Will isolation make me depressed?
Quarantined Quokkas! Graham here.
What a time to be the depressive kind??
On the one hand, there’s a certain validation to my deepest-held convictions about the world. Like the fragility of our modern attempts at meaning.
See! I told you 90% of gainful employment was just meaningless busywork! Aren’t you glad you couldn't ever keep hold of that career ladder?
On the other hand, it’s weird when official public health advice lines up so neatly with that self-doubty inner voice of yours.
My brain when I’m depressed: Avoid other people! They are a threat!
COVID-19 health advice: Yeh! What he said!
I’ve spent years resisting my urge to self-isolate, and suddenly it’s exactly what we all need to do.
From the messages I have in the Big Feels inbox, a few of you are wondering the same thing I am. What effect might this have on the ol’ internal landscape?
Self-isolation looks a lot like depression
Staying indoors. Avoiding others. Why does this sound so familiar?
Oh right. That’s what I do when I’m at my most depressed.
So the question becomes, how do you self-isolate without going full Doom Town?
I wrote a piece on this for the ABC that’s up now. Here’s a little extract:
Isolation hurts at the best of times
When I'm having a particularly tough time in my own head, I find myself in something of a loneliness spiral.
The more on edge I am, the more difficult I find everyday interactions. This makes it harder to drag myself out of the house, which in turn only adds to the sense of being cut off and anxious.
At my worst, I become deeply suspicious of other people, and everything in my body screams, "Keep your distance!" Sound familiar?
I've learned to short-circuit this spiral with tailored, strategic socialising. A games night with friends, weekend basketball. Things that feel, if not easy, at least doable, even when life gets tough.
I call it the rhythm of socialising. When my own internal world looks bleak, I can go back to that steady rhythm. It helps me through.
But what happens when we all lose that rhythm, all at once?
Click this pink button to read the full piece, including my thoughts on one way to gently reframe what’s happening, so it feels a little less lonely.
Is there anything wrong with feeling slow and withdrawn right now?
I actually wrote that ABC piece a couple weeks ago. Since then, I’ve been leaning into the slow and sluggish state of things. All I really want to do is curl up in bed with my epic, plague-apocalypse novel.
(I’m finally over half-way!)
I knew for sure I was the introverted type when I started turning down invites to even Zoom-based social gatherings.
Open my laptop and talk to my closest friends whilst lying down? God who has the energy??!
I have two responses to this growing urge to hibernate. One is guilt. Like I’m somehow losing ground on all my hard work of the last few years - allowing all my most deeply-ingrained self-isolating tendencies to take root once more.
The other response is: well, doesn’t it make sense though? If you can’t be withdrawn and self-contained at a time like this, when can you be?
Bodie, leaning into the slow and quiet life
A different kind of container
So I suppose where I’m at is, yes it makes sense to be afraid of getting depressed. Those of us who’ve been down that rabbit-hole more than once have good reason to fear its return. But it also makes sense to feel quiet and withdrawn, when the world itself is slowing down, and when the gravity of what’s happening is front *and* back page news.
For me there’s a question, bubbling away in the background here, that I don’t know how to answer yet.
What if this is an opportunity to really feel into that quiet, withdrawn side of myself, without having to label it anything at all?
What if this slower-paced world is a different kind of container for what I (or they) would normally call depression?
Make of that what you will.
We’re about to record a podcast episode about this same subject - how self-isolation can feel a lot like depression, and some of these bigger unanswered questions.
That’ll be up before long, but for now, speaking of the podcast...
New pod episode: ‘Should we be reading the news??’
Our latest podcast episode is inspired by a bunch of messages we’ve gotten from you folks on the topic of 'the news', including this from Julia:
"I just can’t read the news at the moment... I wish sometimes I could be one of those people who reads the news and it doesn’t make them crawl on the floor crying from the sheer sadness and despair of it all."
Honor and I cover...
-- How much news is too much news?
-- What to do when you can't look away
-- And who said being overwhelmed by current events is a bad thing anyway??
Click this pink button to listen, or search ‘big feels club’ in your podcast player.
p.s. patrons, come share your two cents on this ep here if you like. Or, you know, just stay in bed with your book...
Last thing: do you work in mental health?
About a month ago (or 12 corona years) we opened up sign ups for our spiffy new audio resource for mental health workers who also have big feels: Big Feels @ Work.
All 50 spots were gone within 5 and a half hours (eek!). This gave us a clue that perhaps many of you are looking for some extra support right now, as you get on with your work.
So we've decided to open up the first run of the course, to whoever wants in.
It starts in April. Click here to read all about it, and to sign up for the low, low, pandemic-only price of absolutely free. (If you already put your name on our waitlist, you don't have to do anything further.) If you're signed up already, you'll hear from us soon!
