Worrying article in the Guardian

[SpongeCake23]

www.theguardian.com/society/2020/may/16/uk-lockdown-causing-serious-mental-illness-in-first-time-patients?CMP=fb_gu&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook#Echobox=1589620149

People with no history of mental illness are developing serious psychological problems for the first time as a result of the lockdown, amid growing stresses over isolation, job insecurity, relationship breakdown and bereavement, the Royal College of Psychiatrists has disclosed.

Adults and children are having psychotic episodes, mania and depression, with some taken to hospital because of the heavy toll on their mental wellbeing.

Eight weeks into lockdown measures, the Royal College of Psychiatrists is warning that services could be overwhelmed by “a tsunami of mental illness”

Psychiatrists are also concerned about stress linked to the fear of contracting Covid-19. Being cut off from family and friends, and disruption to normal NHS services, are also exacerbating existing mental health problems. Some now refer to the emergence of “lockdown anxiety”

A specialist in the psychiatric care of children and young people said they had seen more under-18s with autism having to be admitted for inpatient care because they were “not coping with changes re Covid” and others “with deteriorating mental health state and increase in significant self-harm and increase in completed suicides”.

Something needs to be done and quickly, in my opinion.

This is going to have a longer lasting impact and more devastating after effects than the virus itself.
We’ve already had a family member commit suicide during the lockdown, because of being in the shielding catogery, but also a struggling alcoholic. I luckily don’t know anyone who has died of Covid, but I know people who have had it and are now fine.

This is a virus with a very high survival rate, I’m terrified for the future, especially for my son.

MayDayFightsBack

Valium was huge amongst housewives in the 50s and 60s and alcohol was the go for men, including at work.

That would have masked a lot of trauma.

Shellshock was a recognised diagnosis in ex servicemen. I also wouldn't be surprised if there was a fair amount of benign neglect of children raised in the post war period due to mental health issues in the parents and wider family.

This could well go on for several years with restrictions & lockdown relaxed for months at a time and then locked down again. We need to start helping people to get used to that idea and learn to live with it.

Fucking lol. Years of this and there won't be any services left, there won't be any money left.
Who the fuck would want to live like that?

I think for me it's partly that if I was starting to feel overwhelmed emotionally I used to have multiple things I could do to ease it and these have all gone.

DH and I both work full time shifts, he is NHS and I am police. We have 2 and 7 year old DS, and like all others we have no childcare. Ds2 nursery has closed completely, and DS7 has a health condition so didn't attend school. We are working our shifts around each other, and this means me getting 3 hours sleep between shifts and never seeing DH. We have not had a day off together since March and are not rota'd to until at least September. Both jobs are high stress This sounds intolerably stressful for absolutely anyone, I simply would crumble at this lifestyle and the stress of the job, before adding in childcare during your sleep time. I hope you can find some way to cope.

This could well go on for several years with restrictions & lockdown relaxed for months at a time and then locked down again. We need to start helping people to get used to that idea and learn to live with it

Many people would rather die than get used to that idea and live with it.

I don't see how we can get used to such a fundamentally abnormal way of life.

We can't!! We bloody can't and I'm sorry but it isn't worth it. For the small amount of people we save, it's not worth it because we will lose thousands more than that to suicide and poverty and other untreated medical conditions.

I am far more worried about this than the virus itself.

@PicsInRed good question about resilience and previous struggles in life.

I feel time working in one of the poorest countries of the world for a year with very limited choice of food, petrol shortages, non functioning health service prepared me massively for the current pandemic. It's a different way of life and I would be much more shocked now if it was my first experience of it.

Also bereavement has meant I have felt grief and all that comes with it. This situation feels like greiving for normality and all that has been lost, and will be lost in the future. I understand my reaction to stress, grief etc. Doesn't mean I'm not frustrated, irritable, worried but it's certainly not rocked by my world in the way I have seen it has in people in similar situations...

This thread is starting to have a whiff of 'people with mental health problems just aren't as strong as those that aren't

People are all in different situations. Some of secure jobs (one less stress) or dont have money issues, or have the worst problems but can cope. Some are struggling, its not about who is better or who isn't.

Its mot about who is strong and who isn't. Do you consider people weak if they are heavily impacted when they catch covid? Or is that different because its physical?

After the world war there were loads of mental health problems. Peolle didn't talk about it.

I agree with PicsinRed too. Whilst this is An annoying and sometimes stressful period, it is nothing to the literal life or death experiences I faced in childhood or the adult mental health aftermath of those. I am fine. My mental health is no better or worse than pre lockdown.

We absolutely do need to change our approach to building resilience in children and young people. The number of people on MN who think that teenagers are hardest hit by covid and that we should be out clapping kids for...not going out...amazes me. If we model personal resilience and expect and help our children to find coping strategies for themselves rather than focussing on all the negatives, they will largely be perfectly capable of doing that. Experiencing a few weeks of boredom and change of routine is not going to break them (unless they were already very fragile mentally, which of course some poor souls were).

Experiencing a few weeks of boredom and change of routine is not going to break them (unless they were already very fragile mentally

Ah yes because that's all that's happening. I wonder if their parents not having an income or their house being repossed or being hungry would "break them" ? Maybe having an abusive parent might break them or witnessing abuse?

If all you think this is is a few weeks of boredom you're very naive.

With a lot of other traumas there is the potential of going through it with others and leaning on one another. This is something really different, many of us may be OK materially but this way of life, not seeing loved ones outside our households, having to avoid people in the streets and having to go against our instincts to physically comfort others is abnormal. It's not a case of better or worse its just not a real comparison.

Resilience is bullshit. Resilience is "life is shit, deal with it".

Solitary confinement is used as punishment in prisons, that's how awful it is.

We are social creatures. We are not designed to live isolated or even in a single family group.

It disgusts me that this was not being reported on from the start.

For the majority of kids that’s likely as much as it will amount to, and it is not the children whose parents are unable to find food and housing that I’m talking about. The people posting on MN have been describing the terrible experience of their teenager not being able to see their friends, not witnessing their parents have a nervous breakdown. I also did say that it requires their parents to be demonstrating resilience themselves and I appreciate that is not always possible if parents are fragile.

This thread is starting to have a whiff of 'people with mental health problems just aren't as strong as those that aren't

I don't think anyone has even suggested that.
I personally suggested that previous experience of hardship simply makes all of this less shocking, less outside of life-expectation, and therefore less traumatic and more immediately manageable. That's nothing to do with relative strength, rather it's relative experience of previous (extreme) hardship and how that may psychologically change a person.

Resilience is not bullshit. It’s an essential life skill. It is NOT a substitute for justified anger at shit situations, at a shit government, at the injustice in society.

It's the not knowing that has set mine off.

Single parent in the shielded group so I cannot leave the house. I've gone from a full time job where I was proud to be independant and all that, to having to ask people to do basic things for me, like fetching my prescription from the chemist.

My employer refused furlough and I'm living on benefits only at the moment.

The Government keep saying they will decide if shielding people have to stay at home past June "soon." They will also introduce a care package for shielding people "soon." I have no idea if this will include additional financial help.

All I do know is that I have to start paying my mortgage again when the payment holiday ends and if things remain as they are at this moment in time, I will not be able to pay it and have enough money to cover our basic living costs.

I need to know if I can either return to work in June or if they will either force employers to pay furlough to shielders or introduce more generous benefits to help shielders with mortgages.

The fear of losing our home has kept me awake a lot at night.

PicsInRed no, those of us that have had horrendous struggles have developed coping mechanisms. And they are often unhealthy. We did that because we had to.

And yes, its a distinct whiff. The 'kids aren't taught resilience' bullshit is exactly that.

That peolle struggling have been or have failed in someway.

Right so are we supposed to just shut up and get on with it then? I don't think resilience is always a good thing. It's just basically saying oh just deal with it.

In most situations you can just deal with things and you find ways of coping.

This is different. This Is something that's out of people's control. Their usual coping strategies have been taken away, be that taking their mind off things by going to work, be that meeting up with a friend and having a good chat, be it going to church or even to see their mum.

This is not a question of how resilient people are. This is a horrible situation which none of us could have expected and none of us can control. It is no wonder that adults and children alike are struggling with this.

I am generally a resilient person. I generally get on with things and I am determined. When something bad happens I get over it and try and make good things happen.

I am struggling with this lockdown and so are many others.

Yes this is extremely concerning.

Since the early days there have been warnings that this is a mental health pandemic as well as a viral pandemic. I think a lot of people assumed this would mean feeling low or anxious, or coping with bereavement and relationship stress. There are a lot of people going through those things but this was also always going to lead to some people experiencing increasing paranoia, disordered thinking and a sense of unreality, as well as PTSD and serious mood disorders.

People are actually going mad and it's not hard to see why.

It's not just the lockdown it's everything. It's the daily death toll, it's washing the shopping, it's nothing else in the newspapers, it's 'stay alert', it's realising this is going on all over the world all at once, it's the politicisation of this crisis on a national and international scale, it's the ever changing, sometimes arbitrary rules. It's like being stuck in a particularly shit netflix series. The whole thing is a headfuck.

We need to come out of lockdown as soon as possible but we need to do so in such a way that the risk of a second wave is as low as possible. Because if people are struggling to cope now, how much more difficult will they find it when it happens all over again in a matter of weeks?

We need to find, test, isolate and care for every case. We need to trace and quarantine every contact. We need a properly integrated system that can react fast to contain new outbreaks. This is the only thing that has worked anywhere in the world, regardless of the severity of lockdown measures.

The more we contain the virus the less we have to contain people.

We also need to support everyone who needs to isolate or quarantine so they can do so in the most effective way while protecting their and their families' welfare, human rights and livelihoods.

And obviously we need to prioritise and invest heavily in mental health services, which have been cut to the bone over the past decade. Even if that doesn't sound as sexy as ventilators, PPE or the search for a vaccine.

We're a high income country. We can do this if the will is there. It will be far less costly in the long run, both in terms of the economy and of human misery, than an indefinite cycle of lockdown - release - wave of death - lockdown ...

Resilience is bull. Here's how.

What sort of behaviours would you see in someone who is lacking this "resilience skill" ?

A breakdown? Not coping? Mood swings? Hearing voices? Self harm?

There you go.

PicsInRedno, those of us that have had horrendous struggles have developed coping mechanisms. And they are often unhealthy. We did that because we had to.

In ordinary times, yes. But perhaps not now. Perhaps now our coping mechanisms allow us to keep going where someone without that experience may not feel able to.
🤷‍♀️ It's just a theory. It's not gilt and bound.

You really don’t think that people need resilience? Ok.

'Resilience' smells of the nudge unit.