotional strain of difficult events from the past year is not a linear process. For me, one of the biggest emotional strains was hearing the endless noise of hospital sirens as COVID was getting bad. There are still times that I come back to that moment and feel a little (or a lot) emotional. There is sometimes this expectation that after a certain point, we should be “over” such difficult events. That expectation is, to use a favorite President Biden expression, malarkey.
5. There is immense emotional and mental value to in-person connection with other people, even for many of us who are introverts. I’m an introvert myself, and I readily admit that the past year has shown me that, while things like Zoom and Google Hangouts are better than nothing, there is sometimes no substitute mentally and emotionally for in-person connection. Now, I am not against the precautions that needed to be done in order to protect ourselves and others from the coronavirus (if anything, I was for those precautions). But nevertheless, the past year has also shown many of us introverts that in-person connection is so important both emotionally and mentally.

These were a few of the major things that COVID-19 have taught me in terms of caring for mental health. That being said, if there are other lessons that we should learn from a mental health standpoint as a result of COVID-19, feel free to comment below!

additional advice on how to navigate through the pandemic mentally, and for learning about resources in the event that you are struggling to navigate through the challenges of COVID-19, consult the page that the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has on mental health and COVID-19. If you don’t live in the United States, please consult the mental health resources for where you live.