The Duty Of Staying Home & The Responsibility To Care For Ourselves

MANAGING OUR MENTAL HEALTH DURING THE PANDEMIC LOCKDOWN

By Lucas Voclere

 

Prelude - The Duty Of Staying Home & The Responsibility To Care For Ourselves

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               Let’s be realistic: the global crisis of the coronavirus is here to stay, - first through the various stages of the pandemic, then through its wide & complex aftermath. Like for any crisis, time efficiency & tasks management are essential. We need to prioritise what needs to be done, provide resilient & continuous efforts, and make sure to distribute & share responsibilities.

               Politicians & Researchers among other professionals are in charge of hindering the spread of the Covid-19 virus & eradicating it, and finding further medical, socio-political, economical & hopefully ecological solutions.

               Then come the frontline workers who are dangerously exposed to risks of contamination, burn out & other more or less severe mental health issues. The healthcare work force has been trusted and possibly burdened with the over-pressuring hardship to save as many contaminated lives as possible, while sustaining their usual aids. Utilities employees are laden with maintaining ‘essential’ industries & services to prevent society as we know it from collapsing.

               Whether homeless, ill or facing other tragic situations, - potentially caused or amplified by the pandemic -, some need to focus their energy on that adversity. I am deeply sad to confess that my immense compassion for them doesn’t come with a plan of actions to assist them. I sure hope this global crisis will be a wake up calls for governments, institutions & individuals to mobilise themselves to better support the most disadvantaged citizens.

               For my part, I am making no plan of actions but rather an attempt to provide some tips & guidelines to those in similar situations with mine; - those in confinement. I am writing to those in quarantine who are fulfilling their duty to stay home to avoid participating to the spread of the virus and overwhelming the healthcare system (NHS or else in other countries). I hope you are safe from illness, financial predicaments and domestic abuse.

               As a Counsellor working at the moment online, I have the same duty to stay home & the responsibility to assist my clients to the best of my abilities. I am also an individual facing, - like everyone isolated -, legitimate, normal, complex & multiple flows of emotions, thoughts & energies with variations over time. I am in my third week of self-isolation and I therefore had for my clients & myself to reflect on the best practices to survive this misfortune, sustain a good (enough) mental health and if possible, even nurture some well-being.

               Because I feel the desire to assist individuals beyond my clients & loved ones, I am working on a series of articles combining & synthetising my therapeutic reflections to hopefully provide to some of you useful insights, tips & guidelines. As I am aware of the immediacy of the situation and how much many of you are eager to find assistance right now, I will share the flow of my writings as soon as they come, instead of delaying them with an unnecessary perfectionism. I will nonetheless edit & add to them over time. Please bear with me & be indulgent, and don’t hesitate to provide me with constructive feedback or suggestions of what you would like for me to write about or resources to add to my articles (via Twitter or Instagram @PurposefulSelf). I sincerely hope some of you will find something helpful in those articles, and because they are as much meant for you as for myself I unified them under the main title: Managing Our Mental Health During The Pandemic Lockdown.

               Thank you for your reading. Stay home, be safe.

RESOURCES

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronavirus-covid-19/

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-stay-at-home-guidance/stay-at-home-guidance-for-households-with-possible-coronavirus-covid-19-infection

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-action-plan

https://www.cipd.co.uk/news-views/coronavirus/faqs

https://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/coronavirus/coronavirus-and-your-wellbeing/

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronavirus-covid-19/self-isolation-advice/

https://www.nhs.uk/oneyou/every-mind-matters/coronavirus-covid-19-staying-at-home-tips/

https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/publications/looking-after-your-mental-health-during-coronavirus-outbreak

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00933-5

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-and-domestic-abuse

https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/healthy-body/getting-help-for-domestic-violence/

https://www.reducingtherisk.org.uk/cms/content/support-numbers

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_domestic_violence_hotlines

https://www.hotpeachpages.net/europe/

“Same Boat For All”, A Pandemic Open Letter

“SAME BOAT FOR ALL”, A PANDEMIC OPEN LETTER

By Lucas Voclere

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               “Same boat for all”, but really all in different boats. With the Covid-19 pandemic and its lockdown, many have expressed finding comfort in the fact that we all are in the same boat. I would argue that we all are navigating the same ocean but inside very different & individual boats. Each of them has its unique set of tools, resources, perks, flaws & cons. Each one has different privileges & circumstances. When some will navigate this ocean in its calmer seas with strong & technologically advanced ships, others will face its storms in precarious & rudimentary canoes.

               To those in the frontline rafts of healthcare & services who face the worst with so little to heal & protect us, clean our streets, save our industries or our lives, feed us and deliver resources most of us can safely and comfortably order from our quarantined barges, I would like to express my never-ending gratitude & admiration. I am sending you my hopefully heart-warming compassion for how much is expected of and squeezed from you. You are more than ever our heroes, and I hope you have a loving supporting network to help you maintain a good enough mental health. I hope society will remember your dedication & sacrifice and honour you with the respect & rewards you deserve, - including by implementing measures to make your work easier & safer in the future, in and out of crises.

               To those so-called ‘powerful’ who can make significant & necessary actions to contain, fight & vanquish this pandemic, I implore you to stop delaying the difficult measures needed, to apply them and take actions with generosity, compassion, determination, intelligence & a timely-mannered efficiency. Your reckless & arrogant disregard has already cost many lives and jobs among other losses. You can’t remain selfish about the long-lasting consequences you have participated to create due to your negligence just because they won’t affect you directly. This was unacceptable then, and now that you have been severely reminded by our suffering to no longer ignore the gravity of the situation and to act considerably, it would be criminal for you to remain so poorly engaged.

               To those who perished or will and the loved ones they left behind, I can only acknowledge that there is not enough love I can send you to make up for your losses. I can only wish for time to heal part of your wounds, and for lessons to be learned from those deaths to prevent some more, - along with preventing future pandemics.

               To those sailing without a boat, - whether you had none for a while or got to lose recently the one you had -, I sincerely hope society will have a wake up call and be more productively engaged in no longer excluding you and bringing you back into it.

               Finally, to those privileged enough like me to have for main duty to stay home & follow some safety guidelines, I beg you to do your part. Not all doing so has cost and will cost everyone to suffer more losses, a longer and more severe lockdown, and numerous enduring upshots. Washing our hands, staying home & practicing social distancing when we go out alone or with people of our household to buy food or get some fresh air to fight the cabin-fever inducing confinement, is not much to ask. We are not stuck in quarantine: we are safe in our homes, and we are helping to avoid the destruction of our healthcare system by not overwhelming it with endangering selfish behaviours. We are participating in reducing the longevity of our confinement by accepting it wholeheartedly.

This over delayed lockdown is crucial for us all to survive the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic as soon as possible. We will later hold new responsibilities to face the aftermath waves as our socio-political & economical systems and the ecology will suffer long-standing outcomes; - to which will be added individual residual traumas and/or struggles for most of us.

               It is time to buckle up with consideration & solidarity, patience & resilience, togetherness & altruism. Do your part with strength & kindness, because this is the only way out of this global crisis we can & should create. It is our moral & civil duty. It is our inevitable fight and we can be thankful to be able to fight with isolation & safety measures in our homes instead of weapons on battlefields like many generations before us had to during more disastrous global crises.

               Stay home. Stay safe. Thank you.