What Can Confinement Teach Us About Our Relationships?

Many people ask me if patients have gotten worse, psychologically, in these difficult times… and I answer: it depends.

Everyone (I mean everyone, not just patients) handles it in a different way: good, bad, average… And fear is not the relevant factor. Except for health workers or workers who are experiencing stressful situations due to their involvement in the pandemic; also excepting clearly hypochondriacal people; others we live this pandemic based on other factors, and the main one is our relationships with others.

Relationship situations with others in the face of the pandemic:

• Those who are confined in a family with a partner and small children and they are delighted, because they normally see each other less, they have to run a lot, they are separated from their children every day without wanting to separate. These are living “a sweet moment.” Of course, the children are happy, as are their parents.
• The elderly who are confined in isolation “for your own good”, and suffer for not being able to see their children, in many cases, their grandchildren. Many of them dedicate their lives to being caregivers for their grandchildren, so they feel useful and loved; Now they feel the emptiness. If they are with their partner, on many occasions, they already have a very distant relationship and they feel a little alone. If they are alone, the pain is very deep. Only the calls and video calls from their children and grandchildren console them.
• Teenagers who are confined to their room In general, they are doing well They are used to virtual relationships. With their phone, computer or tablet they connect to their friends throughout the day. They leave the room for meals. If they are lucky and have parents who understand it, they are delighted.
• The shy ones. Good times for the timid Those patients who came to the consultation because they did not know how to relate to others… have stopped having problems. And they are great because now they don’t have to make the effort, they have the perfect excuse. They do not miss others because for them, relating always involves an effort and, now, they do not have to pass that costly test.
• Those who fear dying alone There are fearful people, whose greatest fear is getting sick and being isolated. They know that if they go to the hospital they will go alone and they suffer anxiety because of it. Any symptom makes them very nervous. They may be somewhat hypochondriacs, but they wouldn’t have such a bad time if they knew that they could be accompanied to the hospital, sharing those bad moments with family members. In many cases, they hide their discomfort from those around them for fear of being “taken away”; There are even panic attacks.

Maybe we can all draw our own conclusions from what we are experiencing, and, of course, no matter how the materialists say: affects move the world.

We could discover that:

• Many people do not live as they would like, they would like to spend more time being with their loved ones and, perhaps, they should be allowed to do so. Should it be organized in another way? Run less? Be at home more? Maybe you have to “produce” less. Difficult yes, difficult to change, but…
• The elderly… do they depend too much on their children, their grandchildren? The family structure that we live in Spain, more so in Andalusia, means that many people from the age of 50 or 60, or even earlier, only rely on the family as emotional support. Continuing to have friends, networks of people of the same age would be essential. You can be 80 or 90 years old and have friends. That said, taking care of the elderly is also essential. We must promote the elderly, who are so undervalued in our society.
• Shy people could draw many conclusions If you feel good without that pressure, why don’t you try to put less pressure on yourself? I always tell them that they don’t really want to relate, that they just want to be able to think that they are accepted. If they stopped putting so much pressure on themselves they would live better By this I do not mean that they isolate themselves for life. But you don’t have to succeed socially, you don’t have to compare yourself with others. We must stop envying those who manage to be leaders. Let’s choose the people with whom we can feel most comfortable and try to show them our interest, our affection. Let’s show affection towards some people, little by little, and really. We all have that capacity, we don’t have to be the funniest, the most ingenious, there will always be someone who needs our friendship.

And I can’t give easy advice to those who fear dying alone, these people probably need professional, direct help. But I do want to say that Our society should humanize this pandemic and try by all means to ensure that if a person is admitted for coronavirus they can be accompanied I understand that, in order for this to be done safely, you have to invest a lot in protection. It has to be done.