Coping with Covid-19

Today marks eleven years since my first admission to a psychiatric hospital, and coincidentally it also marks two years since my last discharge from one.

Living with varying mental illnesses has become the norm for me. I have experienced severe anorexia, depression, anxiety and the effects of several personality disorders over the years. I now believe that each individual diagnosis was there all along - it’s just that different ones presented more strongly for periods of time and so those were the ones that were treated.

I definitely feel I understand more about myself now than I did in the past, why it is I feel the way I do and how to accept the fact that my thoughts and emotions are such a rollercoaster day after day. However, it is also quite disheartening to think I am still struggling with mental health issues so far down the line.

This post is being written in somewhat different circumstances to normal. Here in the UK, we are in the midst of the Covid-19 virus pandemic and its associated precautionary measures. We have been directed by the government to stay at home and cut all but absolutely necessary physical contact with others. We have no idea how long the crisis will go on for but we do know that things will get a lot worse before they start to get better.

I know that the majority of people will be finding all the change and uncertainty anxiety provoking to some degree but I wanted to share what it feels like for me, with my mental health conditions.

I am lucky in that although I do have an underlying chronic physical condition, it does not affect my respiratory or cardiac systems so I am not in the particularly ‘at risk’ group of the population. To that extent I am not confined to my flat entirely for the next 12 weeks as some people are. However, with the rules on social distancing, my life has begun to change considerably.

I live alone (other than my dog) and obviously, from time to time in normal life I do have days where I don’t see anyone else all day. However, I can cope with these because I know that I can choose to see someone if I want and will have plans to have contact with other people in the upcoming days. Now, I don’t know when the next time I will see someone in person will be and I’m not choosing to socially isolate. I can cope fairly well with my own company to a point but I do crave interaction with others after a while. 

The whole situation does stir up quite a lot. Firstly, being told to stay at home and that you can’t see anyone (which is only going to feel harsher still when the government orders compulsory lockdown soon) takes away the purpose in life and disrupts your entire routine. This feels a lot like being sectioned - suddenly I’m not allowed to do what I do everyday without thinking and my freedom is taken away. For this reason I am dreading the ‘lockdown’ announcement - it has implications for me, and others who have been through similar experiences, beyond the obvious.

I am also dreading the announcement out of sheer frustration and anger at the need for it. Alongside my EUPD, I have obsessive-compulsive personality disorder. Part of the symptoms of this are an obsessive fixation on rules and how they should be followed. I am forever seething at the injustices in society in everyday life and seeing people blatantly flouting regulations really gets to me. As such, I am incredibly angry at the people who are ignoring the government advice and still socialising etc - why do they think the rules don’t apply to them?? Not only am I frustrated that they are putting people’s lives at risk and their sheer selfishness (don’t even get me started on panic buying!!) but I am genuinely bothered by the fact that they are just plain breaking the rules.

Thirdly, the need for social distancing and to stay at home means that I have to come up with my own entertainment all day everyday. I’m not moaning about this being particularly arduous in itself, in some ways it’s quite liberating. Nevertheless, linked to the point above, it is very similar to being cooped up in hospital - a time that I could really do without being reminded of every second of the day. My last two admissions were very lengthy and as such I had a lot of time to fill with self directed activity, this enforced isolation brings it all flooding back.

Another factor that I am battling with concerns my eating disorder related ways of thinking. With so much fear around not being able to find what I need in the supermarket, my anorexic brain tells me that the sensible thing to do is to ration what I do have. So, if I skip dinner tonight, I will have food for tomorrow etc. I am grateful that I am far enough into my recovery to be able to identify these thoughts and fight them but it is hard and I know I can’t be the only one having them.

Finally, I want to talk about the sense of rejection and abandonment I am feeling at the moment. Now, I know cognitively that no one is rejecting or abandoning me at this time, precisely the opposite - people have been reaching out. However, it FEELS very different. Today for instance, I have had three communications from people to say appointments I had have had to be cancelled. One of these was for a physio assessment who actually said they had to discharge me (big trigger word for me) before they’d even seen me. I completely understand why but it still made me really emotional - all my usual feelings of being unimportant and like I don’t matter took over. When you get these calls every day, or told that your mental health support is all going to be done by phone (which has several limitations), it does feel personal even though it isn’t. It’s hard enough to keep my morale up at the moment without people unknowingly stabbing me in the chest every time they tell me something has been cancelled.

I do appreciate that these are difficult times for everyone and we have to learn to adapt to the changes we all face. But please know that if you are struggling with any of the things I’ve mentioned, you are not alone. It is easy for people to overlook the impact that their unintentional scaremongering can have on those with serious mental illnesses at this time so try and look out for yourself as well as others. Remember; self-care is not selfish!