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Why exit from self-isolation is more difficult than entry and how to survive it: psychologist's advice

'27.05.2020'

Source: lady.mail.ru

We all have to go through another stress. Psychologist Anastasia Rubtsova writes in her social network about why the exit from self-isolation will be much more difficult for many than the entrance to it. Anastasia quoted lady.mail.ru.

Photo: Shutterstock

The exit is always more difficult, but, as usual, no one recognizes this.

I was even invited to comment on an article about “how much valuable we have gained in self-isolation, and what we will take with us into ordinary life”.

I already felt bad, it seems to me that this is a topic from the category of “what I learned in Auschwitz” or “how the beating and spending the night in a locked bathroom made me a man”.

But let's order.

Someone in quarantine has become worse, up to depression and panic attacks (predictably), and someone is better, so much so that they say "sit still." There are many factors, but there are two main axes:

- we tolerate non-freedom in different ways;

- and sensory deprivation - in other words, “boredom” - when around us as if “nothing is happening”

About how difficult it is to endure non-freedom

In the population there are always those for whom it is physically unbearable to be locked up and felt torture every minute (we would die in the zoo), and those for whom it is not "locked up", but "in a house, sheltering from a terrible world."

This is not always because “injuries” or “upbringing” are often innate dominants that are little corrected during life. It is clear to whom it was easier to quarantine, and to whom it is more difficult.

How hard sensory deprivation is

The world, the one quarantined, jerked our attention every second. Incentives climbed out of all the cracks and shouted "look at me." There was a round-the-clock need to run somewhere, advertisements, music, meetings, messages from friends were dawning from morning till night, you had to keep in touch with the world from morning to night, you won’t go to the toilet quietly.

All this is called "sensory overload." Someone adapts to them more easily - but you can adapt here only in one way, ignore some of the incentives, not see and not hear point-blank. Someone is worse off. Again, not because of the "injury", but such a structure of the nervous system.

And then part of the overloads was removed by government orders, and the nervous system coped with the remaining ones. The environment is stable - we sit at home.

A stable environment helps a lot with overloads.

One friend explained this to me: “Consider everything that was unpleasant forbidden - work, shops, Tinder and friends.”

The relief is enormous.

Yesterday it was necessary to succeed and succeed on many fronts. Some really tried very hard and succeeded in a lot of things, not quite understanding the price they were given. Now these people cannot catch their breath and breathe.

Honestly, I really understand them. But they hardly want quarantine to last forever.

Going out, however, we will now be the whole crowd. And those who liked, and those who suffered.

On the subject: Test Yourself: Experts Name Signs of 'Quarantine Depression'

All of us, without exception, will experience terrible hyperstimulation.

Imagine that you have been starving for several weeks, and here at the exit they give you a stick of smoked sausage, a can of pickled mushrooms, pie pies, a box of chocolate candies, and they say, “until you eat everything, you won’t leave the table.”

Or you sat for several weeks in a cave, in coolness and silence, and then suddenly find yourself in Disneyland, and from all sides blows, flickers, sings, flickers, rushes, explodes and shines.

Or you are touched and pulled at the same time for all parts of the body, for everything from ears to heels, for many, many hours in a row. This is it.

And it is especially painful that life begins to demand everything at once. In that pre-quarantine world, this load was at least smeared by the days of the week and the months. And even those who used to think that they “demand everything at once” from him can now feel the difference.

In general, it will be a difficult moment. Two or three weeks, the psyche is not a robot, she needs to get pulled back.

And it’s important to understand why it’s hard for us, and not to play the game “Why am I tired, I didn’t do anything, I’m a useless loafer”, because this game rushes us to hell at high speed.

It is important to understand that in quarantine we did not gain any strength, it was not a vacation. Like maternity leave is not a vacation.
We spent some time in alarming uncertainty, at the best we could handle it, but there was no smell of relaxation there.

We go out more exhausted than climbed. And now again it will be necessary to adapt, but there are no forces at all, they have just been completely spent on another.

That is why most suicides occur at the end of the crisis, and not at the entrance.

It is also important to understand that we are on the verge of great disappointment - it will now become clear that what we loved the pre-quarantine world for has either not yet returned, or has not returned completely (well, except for nature, nature is all in place).

All these coffee houses, travels, salons, cute little things in the civilized world. But all that annoyed and scared us - here it is, dear, is already in place.

We are not going to the same world

This is another place. Which will partly look like that of the old (from this additional confusion in the head).

Yes, we, in general, are directly told that the world is now hostile and unpredictable. The virus is still here. Resuscitation is crowded, do not touch your face with your hands, death guards around every corner, walking in the parks is not only possible but also forbidden.

And one must be ready to experience the real, real sorrow and despair. Because everything is not what it promised to be, and there is no strength, and it is insulting, and how much more to endure.

To experience grief is painful.

Do not confuse it with sadness, grief - a burning, furious feeling, as if you were chewing chili peppers. You get terribly tired of him, like a dog. When you grieve, you can work not only half-heartedly, but at best a quarter. But.

It’s better to survive it now than to try to shut up his mouth and eventually get some nasty psychosomatics.

On the subject: 'We never parted before the coronavirus': how families live who were separated by a pandemic

How to support yourself at the exit of self-isolation

If you can delay the return to the world a little - by 3-4 days, by a week - I would take this opportunity. These 3-4 days will not save anyone, but they will give a feeling of at least some kind of control over the situation. The opportunity to choose a return date is worth a lot.

  • Do not be surprised at bouts of panic. Even if you have never had a panic attack before. This is, firstly, a normal reaction to hyperstimulation, and secondly, to the feeling of peace as a dangerous and hostile place.
  • Finish yourself by any means available. Hug yourself, wrap up, put to bed early, generally sleep more. Cook yourself baby food, read yourself children's books. Indulge yourself, pamper and indulge.

At this point, many say: “Yeah, yeah, it's good to advise you, but it doesn’t work out for me ... but when I think you should ... but I don’t know how ...” And I understand that these objections are not addressed to me personally , and the Ideal Parent Figure, which should, without listening to objections, take it on its hands and calm it down, put it to bed and put it on the blanket, cook food and feed from a spoon.

But I don’t have a blanket or a spoon, I can only tell you what makes it easier. And you already have enough strength for this, see for yourself.

  • Try to straighten your shoulders more often by straightening your back. Thus, a signal comes from the body contour to the psyche - everything is OK, we are strong, we are coping, we are in control of the situation. The burden that lies on our shoulders is within our power. This method is simple, but you won’t believe it is effective. Well, sports, especially everything related to stretching the muscles and spine.

It can be useful to console someone - everyone knows that the best way to calm yourself is to calm another, a little one.

  • And come up with long-term plans. For a year ahead, for three, for five years. None of these long-term plans will come true, I tell you right away - reality never coincides with forecasts at all. It may be better, it may be worse, but it always turns out to be different.

However, they will allow us to master this murky and hostile future, at least in fantasies.

Stick in straws there.

And little by little, little by little.

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