Mental Health Pandemic

Shared miseries of a modern life, worsened by the Covid-19 pandemic

The relationship between the deadly Covid-19 pandemic and deteriorating mental health is a known fact. The first wave saw a rise in anxieties primarily due to unemployment, salary cuts, and social isolation. The second wave trauma is much more severe—people coping with grief, loss, fear, and survivor’s guilt.

To say that psychological issues we face today are all because of the coronavirus pandemic might be an overstatement, especially after one reads Notes on a Nervous Planet by Matt Haig—a running commentary on how the world is already messing with our minds—first published in 2018.

This paper seeks to demonstrate how individuals’ mental health was already on the verge when the pandemic pushed them further into the abyss of hopelessness. We will move chronologically—from pre-pandemic times to the ongoing pandemic.

A Nervous Planet 

Matt Haig, in his book Notes on a Nervous Planet asserts that due to daily modern life stressors like news, social media, addiction, work, and disturbed sleeping patterns, we are all headed towards doom. Things are faster than ever before and the human race has not had the time to stop and absorb this change, thereby reacting to these changes instead of responding to them. He calls it the multiplier effect when it is not just about what is happening; we are experiencing what happened in a more direct and intimate way than ever before. Take, for example, a terrorist attack—the constant visuals and updates on television and internet pouring in, personalised stories of fear and loss, and the air of uncertainty. He also writes:

“When progress happens fast it can make the present feel like a continual future. When watching a viral clip of human-sized back-flipping robot, it feels like reality has become science fiction. And we are encouraged to desire this state of affairs. ‘Embrace’ the future and ‘let go’ of the past. The whole of consumerism is based on us wanting the next thing rather than the present thing we already have. This is an almost perfect recipe for unhappiness.

To add to this is the façade being set up around us through social media, and ads. Initially, consumerism targeted women, made them insecure and gained sales in fashion, cosmetics, dietary supplements, among other things. And instead of trying to reduce women’s appearance-related anxiety, the industry is raising men’s appearance-related anxiety. In some areas, in some kind of distorted idea of equality, we seem to be trying to make everyone equally anxious, rather than equally free. While a light habit of comparison is only natural, social media makes us compare our reality with others’ reel-ity and it only fuels toxicity.

Overload has already become the central characteristic of modern life—consumer overload, work overload, environmental overload, news overload, information overload. In an overloaded world, it is also easy to fall prey to catastrophizing.

Anyway, what Haig wrote in 2018 about the world having a ‘nervous system’ has become increasingly relevant in the current context of the coronavirus pandemic. He said that because we are more connected than ever before, it is not wrong to say that the world could have a nervous system. Visualise that we are the nerve cells of the world’s brain transmitting ourselves to all other nerve cells, sending overload back and forth, ready to have a nervous breakdown. Our happiness and misery is more collective than ever. The group’s emotions have become our own.

‘We are in this together’ was a popular phrase throughout 2020, a testimony to how the world is connected and experiencing things together. It is also debatable because we are also isolated, and lonely; all of us at once.

The Coronavirus Pandemic

During the first phase of the nationwide lockdown, the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS) helpline received up to 4,000 calls a month seeking support. According to a survey conducted by Samvedna Senior Care on mental health of adults it was found that the prime reasons of worry were job security, income losses, health concerns, household chores, and family conflict. There was also an increased awareness about mental health as a topic due to increased media spotlight.

However, things started worsening when the second wave hit home. Dr. Harish Shetty, a Mumbai-based psychiatrist has dealt with patients who were hit by deadly disasters in the past and comments that the psychological effects of Covid-19 are worse. Covid-19 is an ‘invisible enemy’ and is not a one-time thing; this phase seems almost endless. Shetty, in fact, has coined a new term to sum up the collective state of mind: ‘fearodemic’— contracting the virus and not having access to medical resources, the fear of one’s life, the fear of losing loved ones, the fear of not saying a last good-bye.

The visuals of mass crematoriums, those in parking lots still linger on to one’s memory. The traditional news media was also feeding fear with the death numbers on TV screen, the horrifying visuals of overloaded crematoriums, the panicked family members of patients in oxygen deprived hospitals, and the list goes on. In an interview during those mortifying months, Dr. Samir Parikh, director of the department of mental health and behavioural sciences at Fortis Healthcare in Delhi summarised it saying “Your entire environment today is traumatic”. 

The NIMHANS helpline was receiving upto 14,000 calls a month during the second wave seeking support to deal with grief, loss, and fear. The medical community anticipates that the second wave has left many people with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). A lot of children were orphaned, a lot of people lost their spouses and felt like they have ‘lost the meaning of life’.

What makes things worse is a huge inadequacy of professional help in the mental health arena. There are just 9,000 psychiatrists for a population of over 1.3 billion.

It is a fact that people who are going through psychological disorders like ‘anxiety’, and ‘depression’ the two most common ones are more prone to severe situations like PTSD, and suicidal tendencies. It is possible that many people facing mental health concerns due to the second wave were already facing excesses before that.

Mental Health in India

Matt Haig writes from a developed country and so the larger context of what India faces today is incomparable. India’s idea of ‘modern life’ will always be different, depending on the background of the Indian this question is posed to. For some a modern life is poverty alleviation, while for some it is having unrestricted access to high-tech gadgets, or for some it could simply mean more peace and less deaths.

For the deadly second wave and the traumatic medical shortage circumstances that come with it, the government has been widely held accountable. If the personal is political, the psychological can be political too. Mental health concerns are almost non-existent for the political state in India, despite them being somewhat responsible for deteriorating health conditions. Inadequately staffed psychology professionals, lack of awareness, expensive help, no accountability for insurance and a lot more factors need the government’s attention and action.

Alongside, they should also pay attention to increasing the public’s general wellbeing. India ranked 133 out of 156 countries on the UN 2018 World Happiness Report. Civil society is doing its bit to break the stigma around mental health and there are significantly more conversations than before. New media, or online news media, has also given mental health coverage to ensure some spotlight on this quintessential topic.

Conclusion

The paper attempted to demonstrate how the almost invisible complexities of modern life had us all—collectively—on the verge of a meltdown and how this position was exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic which led to nationwide lockdowns, unemployment, income loss, isolation, and the complete shift of life to the online mode.

The scale at which lives were lost in the second wave and the traumatic experiences of hospitalisation combined with the fear of shortage of medical facilities was one of the worst things humanity faced collectively. The people were helpless, together, except just a few. “We are in this together” was subjectively applicable because resources were directed to the resourceful. But the trauma was directed irrespective of resources, such was the magnitude of this disaster. However, again, seeking help for one’s mental health remains an ugly privilege in this country.

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