As a bit of background, I moved to the other side of the world in 2019. And while the experience was incredible (in two years I went on eight international holidays), I found myself living in one of the worst affected areas of the pandemic. I am fortunate enough to be young, healthy, have kept my job, and have a great support group; however, it’s been a learning curve nonetheless.
1. People create incredible things. By this, I mean everything from a friend’s online book reviews, ameteur home renovations and dressmaking, to professionals’ podcasts, new movies and books. As horrible as it was for people to lose jobs and/or be stuck at home, I think creativity flourished and I am 100% here for it. And as much as I eye-roll at tik tok trend videos, these are just as relevant; we have to appreciate that we’ve made content that allows people all over the world to connect through silly dances, which is maybe what we need right now. This creative explosion is something I hope never fades as our ‘normal life’ comes back.
2. There can be massive cultural disconnect, as some places are hit harder than others. I’m luckier than most, in that most of my friends and family are in a place safer than where I am. But it also means that so many people are not hearing the news and/or not understanding what we’re going through. To put it into perspective: the United Kingdom has had (at the time of writing this) almost 3.8 million cases, and close to 100,000 deaths. Australia has had almost 29,000 cases and around 900 deaths. So Australia’s all time statistics are the equivalent to (at its worst) about 12 hours in the UK. As I said, it’s nice to think that our most vulnerable relatives are okay, but given the fact that we’ve been wearing masks since March 2020, and Brisbane only needed them a few weeks in January 2021, means sometimes it’s hard to relate.
There’s also a secondary point to this, in that so many people want to give us advice, which is both a blessing and a curse. I’m not sure if this is because of the differences mentioned above, or in spite of it, but a message almost every day is ‘have you read this news’, ‘join this Facebook group’, or ‘looks like you’ll have to do this’. As someone who loves to be informed, this is great, but at a time when everyone’s mental health and stress levels are so heavily impacted, the messages can be a kick in the gut. Hot tip: try to give positive news just as much as you give negative news.
3. As someone who lives separate from a lot of friends and family, video calls made us feel normal. Yes, face-to-face socialisation is always better, and yes, video calling is weird in a lot of circumstances. But, when everyone is video calling each other, we feel normal; suddenly it isn’t all our friends getting together to call us, but all our friends calling each other. While friends and family a few kilometers apart are calling and catching up, we’d be forgiven in thinking we’re just as close. On birthdays and Christmas especially - when the calls of 10+ people involved four different time zones - I felt almost more connected to those people than I had any other time.
4. People, and communities, are important. Okay, this seems obvious, but I’m not sure it really hit me how much we value the people around us. When everything turned to shit (for lack of better phrasing), we saw so many people encouraging others to shop local, valuing their small independent bakeries and restaurants, thanking nurses and frontline workers, talking to their neighbours, calling their grandparents… It’s almost horrible that it takes something like this, but it does make us realise how valuable these relationships are. I only hope we’re not too quick to forget it.
5. Be kind to yourself, even if that looks different to the person next to you... which kind of has two parts to it: (a) it’s not the same for everyone; and, (b) it’s fucking hard.
It’s such a cliche to say that no two people are the same - with 7 billion+ on the planet there’s bound to be a few that are similar - but, it feels important to remember. Even without going deep into personality types and psychoanalysing friends and family, we can think of people’s differences… extroverts and introverts, those that like to keep busy and those that don’t, those that work on five hours of sleep and those that need 10+, etc. When faced with a challenge (fair to say the pandemic has been that) these personalities won’t act the same, and that’s okay. This was especially clear to me, a person who can’t sit still, when I was jokingly called ‘an overachiever’ for setting myself lockdown goals. For me, setting goals and trying to hit them is a fun task, and a way to look after myself, but I was still sucked into comparing myself to others, and it was clear through comments like that that others were comparing themselves to me. Just in case anyone needs to see it: surviving through this is an achievement in and of itself. Be proud.
Not only are we in difficult circumstances, but we’re only seeing others online and thus getting a very skewed view into their lives (social media’s lack of reality is a whole thing, but for another time), and we're missing third party perspective, or positive external validation. The combination of trauma, negative comparison, and social isolation feeds into negative thoughts. Lets take body image for example; gyms are closed and we’re told to stay inside, so we’re limiting our exercise while changing potentially hundreds of parts of our daily life (which impacts both our mental and physical wellbeing). We look online and see models’ photos on social media, or even our friends and family doing fitness challenges, or the like. So we start to feel overweight and lazy (whether we are or not is totally beside the point), and we’re unable to be with the people who would bring us back to earth and remind us we look great, remind us of all the hard work we’ve done, and take our mind off of the negative. The kicker is, if you talk to any mental health expert they’ll likely recommend exercise, but we’re not supposed to leave the house? Oh the irony. In case you missed it the first time: surviving through this is an achievement in and of itself. Be proud.
I’m writing this from a safer place, having been able to get home, but I know some people aren’t as lucky. We’re strong and we’ll get through this. The world won’t be the same after Covid, but I’m not sure that’s a bad thing, I just hope we remember what we learn.
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