How Coronavirus Affects Your Mental Health And Ways To Cope

The psychological scars of social distancing can run deep

- Nandana James

Ever since Ontario enforced closure of non-essential businesses to curb the coronavirus pandemic, Lester Fernandez found himself out of a job overnight, as well as stranded in his apartment, painfully aware of the time ticking past and money running out. Being an expat student, his job at a restaurant was the only way to stay afloat. “I have money left just to buy groceries one more time,” he said, with a resigned sigh. Anxiety and loneliness have been gnawing at him, making it difficult to sleep for more than 4-5 hours.

Lester, a 25-year-old from Bengaluru, has been cooped up in his rented apartment in Canada for more than a week now, and classes have also shifted online. Apart from the crippling loneliness of being stranded in a foreign country, the possibilities of his course getting indefinitely delayed looms large, which would mean more money down the drain. “If this prolongs for a long time, I don’t know what can be done,” his voice trailed off.

Stress disorder

Closer home, a nationwide lockdown has been enforced in India and people find themselves enmeshed in varying degrees of quarantine — either self-isolation at home or mandated quarantine to prevent contagion. A recent review in The Lancet found that quarantine is linked with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms, confusion, and anger — the effects of which can be long-lasting.

Now that the coronavirus crisis has clawed its way into almost every continent, as well as our collective consciousness, it will have unfathomable mental health implications, affirmed all the mental health experts BusinessLine spoke to.