Standing in front of the camera is a twenty-something-Brady with an army green baseball hat on backward. It sits disproportionately on his head, the strap almost hitting his eyebrows.
His cheeks are flushed from the hot spring weather of the Miami beaches, or maybe it’s just too much alcohol.
He tells the reporter, “If I get corona, I get corona. At the end of the day, I’m not going to let it stop me from partying.”
Rightfully so, this video received intensive backlash. He has since apologized for making one of the most ignorant statements I’ve ever heard. People began blaming millennials for being inconsiderate and possibly deadly in their actions. Is it really that hard to just sit at home?
Then I ran across a tweet the other day from someone I used to go to school with. After the news that Gov. J.B. Pritzker had issued a stay-at-home order, she was panicking.
It wasn’t necessarily about the severity of the virus itself, but the fact that suddenly her ability to connect with other people was being ripped away from her. Similarly, she was being ripped-a-new-one by people on social media for going to her other friend’s house who also lives alone.
Living alone right now means weeks, at this rate months, of staring at blank walls and feeling a sense of isolation similar to a jail cell.
She poses an important question: Am I really a “monster” if I go to my “healthy” friend’s house at a time like this? Even if it will be the only source of human connection I’ll get for the week? Nearly everyone, especially on social media, aggressively shame people into the idea that, yes, it absolutely would make you a monster. The reality is that everyone is working on adjusting to learning to be alone in the next few months. Being alone is easier for some than it is for others because it takes a lot of work to feel really comfortable with the concept of “alone.”
With COVID-19 tossing the world into globally unrecognizable chaos, it’s interesting that some people think they are experts. It’s as if dealing with a health pandemic is just another part of their five-year plan.
While it is absolutely essential for people to stay at home right now and attempt to flatten the curve in every way possible, how are we going to start flattening the curve of mental health tragedies?
Back in middle school, my dad lost his job amidst the financial crisis around 2008. I would get home from school and he would be completely still in his bed, face down. He wouldn’t sit and eat dinner with us. He barely left the house. Through the thin walls in my childhood bedroom, I could hear him crying softly. As millions of people are either being forced to take breaks from their jobs or are going to lose their jobs in the coming months, it feels like I’m 11 again. Powerless and vulnerable, scratching the baby blue paint of my childhood room’s walls off in little flakes, feeling anxious and useless.
Being home, alone, possibly even unemployed, can make you feel like you’re nothing.
We are in the midst of one of the greatest mental health pandemics we have ever seen. For people living alone, they are working on transitioning into solitude, tearing them down will not help them create a positive environment for the next few months. In fact, in this isolation, it is important to distance yourself from self-hate. Thinking things like I’m alone right now because I’m single, hard to love, emotional, etc. isn’t going to make anyone’s lives better.
So should we all be making every effort we can to stay at home and social distance? Absolutely. Should we be harassing and belittling someone who lives alone or is feeling isolated for visiting a friend? No.
Unless you’re ready to start volunteering for the Suicide Prevention Hotline.
While the world is currently working on developing online therapy sessions and pharmacies still remain open in order to pick up regular prescriptions, the increase in the human element and the complexities of it all may just be someone’s breaking point.
If you’re at home with three to four other people, are you in the position to tell someone they don’t need human interaction? It’s important that we reach out to people and make sure that no one is “alone” during this time — even if they are physically alone, they don’t have to be emotionally alone.
The New York Times reported on a 2012 study that came out from Lancet, a medical journal, that stated suicide rates between 2008 and 2010 had gone up four times faster than it did eight years before the recession. With every percent raised in unemployment, it increased the suicide rate by about one percent.
With research indicating that we are likely going into a recession in the next few months, perhaps even a depression, these increased suicide rates are alarming. Combine that with locking people up inside and we may actually see unprecedented numbers of self-harm in the next year or so.
Trump recently said that there will be “suicides by the thousands” if the U.S. economy remains shutdown. He went on to say that “our country wasn’t built to be shut down.” While job loss and financial issues are major societal issues and triggers for suicide, we can’t just slap an open sign on America and pretend it’s ready to go back to work. Some experts say that up to one million people could die as a result of the coronavirus if we don’t carry out certain precautions. Suicide risk isn’t just a go-back-to-work-card for Trump to use. The economy is going to suffer, and we need to let it, instead of trying to prioritize that over people’s lives.
The feelings of isolation and loss are a core instigator for those who may have been at a risk before, or had suicidal tendencies in the past. A man in India committed suicide after the overwhelming fear that he had the virus and was going to infect his family.
It’s time to embrace Facetime calls, Netflix shared viewing, texting, anything at all may be better than nothing at all. Please, make sure you also have someone to check-in with you daily.
The reality here is that you can be the most profoundly independent, self-driven person, but you still need people. Maybe this situation, as much of a shit-show as it is, is an opportunity for this country to take mental health seriously and create nationwide changes in how we distribute mental health care.
The levels in which people are going to feel lonely are completely unprecedented — the best way to describe it is the kind of loneliness that physically hurts — it puts a hazy fog in your brain, tightens your muscles, puts an irreversible twist in your back, slowly drives you mad.
We’re all scratching at the walls trying to leave an imprint, anything that will stick.
