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The Invisible Pandemic: Mental Madness
Written by Elizabeth McKinney. March 28th, 2021.
What a wonderful world we lived in. Before our world went into a safer-at-home mode. A world that should have been music to our ears as we listened to the sounds of everyday life. Only we didn’t know just how wonderful we had it. They say only when something is gone do you fully appreciate it. In the year before COVID, children met for birthday parties. Even went to school and sat within whispering distance. School teams competed and exchanged respiratory droplets along with congratulatory handshakes after the touchdowns were run and the baskets were scored.
Their parents went to work and had lunch meetings, flew on business trips, and planned what to spend their next raise on. Doctors and nurses and firemen and policemen and EMT’s went to work saving lives by taking their usual precautions and knowing their shifts would soon be over. They could relax over a meal with their family or friends or colleagues. To quote that Louis Armstrong song again, “What a wonderful world.” The word “pandemic” was one that we knew from history. Yes, we should have appreciated more “the skies of blue,” that were hanging over us all, what was still then a “bright, blessed day.” But we had no idea we were about to head into what would be the “dark, sacred night” of the coming year. The world as we knew it was about to change, with anxieties, depression, loneliness, joblessness, protests, hunger, long hours, family and friends we could not say goodbye to. A virus that is thought to have started in China was originally nicknamed the “Wuhan virus.” Which was a severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) that was named in February 2020 as COVID-19. By March 2020, it had stormed into all the world. Beginning in Asia like a tsunami, blowing through Europe like a blizzard, crossing North America like El Nino, it covered the Middle East like a sandstorm, Africa like a cyclone, and South America like a hurricane. No part of our wonderful world would be spared. But especially hurt with anxiety by this COVID-19 master-class killer who took no prisoners if it got an opening were the world’s school children, working people, health-care workers and first responders.
Children are the treasures of any society. Their mental health is precious. Parents want to protect them, educate them, and prepare them to take their role in society as they grow. Going to school is the work of children. The task and business and responsibility and success of educating children is what helps keep our “skies of blue” for the future. Fortunately, technology has been a companion for most school children for years. They start using computers in kindergarten, and most would have already had experience on laptops or smart phones or I-Pads. Even some toys they play with as toddlers have minicomputers. So, the world did luck up with this little head start. But before Covid, children rode the bus or made their way to school with hundreds of other kids, hung up their backpacks and had a teacher in front of them and classmates on either side. Little ones went to recess and played kickball. They exercised together in P.E. on the gym floor.
They sat next to each other on crowded benches at lunch. High schoolers even changed classes in crowded halls and some even dared to touch hands – or lips when the teacher wasn’t watching! Wait … did all that really happen? Yes. All that was called the human connection. The personal touch. 2020 became a year of year of isolation and innovation for children out of necessity. That year, millions of children fell behind! They would have to become adept at virtual learning for many months and stay away from their schoolmates in order to save their lives in the bargain. School boards came through for students who weren’t fortunate enough to have computers at home. No child left computerless. Children sad in front of their computers for the teacher-led lessons. Stay on it to do homework. After hours of that, it took stamina to stay on it longer even to play a game or watch a video. Their world became a few feet of space at the kitchen table or maybe their desk in their room, possibly a room filled with many good ways to pass time, but eventually a prison, nevertheless. No recess break chasing each other or climbing on the monkey bars with friends? No chatting about weekend plans? No meetups at the movies to watch the latest Marvels save the world? The world needed a whole new breed of super-hero to save it in 2020! And so, isolation set in for the world’s children and teens. College students who caught the virus were put under lock down in their dorm rooms with meals left for them outside their door.
Kids were unlikely to see many “trees of green or red roses bloom” from their workspace or room, when even parks being closed didn’t allow for what would become known as “social distancing” gatherings. It is pretty much a given that kids are social creatures. Well, so is COVID. The daily count of new cases, hospitalizations, and deaths was the lead story of every day. People wanted to know, of course. But anxiety of aloneness and anxiety of catching the virus became the twin towers of catastrophic devastation for the mental well-being of many of the world’s children. As the world turns, sick or not, and while children learn and suffer in their isolated anxiety, many of their parents, essential workers, had to show up and do their parts or fulfill their jobs at home. May God shower blessings on the truck drivers and warehouse order-fillers and grocery store workers for keeping the world fed and able to wipe their bottoms during COVID’s first weeks. But, go to work or stay home and take care of their kids became the King Solomon question for many parents. On the other side of the coin, many parents lost their jobs because of the virus’ running rampant. The new disease was a question mark in so many ways. But mainly, it seemed so random. It could be so mild it took a test to verify it. It was a vast unknown, like a new frontier, a whole country that must be explored. Fortunately, there were workers, innovators of science and research who stepped up and began the mapping that would lead to the vaccine, no doubt feeling the weight of the world on their shoulders as people died. Meanwhile restaurants turned to offering only take-out, malls closed their doors, theatres were dark, churches prayed on Facebook, and many of these institutions’ previous employees were suddenly out of work.
Where would rent money come from? How would they buy food? Would there really be “skies of blue and clouds of white” at the end of this pandemic-storm? Anxiety on a daily basis became an acquaintance for them, even the parent of depression for many. In addition to kids and workers whose mental stress and anxiety changed them forever, pity but praise the poor hospital staffs and first responders, whose jobs during this pandemic was one of chaotic and never-ending. They earned their place in heaven. And many of them fell victim to the virus while caring for victims. Doctors and nurses, accustomed to protecting patients as well as themselves from invading germs, now found that their standard masks and gowns and gloves and hygiene weren’t sufficient. They must have a whole new wardrobe of protective gear to keep the virus from jumping from their patients to themselves. Hot and stifling and time-consuming. And how to get enough of these N-95 masks and all the rest? When would they run out? And too soon they did. It was the same the world over.
Shifts that could stretch long over and patients whose last breath might be at any time even though they were intubated. And a virus so virulent no family could be with them. No rooms left and the count climbing. Anxiety was part of their psyche, if they were in fact only human and not super-human heroes as the world came to know them. And it is safe to say that the first responders, the police and firemen and EMT’s and others underwent their share of mental madness as they became exposed time after time and watched colleagues contract it while caring for COVID patients. Who can forget the refrigerated trucks lined up in hospital parking lots to be used as temporary morgues? The world worried during the pandemic, but these workers helped save the world while the vaccine was being developed. Who knew the human spirit could be so indestructible? Now vaccines have arrived and COVID cases are on the decline, so the world is experiencing the feeling of optimism. The hope that all children will be back in school and the job market will soon be on the rise has people smiling again. Healthcare workers are plunging vaccines in thousands of hopeful arms a day instead of sticking swabs up scared patients. This pandemic has forever changed the way we live and think. COVID variants are emerging rapidly so too will the mental stress. Let’s just hope that the mental madness that came with the SARS-CoV-2, in early 2020 is quelled and we have not only stepped up our immunity but our mental fortitude. Let us remember the loved ones we have lost and the knowledge we have gained and know, as the German philosopher Friedrick Nietzsche famously said: “That which does not kill us makes us stronger.” This should resonate with all humanity not with just the body but with the mind as well.
Given Instructions from Professor.
Spring 2021 - Editorial Project.
Sketches of Magazine Cover. Work in Progress.