FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) – Dinner is again happily booked. Long-canceled vacations are booked. People get back together, in some of the ways they used to.
But not everyone is rushing back.
Their stories emerge when the world begins to reopen – people secretly fear every milestone in the direction of normalcy, and rather envision crowds and awkward catch-up conversations. Even small tasks outside the home – a trip to the grocery store or returning to the office – can feel overwhelming.
Psychologists call it fear of re-entry, and they find it more common as headlines announce the impending return to life after the pandemic.
‘I adopted this new lifestyle of avoidance and got used to it, which I can not see how it was. I still intend to isolate myself, ”says Thomas Pietrasz, who lives alone and works as a content creator from his home in the Chicago suburbs. His alcohol and marijuana use also increased during the pandemic.
Pietrasz says his anxiety has worsened significantly as talk of life after vaccination increases. He said he had become accustomed to “crawling home and using the sidewalk and delivery to avoid every situation with people.”
As the world flows back to a semblance of normal life, many people tell challenges like Pietrasz’s play out in their own lives. The time at home – locking up, fear, dread, isolation – changed them and exacerbated existing worries or created new ones altogether.
“It was a mix of reactions,” said Amy Cirbus, director of clinical content at Talkspace, an online mental health group with nearly 50,000 current clients. ‘Some people are very relieved about returning to normal. Others struggle. Many people experience feelings of anxiety because they feel they are not ready to go in again. ”
While some were confined by the confinement of the home, others found safety, comfort and even enjoyment there, which internalized the isolation into what some psychiatrists consider a dysfunctional basis.
Like many others, Pietrasz said his anxiety is largely unrelated to COVID and more about social interactions. Psychologists believe that fears of leaving home have little to do with reasonable concerns about the spread of the virus and sometimes cannot be determined, or that it is not in fact grounded.
In some cases, psychologists say the manifestation is subtle, like someone repeatedly making excuses to avoid meeting with friends, even in a safe, socially distributed environment or if they have been vaccinated. But some cases are more extreme, says Dr. Arthur Bregman, a psychiatrist who noticed this phenomenon in his practice in Miami and called it ‘cave syndrome’.
‘The people who have the most anxiety disorders in my practice are hit the hardest. They can not even get out, ”says Bregman, who studied the psychological impact of the flu pandemic on the world in 1918.
Bregman says after the closure, about 40% of the population would be diagnosed with what we now call PTSD. “It took ten years before the people got out of here,” he says.
The pandemic has exacerbated problems for those already struggling with anxiety, depression and other mental health problems. But some patients experience these symptoms for the first time.
Dr. Julie Holland, a psychiatrist in New York, says the pandemic caused new trauma for some people, especially in the unpredictable early weeks of lockdown when people questioned whether there would be enough food and whether it was even safe to post their jobs. To touch.
According to a survey in February by the American Psychological Association, nearly half of respondents said they felt uncomfortable adjusting to personal interactions once the pandemic ended. Shockingly, the vaccination status had little effect on human responses, and 48% of vaccinated adults said they still felt uncomfortable.
“You’ve been taught a whole year to distance yourself from people and you’ve learned to be afraid of people because they can make you sick or kill you,” says Holland. “There is no doubt that it is easier to learn to be afraid than to not be afraid.”
The fight-or-flight physical manifestations such as a running heart, breathing problems and dizziness can be frightening.
“People who are really free and planning their vacation really upset my patients because they challenge their level of fear and risk tolerance,” says Dr. Sharon Batista, a psychiatrist in New York who noticed an increase in patient referrals. since the holidays.
Children and teenagers are particularly vulnerable. Before the pandemic, 17-year-old Erin had many good friends, but he said the interaction slowed down when he was locked up in the suburbs of DC. Now she barely talks to them.
She is afraid to ‘catch up and go through all the talk that no one likes,’ said the high school junior, who has been using anxiety medication for several years. The Associated Press only uses her first name because she is a minor.
“A year ago, I went outside in the hope that I would run into a friend from school and go on an adventure,” she recently posted on social media. “I’m terrified of leaving home because I’m afraid I’ll run into a friend from school and go on an adventure.”
Nicole Russell was so scared to leave her home in Miami that she retreated into her bedroom for days on end and was unable to communicate with other people in the house, including her 11-year-old daughter. It got so bad that she was often awake all night, sleeping during the day, obsessively checking social media and constantly cleaning and even scrubbing the floor with a toothbrush.
“I would not leave my hallway for days on end because I could not handle the pressure of talking to other people,” says Russell, who left notes to remind herself to take a shower and brush her teeth. “I did not live, that’s for sure.”
Last month, Russell even turned down family and friends when they wanted to plan something small for her birthday last month. “We were forced into isolation,” she says, “and now we have become accustomed to it.”
According to experts, taking small steps over time is one of the most effective treatments. The more patients go shopping or see friends, the more they will discover the forgotten enjoyment of social interactions and learn that much of the world is unchanged, making it easier to take risks again. Others need medication.
Russell, who described herself as ‘dysfunctional’, recently took a few steps in that direction. She forces herself to undertake a terrifying journey to the grocery store. She saw people laughing and chatting, and she was inspired.
She started therapy with an antidepressant. It worked, she says, and within a week it was much better. Now, ‘I’m up and moving around and want to catch up with everyone.
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Follow Florida-based Associated Press author Kelli Kennedy on Twitter at http://twitter.com/kkennedyAP