Life After Lockdown.

Heart pebbles left in and around my village.

This morning I got an email that sent me into a spiral of anxiety. It was an email that, amongst others things, inadvertently acknowledged that lockdown would eventually end. And that's the part that specifically induced the spike of unwanted adrenaline.

I'm aware that to many people, the promise that lockdown isn't forever is the only thing getting them through. Most people are probably jumping up and down at the idea of finally being able to leave the confines of their own homes and go out into the world again. In many ways I too want everything to return to some form of normality - it would be great to have somewhere to go that isn't a purveyor of groceries, or a rural river path - in truth however, I'm actually rather anxious about what's to come. 

But while I've seen lots of talk about looking after your mental health during lockdown, I've not seen much at all about how life after lockdown (or even just the prospect of it) could cause your cortisol levels to rise significantly. But surely I'm not alone in this? 

In all fairness, I acknowledge that I'm coming at things from a slightly different angle to many, given that in a lot of ways I'd probably class myself as a 'recovering agoraphobic'. Agoraphobia has been a constant companion since I was 12 years old - which at this point is well over half my lifetime. Since then I've struggled with many things that are generally taken for granted, to varying degrees. I've found that as with other mental health conditions, agoraphobia tends to be fluid, and I've had times when I've felt its impact on my day to day existence more than others. I count myself incredibly lucky that my agoraphobia has never been severe enough to prevent me from leaving the house completely. But at times it's been pretty close. And it's a battle that has been hard won: I've spent years forcibly pushing through panic attacks, desperately attempting to avoid a life where I never leave the house, don't go to work, stop socialising with friends. You know, essentially trying to avoid the type of life that has now been imposed on us all by Covid-19... And for me, that's where things get a bit complicated. 

Of course I completely appreciate that lockdown has been absolutely necessary and is something that had to happen. I'm not questioning that. (You will not catch me holding a placard with 'Free the Peak District' emblazoned on it, or breaking curfew for extra watermelon sours from the local shop). I'm also grateful that I've been furloughed and have been able to sit out at least this portion of the storm from a place of relative safety, which has not been the case for our key workers, to whom we all owe so much. 

You might even be of the opinion that as an agoraphobic, being in the middle of a government imposed lockdown an agoraphobic be the best thing ever. A lot of the things that would usually cause me masses of anxiety are now simply off limits & you might well be thinking: 'well, what a relief for you!' But the truth is, that while my day today anxiety levels have probably reduced somewhat, I'm now living with a new undercurrent of anxiety, that's constantly present, ever increasing, and that is anxiety specifically regarding life after lockdown. 

Last year, when my mental health was at it's rock bottom, as an act of pure survival I removed all that was unnecessary from my life, only leaving the absolutely essential. I shunned all social invitations. I went to work because I had to, and that was genuinely about it. For the best part of a calendar year. The difficulty is though, as anyone with anxiety about a specific thing could tell you, not doing that thing only works to increase your anxiety towards it. It snowballs. Morphs. Encroaches onto other parts of your life often without you even realising until it's at full force. Basically by stubbornly avoiding the things that make you anxious, you only make things worse. Your life gets smaller and smaller as what you can handle decreases. And I suppose I now worry that by having to avoid certain things these past weeks, my anxiety involving them has grown to a point that will be increasing difficult when the time arrives to face them.

  

Always keen for a good photo-op.

Of course, I'm not suggesting that you need to have had pre-existing issues with the world outside to feel anxious about returning to it. We have all found ourselves in an unparalleled situation and have had to adapt as best we can accordingly. There is now a 'new normal' and leaving any kind of routine, regardless of how long it may have been in place, is never easy. I'm also not naive enough to believe that life will return to what we would previously have classed as 'normal' anytime soon. This of course also adds to the anxiety of the prospect of life after lockdown. The unknown can be a scary place and I don't think anything with a larger 'unknown' has ever been present in my lifetime. Just listening to the news & keeping a running tally of the number of times the word 'unprecedented' is used is enough to confirm this. Add to this the fact that the catalyst for lockdown in the first place, the virus itself, will still be at large. All things considered I'm certainly unlikely to be the only one with concerns.

So whilst some people are counting down the days until they can go out into the world again, I just wanted to acknowledge the other viewpoint, the people that will actually be quite nervous when Boris stands at his podium, cuts the imaginary satin ribbon, and declares the country 'open' again. Really to say nothing more than: hey, you're not alone.