This is a psychosocial reflection on the social transversality generated by the COVID-19 emergency.
Since the COVID-19 emergency reached Europe, a social transversality has emerged that has become increasingly clear as the directives of European governments came into force.
On the one hand, there are people who reacted by locking themselves at home and complying with the rules with great scrupulousness. Some of them isolated themselves only after having raided supermarkets; others lived in constant contact with information points and were ready to share any news that contained “Coronavirus” in the title. On the other hand, people who have shown or are showing significant difficulties in respecting the provisions in force (think of the escapes from major cities that occurred throughout Europe).
Two sides that we heard dialoguing/arguing those days, each with its own reasons. There are those who said: “Why are people still walking around despite the media and social media bombardment urging people to “stay at home”?”, “Why has the exceptional closure of schools (at a time when it is neither Christmas nor Easter nor summer) caused many families to decide to go on holiday?”, “Why have governments in several European countries taken the decision to close borders, to prevent the spread of the virus, pushed hundreds of people to crowd the stations to leave the cities?”.
And then there are those who say: “You can go out for a walk, the important thing is to keep a safe distance!”, “No matter how much you are locked up at home in the city, no matter how much you are in your holiday home, at least here there is the sea or the mountains”, “It is good to talk when you live and work in your own region, staying hundreds of kilometres away from your family is impossible at the moment”. How is it possible that a single event has provoked such different reactions?
Let’s try to take a step back for a moment, to detach ourselves from the situation we are living in. Imagine a family that has been planning a holiday for some time. The day has finally arrived. The suitcases are packed, everyone is ready to leave. And suddenly, a strong storm arrives, lightning, hail, torrential rain. The forecast says that these weather conditions will continue for the next few days. It is impossible to get into the car in this weather, the risk is too great. The parents reluctantly decide to give up the holiday, there is too much at stake. They explain to their 3 children that unfortunately the holiday has been cancelled and that they will have to stay at home. The children remain disoriented, the room falls silent. All their plans disappeared in an instant. One of the three children looks at his parents and, between melancholy and fear, accepts the decision. He is sad about not being able to go on holiday, but at the same time he is terrified of the storm and of disobeying his parents, so he adapts without saying a word. Another child, however, begins to complain, to cry, then becomes desperate and angry with his parents because they did not organise the holiday well. He leaves the house, stands in the rain and tells his parents that they are just drops of water. Finally, the third child, at first with clenched fists, hits the ground in anger and, through tears, tells his parents that he is sad because the holiday has been cancelled and that he is afraid of the storm. Soon after, however, he understands why his parents decided to stay at home and decides, helped by a little imagination, to organise his holiday at home.
What emerges from this story I have just described is that the same situation provoked three totally different reactions. The three children were hit by different emotions, however it seems that while the first was literally overwhelmed by emotions, reacting with behaviours that negatively impacted on them and the rest of the family, the third showed his emotions without letting himself be suffocated by them, deciding to react to the situation in the healthiest way. Now let’s go back to our situation, to what we are experiencing.
It is clear that the COVID-19 virus has entered our lives with force. An external agent, over which we currently still do not have full control, is forcing us to change our habits, our plans and short-term projects. This virus is prohibiting us from having an aperitif at the bar, going to a football match, the cinema with our friends, getting drunk on a Saturday night in a disco, going to mass on Sunday morning, a long-awaited wedding, a birthday in a pizzeria or a reserved holiday time. It made us close our businesses, sinking us into the deepest uncertainty of “what will happen tomorrow”. This virus has entered our relational sphere, forcing us to keep physically distant from our loved ones. The luckiest people have reduced physical contact with family, boyfriends and friends; or hey are in total isolation. And the less fortunate, unfortunately, could not even say goodbye to their loved ones for the last time.
It is totally normal that in this climate of restrictions, in which a change of habits has been imposed on us, we feel confused, disoriented and stunned by a mixture of emotions such as fear, anger, sadness… to which physical symptoms are added. Headaches, gastrointestinal disorders, sleep disorders, etc. are often associated. We find ourselves facing a totally new situation for many of us and we are called to adapt to a reality that does not correspond to us where the requests that come from outside are probably greater than internal needs. This can trigger difficulties in each of us that in some cases become difficult to cope with. Different reactions are nothing more than the result of a set of genetic, temperamental, family and social factors that are uniquely intertwined in each of our personal stories. Thus, a new situation of which we have no previous experience can activate patterns of behaviour, emotions and thoughts, and therefore reactions, which we are used to using in other circumstances.
Just as the three children had shown three different reactions to the news that the holidays were cancelled, the same thing happened to us when the news of COVID-19 hit us. The same event aroused different reactions in us: some, unable to “manage” their emotions, over-adapted to the situation, living in a constant state of anxiety and paralysing terror; others, on the other hand, rebelled by reacting instinctively, from within, to the succession of news; others have chosen to respect the new directives, trying to organise themselves in the new space-time taking into account external requests and personal needs. The difference in these reactions would seem to be correlated with the self-regulation process, a process that includes cognitive and emotional aspects and that allows the person to identify, tolerate and express their internal states in order to be aware of their actions. In the latter case, this process appears and what happened is that the internal process was not acted out but listened to and expressed in a healthy way, thus allowing the person to adapt constructively to the situation, finding a balance between external and internal requests.
As difficult as all this may be, we must not forget that human beings are endowed with the capacity for self-determination: we are responsible for our actions and if these are no longer functional to the situation, we have the power to change them.
So what can we do?
- We can ask ourselves why I feel these emotions. Why do I have a constant need to be connected to information sites? Or why can I not follow the current guidelines?
- We can accept the emotions we feel and, if we want, we can share them with trusted people or mental health professionals.
- We can organise the day while maintaining our habits as much as possible.
- We can eat healthily and not resort to alcohol and drugs to “manage emotions.”
- We can facilitate living together by building our own space and combining it with a space to share with others. If there are children at home, organise shifts in which each parent can have a small personal space.
- We can choose a couple of times of the day, possibly away from the night hours, to inform ourselves and choose “official” channels.
- We can watch movies together or organise board games.
- We can reopen that old diary and call those people we never have time to hear from.
- We can use technology to transform “physical” distance into “emotional” closeness.
Browsing the internet, I was struck by the image of a tree, born in the steppes of Yalligup, Western Australia, which has been subjected to the force of the winds for centuries. A tree that, despite the weather conditions, has managed to adapt its shape without losing its appearance and maintaining its thick green foliage. Here, in this very complex moment, when the virus seems to blow stronger every day, we have the great power to choose whether we want to become that tree that, despite everything, will know how to adapt to this situation by discovering or rediscovering things that had been lost in the frenzy of everyday life. We can choose to listen to each other, to keep our needs, our emotions, to give them a voice and share them with others. We can choose to spend time with ourselves and with others.
We can choose and we can do it for ourselves.