Coping with mental health conditions during COVID-19

Let’s think more about what has shifted for Kevin this week. In Week 1, from your responses, it was clear that Kevin’s video really affected many of you. Through his video, something within Kevin’s distress, which he had been carrying by himself, was conveyed in a way that you really felt at a visceral level.

Many of you hoped he was okay and wanted to offer support. This transition from carrying overwhelming feelings alone to having them thought about by one or several other people is one of the most therapeutic aspects of any form of mental health support.

It can happen in a therapy session, on the phone with a friend, or as you make dinner side by side with your partner.

Recall our discussions about newsfeeds in the previous step?

Well, for those of us who struggle with our mental health, the internal newsfeed can be quite overwhelming. A host of hostile characters appear, convincing us that our distress and vulnerability are not to be taken seriously or are too much for others.

We can convince ourselves rationally this is not the case, but these ideas are felt at a deeper level. For individuals with mental health difficulties, they can be taken for granted almost as powerfully as our expectation that day will follow night.

So, we find other ways to manage. We avoid others, we enter fight or flight whenever our body registers vulnerability, we use drugs or alcohol, we develop habits, rituals, and routines to keep emotions at bay. Overall, we carry our distress by ourselves.

Let’s try to appreciate why it is such a big deal that Kevin has reached out, and why it is so difficult for us to change our behaviours.

• Try writing with your other hand
• Try remaining silent over dinner if you usually speak
• Or being the first to talk if you usually don’t
• Try making use of any of this article content when you are in the middle of an argument tomorrow
• Try getting a society to follow the rules of lockdown

No amount of planning or talking intellectually can be a substitute for such an experience. Kevin has found somewhere, albeit online, and we’re not sure for how long, to share his distress.

Currently, we are thinking about what Kevin has done this week. However, support is a two-way street, and we will soon hear more about the concept of containment and the importance of the therapeutic setting.

You may have noticed that it is no longer midnight in Kevin’s video. This is due to another promising change which we will hear more about when we think about families.