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I have been noticing a theme lately. In this moment of corona, the majority of my clients have been feeling tired, apathetic, irritable, and melancholy. corona lifestyle has continued longer than most had expected and is still here.
In non-corona times, my clients would work at forming a day-to-day routine and use strategies to help them cope and become stronger. Sadly, the world has changed to the point that it is difficult to find a good routine. My clients with children have expressed that the village that was once helping them raise their kids is gone.
At this point, I believe the psychological problems in response to this pandemic are severe and will most likely continue even after the coronavirus is resolved. The question I have received the most is, "How do I push through and keep hope alive?"
I started thinking about the history of people and all the extremely challenging past events that human beings have gone through. Wars, slavery, pandemics, and the Holocaust. What was within our ancestors that kept them going? Why did they bother continuing? Were they more resilient than people are today?
My own grandparents survived the Holocaust. They lived through unspeakable horrors and came out of that trauma with plenty of hope. While I was growing up, I remembered them as extremely hardworking and mentally tough. They worked so hard that I can not even remember a time that my grandmother would sit down. She was always in the kitchen cooking something or cleaning something or out buying something to cook and clean. The same goes for my late grandfather; he too, was always hard at work.
I truly believe that the fact that they constantly behaved as if there was a purpose is what turned into hope for them. For instance, every time my grandmother cooked for the family, her cooking behavior sent a message to her brain that she needed to take care of someone or keep her family alive. This, in turn, gave her a sense of purpose, and then she would continue cooking every day. This behavioral pattern turns into hope because she developed a strong desire to watch her family grow. She had a need for her family to be strong, well-educated, and healthy. That desire was what kept her going and kept her feeding the family.
It's exactly like a story she shared with me from her Holocaust experience. She did not share many stories from that time with me. However, she did tell me that she had a niece, whom she loved dearly. She made sure to protect and take care of her niece as best as she could. I'm guessing that securing food for her niece was part of what my grandmother did every day to get through her traumatic journey. I envision that my grandmother woke up every day thinking, "I need to get up and feed my niece."
I believe this thought quickly turned into the action of looking for food or gathering food, which then turned into a purpose for living, which then gave my grandmother a feeling of hope. This daily pattern gave my grandmother a serious drive to continue pushing through her time in the concentration camps.
Similarly, in the Diary of Anne Frank, Anne explains that while she and her family were in hiding for two years, her father insisted that they continued schooling and studying. One might wonder, why? Why bother if there is a good chance that the end result will be death?
The answer is hope. Hope was kept alive by the very act of studying. Every time the children in hiding read a book or took a quiz or learned a new concept, it made their brain think that there was hope. Yes, I understand that in Anne's particular case, she did not survive the Holocaust. However, her diary did. This is the very diary that has impacted millions of lives and is what I am writing about at this very moment. Without hope, there would have been no diary.
Now, let's bring all of these lessons to present-day and back to our collective corona experience. It is clear that if we all begin implementing certain new behaviors, we may begin to strengthen our feelings of hope and purpose.
Some recommendations you might want to try would be exercising, getting dressed every day, cooking healthy meals, writing/drawing, building something new, or cleaning your house. In other words, it is possible that doing the behaviors first is the key to changing your mindset.
Hopefully, your brain will listen to what your body tells it. As always, if the hopeless feelings are growing very strong and you are feeling that you cannot rid yourself of them, then seek help from a qualified professional immediately.
To find a therapist, please visit the Psychology Today Therapy Directory.
