Therpay for Coronavirus Uncertainty & COVID Health Anxiety

Coping with uncertainty during the Coronavirus pandemic and beyond

Since the emergence of COVID there has been an epidemic of anxiety, depression and loneliness following in the wake of the pandemic. Therapy for coping with your feelings of uncertainty of life during and beyond the Coronavirus pandemic helps you take control of your emotions.

How can therapy for Coronavirus anxiety help?

Everyone’s tolerance to uncertainty differs. Talking with a therapist about your fears and uncertainty around living a life alongside the COVID pandemic and beyond can help you make confident decisions about what is right for you and how to communicate this to yourself and to others, in a way they can understand and accept.

Why is there uncertainty and anxiety in the time of Coronavirus?

As restrictions ease, even with the promise of vaccines and a return to a more ‘normal’ way of living, many people are highly anxious and uncertain about how they return to a life, a routine, the wider community, and what it will mean for them and those they love and care for. For many there is a heightened level of anxiety about returning to the world we used to take for granted.

What is this doing to our economy, what will happen to my job, career and future income?
How is this affecting my children’s education and future?
Will my parents be safe if they need to go into a home or hospital?
How can I plan anything when we don’t know what the future holds?

COVID and the effect of Lockdown on our mental health

The reality is that for the majority it wasn’t the Coronavirus disease itself that has caused the damage but the fallout of the measures or restrictions that were necessarily put in place, that has triggered many underlying emotional issues.

Being in lockdown with others:

Relationship Issues caused by lockdown

Being in lockdown with others has exposed boundary issues and other underlying relationship stresses. The pressures of living on top of one another be that couples, families, house or flat shares, where day after day, without the usual ‘time out’ at work, university of just being out and about with different people in different environments, has put every aspect of our ability to cohabit with others for long unbroken periods of time under a magnifying glass, finding the holes and weaknesses.

Burnout and overwhelm caused by lockdown

For some the pressure of maintaining a career and keeping family life going has been enormous. For those with a job, children and perhaps also caring for others, lockdown didn’t bring a time of quiet reflection and jigsaw puzzles but a mounting challenge of balancing the work whilst learning to negotiate new technology and new routines, imposed by their employer’s with ‘housekeeping’, ‘home schooling’, ‘entertainment providing’, and somehow remain sane and self-supporting.

Financial anxiety and money stress caused by lockdown

Many individuals have seen their earnings drop or cease as a result of lockdown. The worry of how to keep a roof over their heads and those of their family and put food on the table has created enormous mental health issues.

The potential negatives of having a positive lockdown

It has not been all bad, many have found pleasure in spending quality time with family and friends and have been able to build up a rhythm and relationship with those who, in the past, they have not spent daytime with. For these, the ending of lockdown and the starting up of the old life can bring sadness and anxiety for what they have grown comfortable with and what they might miss.

Being in lockdown alone:

Loneliness and isolation caused by lockdown

These have been significant issues for many who entered lockdown. For those who needed to shield there was not even the pleasure of being able to go out for the short periods of time to shop, exercise or meet up outdoors.

The sadness of not being able to see children and grandchildren has been particularly hard for many as it has for those worried about ageing parents and relatives, whether living alone or in care facilities.

Boredom and a lack of purpose caused by lockdown

With no work to go to, without the usual social life and perhaps for those who need to be ‘out & about’ lockdown has led many people into a spiral of boredom, low self-esteem, sadness and depression.

The restriction of movement and the need for social distancing and the closing of meeting places has for many, meant that day to day life is no longer punctuated by different activities in different places.

Everyday feels like every other with no change in site.

The ‘What ifs’ and ‘Maybes’ of life after COVID

We hoped that the virus might simply come and go but the reality is that it is likely that, like flu, HIV, Sars, this virus is here to stay, and for many this raises uncertainties:

Will I have to observe social distancing forever more?
Will we have to wear masks in public from now on?
Can I ever go out in a group again?
How will this affect my life and work?

The problem has worsened by the fact that as a society we have found our routines and ‘what’s normal’ turned on its head. Our way of existing as a society has been so altered and warped that we are finding it hard to collectively find our compass and a route back to perceived ‘socially acceptable’ behaviour.

Post COVID lockdown & Coronavirus health anxiety

How do I cope with people who don’t or won’t wear masks, wash their hands or keep their distance?
What do I say to those who want to visit and are insisting they are low risk and I’m being paranoid?
How do I explain to others that my view of life has changed, I don’t want to go back to how things were?
I feel safe at home: How do I cope with my OCD at work or anywhere else, I can control everything in my home?
I’ve had COVID and am suffering long term affects the so called ‘Long COVID’ but people don’t understand.

Emerging from weeks of strict Coronavirus lockdown, itself a cause of serious mental health disruption, with the lifting of restrictions brings for many a sense of trepidation and unease. Coronavirus health anxiety and general uncertainty is a major issue.

While some are eager to get on with their lives, others are experiencing a lingering fear of the virus and potential risks to their health. And yet others may be experiencing a sadness about the loss of things gained during lockdown, having embraced the new quieter, less hectic and less social way of existing.

The question “what’s safe and where do I draw a line between taking sensible precautions and being paranoid?” is being asked but without receiving an answer.

Our compass to life, that we had crafted over our childhood and adult years, has suddenly been thrown. We are still trying to find our true north.

Therapy for coping with the uncertainty of life and COVID

The Coronavirus pandemic has shown us that life can change very quickly and unpredictably, however, though we may not have realised it, life, even before COVID, had a degree of uncertainty that was unavoidable, and yet we were able to cope with uncertainty before. In reality our lives are constantly evolving and changing, and many areas have a level of uncertainty, we can’t control everything that happens to us.