Pretoria / 27 August 2020, 16:00 PM / Carla Snyman
COVID19: the only protection against illness The two faces of Depression
Photo by Carla Snyman. Photo by Carla Snyman.
Welcome to the fourth and main blog post, looking at how SA's online community of people stuck inside during lockdown, deal with life in regards to the issue of fluctuating mental health during the COVID19 epidemic.
Introduction
“Well I have always felt lonely”
Pretoria - Two different lives. Yet many similarities were clearly visible. One young man, one young woman. They were both in their rooms. They both were a part of the coronavirus epidemic lockdown. More importantly, they both experienced feelings of melancholy. Whilst other people just got physically sick, their mental heaths started declining. The masks protected them from infection, but no pills did stave off the uncertainty that twisted their hearts. Coronavirus is now not a story about patients anymore but a story about people and their experiences during it.
To properly understand the thinking of and state of mental health before SA’s COVID19 lockdown, it was explained like this “I do not think young adults, people our age, are getting better treatment for mental illness since there are some families that still believe that mental illness is just a phase, that it will go over, since we are still in our developing years. They do just think it’s a phase that we are going to go over, so I don’t think they are getting better help.” So it can definitely be seen why things have become so out of hand in regards to provisions for mental health as well as physical health.
Coronavirus has now become the stories of people, not patients
To further understand this though, the interviewees will be heard from. The man in question, Keanu, had always experienced a state of state of social isolation despite the lockdown and was quoted saying this “Well I have always felt lonely” He further went on to say that being in lockdown in a the toxic home environment away from friends and going out made things worse for his mental state “…you go kind of …dead on the inside, in a sense, if you can put it in that way, its dependent on the entire environment you are around and how that can influence your mental state. If it was a more positive environment, I think I would’ve been in a much better state than actually just done a whole lot of self-improvement. But I just have to say, the feeling of being abandoned, alone, is extremely progressive in this entire situation, you don’t really get out enough. It’s kind of difficult sitting there thinking you’re making some worthwhile friends being unable to see them, meet them, do anything with them, all you do is have this faceless communication on the computer, it helps, it helps, it’s just not fun not being able to go out with friends, being unable to do what you want, being restricted. The mental problems have increased by the fact that now it’s even more difficult, legally by the government as well.”
The woman in question, Saretha, who had already pre-lockdown been diagnosed with temporal epilepsy, high functioning anxiety and clinical depression, now had it much worse during the lockdown and had this to say about her experiences “I would say the worst thing about being in quarantine is, as previously mentioned I don’t have that stability that I got from friends and or being around people who are close to me, and I don’t have that kind of source of joy that I get from being around people, from being an extrovert, so that worsens my depression. The best thing I would say is I have been able to catch up on doing what I like to do, doing art and painting and things like that.”
Coronavirus Lockdown and the effects on Mental Health
COVID19 has become;“The Largest [unwilling] Psychological Experiment in the World”
To adequately discuss the issue of mental health experienced by the online SA community during; one can look at several aspects. Orkin, Roberts, Bohler-Muller and Alexander (2020) can be seen as stating that on a global scale, concern continues mounting in regards to the mental health consequences found to be a prevalent phenomenon in many countries experiencing the same long-term high-level lockdown and could be described as ‘the largest psychological experiment in the world’. Though few had willingly volunteered to join this. As of April 2020, it was warned that there were several substantial increases in loneliness, anxiety, depression, substance abuse, and domestic violence ever since then and SA being one of the most unequal societies in the world when it comes to the class, shows circumstances of people being caught up in this COVID19 confinement differ dramatically dependent on where they live and what they earn. For families experiencing poverty and having only scant savings and for people earning wages through casual or informal-sector employment, SA’s lockdown’s economic effect was and is still devastating.
Another aspect to look at in regards to the mental health crisis is how stressful the 2019 COVID Pandemics has become for all peoples. An overwhelming air of anxiety and fear around the new disease has become prevalent and has found to be quite overwhelming and causing of many strong emotions in young adults. The Public health actions taken by the SA government, such as social distancing (necessary to reduce spread of COVID19), has made many peoples experience isolation and loneliness which increased stresses and anxieties. It has been founded that the increased stresses during this infectious disease outbreak has in a lot of causes of allowed for a worsening of mental health conditions; and those with pre-existing mental health conditions or disorders may be particularly vulnerable during this emergency. Mental health conditions such as depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, or schizophrenia are already known in their ability to affect thinking, feeling, mood and/or behavior can therefore influence the way SA citizens are able to relate to others and function each day. People with pre-existing mental health conditions should therefore continue with their treatment, whether it be pills or online therapy, in the case of being prepared for any new or worsening symptoms.
Other factors impacting the mental health during COVID19 lockdown include the fear, isolation and stigma which are now further wrecking the mental health of South Africans. This continent is well known for the history of highly infectious and dangerous epidemics it has especially that of HIV/AIDS and Ebola, and that fear of dying is now contributing to COVID-19's spread and also to the mental health crisis, because now many peoples are seen to be not identifying themselves with the possible risk of contracting the COVID-19 virus because of fear of being stigmatized from others in their communities. It can further be seen there is a worrying lack of counselling for peoples held in isolation.; this is not right as there needs to be a model governments can use to create isolation facilities who not only help peoples physical health, but also their mental health needs with the support of clinicians, clergy and others available in the mental health community. The lack of attention to mental health issues can be further attributed to the already ailing health systems of many African countries (even in SA). There already poor and neglected health systems in general Africa thus further away and neglects mental health systems to the lowest order on the spectrum, which results with lack of necessary education and preparedness that we all face now with identifying and dealing with mental health issues during this Pandemic crisis".
Furthermore, suicide rates during COVID19 lockdown have also shown a dramatic increase. This is because of the already mentioned combination of situations such as physical distancing, barriers to mental health treatment, economic stress, and national anxiety are creating the perfect storm for suicide mortality. Distressing numbers of suicide in SA will most likely continue to rise as the pandemic spreads because of the long term effects it will have on the SA’s general population, economy, and vulnerable groups of peoples.
Possible Solutions
The two interviewees state several ways which their mental health can be improved during the Coronavirus lockdown. Keanu names several solutions although and yet still states; “I don’t think there’s much you can do. Maybe tell companies to start treating people better, especially for the people our age that are in a studying or working level, then you just stop treating me like…, just start treating us like people. I don’t know. I just think more support structures and definitely one of the biggest things I have been struggling with, to deal with in this entire COVID19 situation is the financial situation that has been making me feel extremely hopeless in my house; but I feel somewhat more hopeless, more depressed in a sense. So that can definitely be something that can be looked at, especially for the younger generation; just in general, its focused on the older generation of people who don’t have much time left on earth… and finances is given to them; whereas the younger generation is really just struggling to get by at university, sometimes they are first trying to consider what they are going to do with their lives, now they have to worry about finances and different means to get more money.”
Saretha further argues for several solutions, being quoted as saying that “I think that the resources to be able to contact psychiatrists or psychologists should be more open and that these people suffering with these mental illnesses should be able to have a stable friend or family member to talk to during this situation.”