Covid-19 and Depression: How the Pandemic Can Affect Your Mental Health
The Covid-19 pandemic has now lasted almost two whole years, and during that time it has had a huge impact on many areas of our lives. Many people in the pandemic have struggled with new or worsening mental health problems including depression. Statistics show the impact Covid-19 has had on the general population’s mental health, including studies which have found significant increases in suicides over the past few years during Covid-191. Many people have found their existing depression has gotten a lot worse over the pandemic, and other people have developed depression for the first time in their lives during Covid-19. In this article I’ll outline a couple of ways in which the Covid-19 pandemic has affected us all and could contribute to worsening depression symptoms.
Social isolation
This is the first thing that comes to mind for many people when they think of the impact Covid-19 has had on their lives. From the beginning of the pandemic, shelter in place and social distancing were front line defenses against Covid-19. While these tactics were implemented to slow the spread of Covid-19, the impact on people's social lives and general feelings of connectedness has been massive.
When you are isolated from friends and family and only connecting over zoom or phone calls, it can be incredibly easy to fall into a depressive episode. A strong network of friends and family is one of the first things I look for in helping people combat depression and mental health struggles, and with the pandemic it became very difficult to maintain these connections in a satisfactory way.
Losing friends and family members to Covid-19
Of course a huge factor in why these past few years have been so difficult is that here in the United States we have lost hundreds of thousands of people to the disease of Covid-19. Each of these people who lost their lives were friends, parents, relatives, and acquaintances to many people who were greatly affected by their deaths. Now it is rare to encounter someone who has not had a family member, friend or an acquaintance pass away due to Covid.
Different people deal with death in very different ways, but inevitably these deaths have caused many people to suffer greatly with grief and depression. Losing someone close to you is always difficult, but especially during a pandemic without much social support due to social isolation, losing a loved one can be an incredibly trying experience which can have all sorts of difficult impacts on your mental health.
Unpredictability
Most people did not expect the pandemic to last as long as it has. At the outset, many people optimistically thought the pandemic would last a few months, maybe six months or a year at the most. When the vaccines rolled out, many people felt a renewed sense of optimism about the end of the pandemic being near. Now, almost two years after the first shelter in place mandates were enacted, we still see no definitive end in sight. Many people have decided to come to their own conclusions about the end of the pandemic and when it is appropriate to return to life as normal, but the pandemic is still affecting us all in some way or another.
The fact is that every step of the way in this pandemic there has been an unpredictability and uncertainty about how long the disease would last and how long the protective measures of social distancing would be necessary. Suffering with a clearly defined end point is often much more bearable than suffering with no understanding of when it will end. For this reason, the unpredictability of the pandemic has caused added anxiety, depression, and suffering for many people.
Existential anxiety
A global pandemic is something that few if any of us expected to have to experience in our lifetimes. A global traumatic event such as this brings up many larger picture existential queries such as questions about our own mortality, the meaning of our lives, and the fragility of existence. Such an event can cause psychological suffering on an existential level and can contribute to depression because of the vast scale of the traumatic event. When something changes our understanding of our lives on a fundamental level, it can destabilize our patterns, routines and mental health on a deep level.
In conclusion
When we consider the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, I think it will take humanity several years after the fact to get the proper perspective on how deeply this traumatic global event has influenced us all. When we do have proper perspective, I think we will marvel at the deep impact these past few years have had on our social structure and mental health. Many people are suffering deeply at this time, and depression and other mental health struggles are an understandable reaction to how these past few years have unfolded. If you are suffering with depression during the Covid-19 pandemic, understand that you are not alone, and that there are clear reasons why you might be suffering at this time.
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If you are needing support, feel free to reach out. Connor Moss with Pacific Psychotherapy offers depression therapy, anxiety therapy, trauma therapy, couples therapy and drug and alcohol counseling in Soquel, Santa Cruz, CA, and online anywhere in California. Reach out today with any questions or to schedule a free and confidential phone consultation.
Sources
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0262958