Loneliness- Anxiety

Vastavikta Bhagat

We at SEA believe that the pandemic has a granularity of meta, non-linear narratives that become useful in making sense of the relational complexities of the pandemic and society. Thus, we set out to collect stories of fears, joys, agilities, fragilities, friendships, networks, collectives, home, work, infrastructures, entrepreneurship, privileges, marginalizations, migrations, desperation, gender, equity, etc. The glossary as a method became useful to reflect on this granularity of experiences and account for slippages during these times. These spatiotemporal stories, when read together or as individual instances produce a new sense of the emergent contemporary. This framework also allows us to speculate on the kind of world we will inhabit once the storm has passed. We draw on multiple readings to bring out the nuances and patterns of social life produced in a pandemic. This we hope would allow us to collectively reflect on the restructured ideas of the self, the collective, society, space, and time. Locked in a people experienced anxieties around the unknown uncertain unravellings of the outside and the loneliness of isolation in the inside of their four walls.

FEELING OVERWHELMED AND LONELY

Before the lockdown started,we all were busy with our lives and often had things in our mind like college work, travelling, etc to keep us occupied. All of a sudden this stopped and our routines changed, and will probably never be the same. I have always had this fear of not keeping myself occupied, maybe because I might get bored or might have thoughts that I shouldn’t be having.

In the earlier months, I was glad that we had college to finish our semester 2 and then we eventually started semester 3 as well. But it between, when there was no work,I used to depend on social media largely for keeping my head occupied.This lockdown exposed many of us to harsh news that showed the reality across the world, be it good or bad, which didn’t happen a lot before the lockdown due to our busy lives. While I’m privileged to have a safe environment at home, a lot of people found the outside to be safe. A lot of news (not mainstream media) spoke about various people getting harassed in their own homes, spoke about number of COVID cases in the country and the people who died because of it,etc. At one point all of this got too overwhelming to read, it can take a toll on your mental health.

Another strong feeling felt was loneliness, despite of being surrounded by 4 family members,there were times where I felt lonely, maybe because I was the only one who stayed up doing my college work or probably because I hadn’t seen anyone for 8 months. It does not seem like a big deal because the college lectures and zoom calls kept me connected, but the essence of physical touch was lost.

ANXIOUS MINDS TALKING

The rapid spread of COVID and the potential of large numbers of people exposed to it, and the impact with the seriousness which it got on our life changed our everyday routine and contributed to a particularly high anxiety level.

The fear even when one touched something outdoors and was tensed for the next 14 days in regards to whether he/she has caught the virus was staggering.The anxiety to lose loved ones even when no one had come in contact with the virus, but the mind was way ahead of time and had set terrible scenarios in head which kept on playing in the head and wouldn’t let you sleep.

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