Life after Covid
Life after Covid
What considerations are there about life after Covid? What is the pandemic’s impact on the population today? What can online therapy do?
After almost three years of pandemic, it is time to take stock. In past years, we witnessed excessively strict preventive measures, being forced to stay at home, the mandatory closure of schools forcing many young people to isolate themselves from their peer group, suspension from work and business activities eliminating the hope of a serene economic future, the shutdown of recreational and sports activities that represent an important opportunity for release and socialization, and a significant increase in couple and intra-family conflicts.
All this caused severe stress that heightened psychological distress with a significant increase in mental disorders, marital separations, and relationships that became fragile due to forced isolation, moving mostly onto a virtual plane.
I recall meeting a man in one of Italy’s most renowned hospitals. He was sitting in a wheelchair and had symptoms of acute liver failure recognizable by the yellowing of the skin and the sclera of the eyes. He was awaiting a transplant. In fact, in 2020, after the start of the first lockdown, he had been struck by severe reactive depression, which he had tried to quell with alcohol abuse, caused by the shutdown of his business and being forced to stay at home. Fear of the future had overwhelmed him and he had inadvertently fallen ill, but he had learned an important lesson—he now valued his life more than before. The expectation of the transplant was his second chance to regain health and bring balance to his life.
In this article, I will address another aspect: “life after Covid” and what consequences it has left in our lives. In fact, what Covid-19 surely leaves us with is a substantial impact on the health and psychological well-being of the whole world; which, according to the data, translates into a serious increase in cases of depression and anxiety, as well as a rise in suicidal behaviors, combined with not-easy access to care and mental hygiene services.
Impact of the pandemic
- exponential increase in mental health issues for the general population;
- greater risks found among younger people and females;
- worsening of mental well-being in cases of pre-existing health problems;
increase in suicidal behaviors particularly at a young age, and in adults an increase in suicidal thoughts following work-related stress burnout, loneliness, and a positive Covid-19 diagnosis.
Rise in anxiety, depression, insomnia, and hypochondria
The Covid-19 pandemic has increased cases of anxiety and depression worldwide by 25% (Who.it). It is therefore necessary to make a social commitment on a global scale to ensure that the right to mental health is not for the few, but that access is facilitated for more segments of the population, including financial investment. The WHO, in fact, emphasizes how there is still a chronic shortage of resources for mental health departments globally, with data (dating back to 2020) reporting healthcare spending of just 2% for mental well-being. Disorders such as insomnia and anxiety about one’s health are also observed, expressed in a compulsive search for medical information online, significantly increasing the onset of hypochondria.
A mortgage on the future mental health of young people
In addition, this uncontrolled rise in cases of depression and anxiety among young people and adolescents, compared to the pre-pandemic period, accompanied by widespread mental distress and fear of planning a future, risks placing a frightening mortgage on the health of young people, tomorrow’s future adults (quotidianosanità.it).
What can online therapy do?
Among the positive aspects of the pandemic, we must certainly mention the spread of online therapy and all online services. The possibility, still today, for many people to work in smart working, being able to reconcile private life and work more easily and satisfactorily.
Let’s see what tools online therapy can offer in relation to the current alarming data on the consequences of Covid-19.
Online therapy can help people place the symptoms of a post-traumatic stress disorder due to the post-pandemic period, also situating them within delicate personal experiences that a person has had to face. Therefore, we can say that in some cases Covid-19 has further unmasked psychological disorders very likely already present within the person.
The work to be done with online psychotherapy is also based on reorganizing one’s life after a period that imposed a forced stop in the lives of many people. Not everyone has restarted yet, and many have outwardly shown distress at having to confront a competitive society which, after excluding them for a period, now wants to welcome them back without adequate preparation. The traumatization of the pandemic’s impact on the population has left many fears about the future that still today require careful analysis from a social and cultural point of view. Online therapy is able to provide these answers and to work on the fear of planning a future that has negatively impacted people’s lives.
For information write to Dr. Jessica Zecchini.
Email contact consulenza@jessicazecchini.it, whatsapp contact 370 32 17 351
