The Real Pandemic Wasn’t the Virus

Don’t suffer. It has always been tough for me to understand why people suffer so much. And most of the time I observed that most of them suffer for no reason at all. During the pandemic, that is exactly what happened. For most people, the pandemic was a time when there was mostly nothing to do. The outside world was cut off. All we had to do was maintain precautionary measures and simply relax. The ones who were affected the most during the pandemic — those infected with the virus and the frontline warriors — were actually the ones who went through a lot of suffering. Most of us sat in our homes, got fat, and poked our minds ourselves until we discovered that our mental health needed evaluation.

During the COVID period, I heard the term for the first time — mental health pandemic. Is it real? I thought. Because until then, mental health had never been an issue for me. Whatever happened to me or around me, I could handle myself well. But this was something new to me. I was intrigued. So I started observing.

What I thought

A few things that I noticed changed as we started to spend most of our time indoors:(1) We started spending more time looking at screens,(2) my friends started having more in-house parties,(3) food became more frequent,(4) anxiety became the norm.

But why? The answer is simple: we had more time to face ourselves.

Now, we know our mind and our body are inseparable. We also know that one cannot be healthy without the other. But do we really practice this in our lives? How can we booze every day and expect to be mentally well? How can we doomscroll and expect not to be anxious? I tried. I told some of my friends to stop partying every day. You can guess the response I received.

This was me during the initial days of the pandemic. This is what my idea of mental health was. And I looked down on anyone who spoke of mental health. I joked about this newly discovered disease which filled the pockets of psychiatrists. Little did I know that there was more to it. I was yet to face reality.

What actually is

The psychological impact of the pandemic was tremendous. For many people, it was an existential crisis. Job insecurity and financial anxiety, isolation and loneliness, loss of routine and social interaction, and above all, the loss of loved ones. I can only imagine what someone can go through. Gradually, when I saw these things happening around me, to someone I knew, only then did it hit me.

We lost relatives and family friends. A close friend of mine lost his father due to COVID. He suddenly became silent and started keeping away from everyone. I was shocked. I now understood the importance of showing empathy and warmth to a friend, a family member, or any other person for that matter. I started becoming more available to people around me.

The terminology “mental health” carries within itself a predefined notion of a mind that is unwell. It contains a tint of an unhealthy mind. And I refuse to address it that way. Because I think our minds are powerful. Our mind is the software that enables us to do everything we do. How then can we address such powerful software as something that simply needs to be healthy? Rather, we can cultivate the need to show empathy and our humanity.

It is true that many of us at times carry immense turmoil within ourselves, often unable to express it. Everyone carries invisible struggles. Just asking someone, “How are you?” and actually listening to them can mean a lot to that person. The pandemic changed many things. One among them was the importance of being available, being there in times of need. A single honest conversation can change how we see the people around us. Slowly it sank into me. Now I had a face-off with reality. And it was never the same again.