There is a real issue, that is going on, bubbling under the surface. That everyone is going through lockdown, everyone is finding it tough, and so therefore, no one is allowed to complain about it, and no one can recognise the effect it is having on people. There is talk of how it effects mental health, but no one is turning round and saying what should be done about this and how people can be helped. Instead, we should all just somehow pull together and get through this, and that once it is lifted, everything will go back to being ok again.
But they won’t. The impact on mental health, doesn’t just disappear when we come out of lockdown. Things have been imprinted on our brains, and they won’t just be erased. Things have changed and they won’t just go back to normal for everyone, because that no longer exists. The changes that have happened will stay with us for months or even years to come.
Lockdown also magnifies problems that were already there. Depression that may have been kept at bay and fairly stable creeps back in and starts to overwhelm again. Anxiety is amplified as we are constantly bombarded with information which could make anyone anxious. Eating disorders get to continue on behind closed doors and people become more and more isolated. Self-harm is just a way to survive the ongoing craziness. And all the other hundreds of problems and combinations of problems that are building up as people are stuck at home, staring at screens, isolated and away from their friends.
Counsellors are not immune to this. We can be there for others and listen to the struggles that they are having, while also stuck somewhere with our own battles. The more this goes on, the more these seem to be coming to the forefront for me. I got off my anti-depressants not that long ago, a small victory after really feeling the side effects. My depression had felt like it was stable, and I was ok without the medication. But just a few weeks later and I can feel it creeping back in, slowly consuming me again. The days are becoming harder and harder to get through. And this isn’t suddenly going to change as the restrictions get lifted, it’s another battle to find that level of stability again.
And then we have my parts. The poor abandoned others that don’t get a look in because I can barely keep it together for myself, let alone for them. And I wonder what it would be like if I every let slip the battles I have going on inside of me, and whether as a counsellor this “should” be happening. That inside my head are children fighting for some love and attention that I just don’t know if I have the energy to give to them. But there is also no one else to give them anything at the moment. If they don’t get it from me, who can they get it from? There is no one else. And the more they are on their own and they are abandoned, the worse they are getting, and the longer it is going to take to get them back out talking again, trusting again, feeling more integrated and stable again. The longer we are isolated, the more it takes to find an opening for them to have space.
There is so much more going on under the surface for people, and we aren’t seeing it all spilling out yet. But the cracks are starting to show more and more in the therapy room. In the waiting lists. In the crisis people are going through every single day. And it’s all very well hearing the same old platitude’s that we are all in this together, and in some ways we are. And in other ways, the mental health of every person is different, and for those of us who can feel ourselves slipping further and further into something, we aren’t just in it with everyone. We are going through our own individual, different battles, and will be for some time to come.
Fragmented Therapist 