The Mental Health Curve~

COVID blues everywhere! And we must talk.

Oct 02, 2020

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself!

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

Indeed, ask mountaineers what terrifies them. No, it’s not the mountains. It’s the fear! And rightly so. See, COVID-19 isn’t the only thing that’s contagious, fear too is! Ergo, allowing ourselves to be swept up into a collective panic doesn’t strengthen our ability to manage the threat of the virus, rather that weakens it! Thus, fear gone viral could have a greater and long-enduring impact on life and livelihoods, than the virus itself! Needless to say, we have to talk about this.

…let’s be honest guys, most of us and our acquaintances are towards the Red shade of this spectrum. Google Trends reveals increased searches during this pandemic of terms like ‘anxiety’, ‘panic attacks’, ‘treatment of panic attacks’, etc. And that’s very alarming! Even worse, due to the mental stress and panic during the pandemic, more than 75000 people lost their lives and more than 3500 relationships came to an end! Moreover, WHO estimates that the economic impact of depression and anxiety is as huge as $ 1 Trillion of lost productivity every year, which is only going to deteriorate post-pandemic! Now you know… panic is, indeed, creating more mayhem than Coronavirus ever will! Probably we take up a lot more mental stress than what the pandemic actually deserves!

But hey, it’s no more than a flu. What sets it apart is the very fact that it’s highly contagious, nothing else. And the obvious solution to this is social distancing and (a little) caution. Whereas, panicking is just like fueling the infection fire!

Unfortunately, in situations like this, we over-react! We overestimate the risks and underestimate our ability to cope with them! Flawed judgment takes over. Irrational impulses drown out level-headed thinking. We suspect that we or our closed ones might already be infected. We prepare for the worst. But amidst all this fuss, we hardly ever realise that we are, ourselves, spirit-calling the worst!

No denying, majority of us are going through these! If not us, our parents are, may be we haven’t yet figured it out. The only solution is to trace it at an early stage, recognize it as a real thing and address it. And for that, we must know the common causes and cures.

Perception is not reality, even salt looks like sugar!

People readily get attached to things, to other people. Whenever they hear stuff, they attribute it to some kind of fear. As reported, many people associated words like ‘quarantine’ and ‘social distancing’ to being left out all alone at home with none to help them in times of need! Sometimes, your brain can’t tell the difference between imaginative and real fear, scary movie scenes and real life! When a victim is in your vicinity, say a neighbour, then in the process of empathizing with their grief, we end up developing a false sense of fear! And speaking as a personal witness, this tendency ain’t good, not now atleast! While this can only be avoided by rational thinking and being bold, one can try to avoid exposure to negative news, entirely, by not going out.

Garbage in, garbage out!

Talk of the facts — 450 people die each year by falling off the bed, 150 by coconut falling off a tree on their heads, 24 by being hit with champagne corks and so many bizarre ways of mortality! But do you fear sleeping on the bed? Or sunbathing under a coconut tree? No, right? Then why fear COVID? I mean is the death from falling off a bed less painful or less dangerous than a COVID death? No, it isn’t. Even ORF reports the mortality rates of various other diseases being quite more than COVID in India. Then why so panic? That’s because we’re so exposed to the numbers surrounding COVID deaths that we feel — ‘objects in the mirror are closer than they appear.’ With the echoes of the virus in media, ‘words of mouth’ and everywhere, we’re made to believe so! And if you feed garbage into your mind, you get garbage in return.

Then, what is the cure, hmm? Well, turn off, guys. News is absolutely not for binge-watching! And ugh… the manipulative Indian media! Avoid exposure to COVID news the best you can. Knowing ‘COVID count’ more than anyone else isn’t promising you an award for a Quiz champion! It only instills in you fear and more fear! Avoid friends who know nothing beyond COVID numbers. Ask everyone not to buzz those figures, even ban it at home. Make a conscious effort to seek good news. In short, stay at home and enjoy with your family. This is the opportunity to do things you dreamt of all these years. As they say — Never let a crisis go to waste.

Social media is, in fact, anti-social!

As the Forbes notes — “In July, a study found that ‘loneliness and isolation’ - is most commonly cited as the cause of depression and anxiety in the United States (in 74% and 65% of cases, respectively).” And with more than 70 crores of active internet users, India isn’t better off! Now, it’s a bit tricky how you associate isolation and loneliness. If lockdown brought more people to connect digitally, how is it associated with loneliness, and ultimately depression? Well, that only goes on to say that social media, or even tele-communication, is no substitute for real life! If it doesn’t help you gain ‘meaningful contact’, what good is it to you really? Hmm? Btw, social media is also rife with numerous myths and rumours. Ergo, detox yourself from the virtual world, the best you can. REAL world is much more practical and beautiful then the REEL world. Enjoy it.

Don’t panic over a panic!

A panic attack is like your body’s way of being the ‘not-so-funny-kid’ who surprise pops a balloon behind you to try and make you jump. That could very much be a false alarm. But, there is a very peculiar behavior that I have noticed. People feel guilty of the fact that they, sometimes, fail to cope up with the stress and panic! It’s like you, by mistake, hurt one hand and then, deliberately, hurt the other hand to revenge the prior mistake! But wait, does it undo the past? NO, right? Why panic just because you panicked earlier!? No sense in that. The only cure to this is you need to talk, you need to share your feelings, believe it or not.. sharing your grief with your confidante makes you feel way lighter. Try it.

Remember, visibility doesn’t determine the existence of a problem! Just because mental issues aren’t loudly visible, they are no less dangerous than physical issues! In fact, they are often the reason behind physical abnormalities! Mental healthiness isn’t a luxury, it’s a necessity. Many people feel that crying, taking rest, taking sleeping pills or migraine drugs cures mental issues! But let me tell you that’s only accumulating the pain to explode later!

Everything’s in your mind, what you think.. you become. You know, in Class 11th-12th, we used to have a short story written by R.K. Narayan — ‘The Doctor’s Word’. It was about how a person in his deathbed was brought back to life with a few words of hope pronounced by a doctor! And this does happen, in real life. If a doctor’s word could do magic for Gopal, why not for you, why can’t your family play the part of the doctor? Think about it. The only solution to depression and anxiety is to talk about it, openly and rather loudly. Find someone who you feel you can talk to about all of this freely, get yourself counseled, and ya, family can do wonders in combating this issue. Don’t let the crisis make you forget the beautiful blessings in your life! Look at their faces, you have children or parents who depend on you. You, breaking-down, ain’t going to help anyone anyway. Do whatever makes you feel positive and lively... sleep well, meditate, work-out, read, play games, watch sports & do activities that engages everyone.

Take a deep breath. Coronavirus is almost certainly NOT coming for you. And, even if it were, panic is not the answer. Oh hey, lost a job? Business showing a grim outlook? Facing financial constraints? Don’t worry, it’s just a matter of time. You’ll prosper, you’ll rise above and beyond your limitations.. mark my words! So, take a chill pill. Wash your hands, stay at home, continue enjoying your life, and leave the rest to chance. In this case, it’s on your side. Pull jokes out of thin air & LOL ;-)

While the mainstream slogs to ‘flatten the COVID curve’, be an out-of-the-box and —

Flatten The Mental Health Curve!

And as Rudyard Kipling writes in the poem ‘If’ —

(here’s an abstract)

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’
.
.
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

So, hey guys, hope you have a sweet message to takeaway home today! Go and enjoy that really beautiful life you have with the best-ever family in the world!

Do you know someone who has been struggling with their own mental issues and you feel this article could be of some help, or you feel this piece helped you change the way you look at things, then, please share it.

If you have been facing some issues and would like to talk about that here or in person, feel free to reach out to me. If you would like to share your views, please do so below.

Gen Z's Words

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