Introduction
The COVID-19 pandemic has negatively affected many spheres of human life, including friendship, employment, and health state. One of the things that have fallen under this influence became the person’s psyche. At the height of the pandemic, people’s nervous system is as vulnerable as the immune one. During COVID-19, even those who do not contract the disease suffer from anxiety, stress, and insomnia, which can lead to various mental disorders and weaken the immune.
Complications of COVID-19
People who have been ill with COVID-19 can face several complications related to mental health. First of all, patients with COVID-19 have a significant risk of being diagnosed with neurologic or psychiatric disorders (Czeisler et al., 2021). Secondly, this virus is able to cause “ischemic stroke, dementia, parkinsonism,” which can indicate “direct brain injury following viral infection” resulting from “inflammation, immune dysregulation, and adverse medical treatment responses” (Czeisler et al., 2021, pp. 1590-1591). Moreover, the post-COVID syndrome can involve apathy, suicide thoughts, melancholy, and dispiritedness. As for patients’ nervous systems that are already suffered from mental disorders, they can be destroyed by COVID-19. Thus, the mind can suffer from COVID’s implications even as long as several months after recovering.
Fear and a Feeling of Isolation as Factors Destroying Human Psyche
The pandemic worsens individuals’ mental health for a range of reasons, including constant fear for one’s own health and the health of close people. The daily statistics with the rates of morbidity and mortality only worsen the situation, making a person suffer from the symptoms of distress. As studies show, “anxiety disorders have emerged as a big feature of the pandemic era” (Caan, 2021, p. 1). In April 2020, U.S. residents’ distress symptoms were “two to four times as prevalent as in 2019” (Czeisler et al., 2021, p. 1590). Moreover, the economic instability, distance learning and working, and unemployment problems do not improve the situation. Therefore people are afraid of losing jobs and income and missing opportunities. Thus, fear is quite a powerful element negatively affecting the human psyche.
Anxiety during the pandemic is also partly caused by a feeling of isolation. Individuals are forced to sit at home, refusing meetings with friends, face-to-face classes, various trips, and the cinema or skating rink visits. Although the modern world perceives the online space as an essential part of reality, COVID-19 shows that the population is not ready to replace real communication with video chats and text messages. Modern people who get used to obtaining new information and emotions due to frequent communication and daily interactions are confused. They suffer from the absence of socialization and consider their lives as not full ones. The pandemic threatens people with “the symptoms of distress, depression, posttraumatic stress disorder, anxiety, and frustration” that “could stem from the length of the duration of the sanitary measures” (Miyah et al., 2022, p. 3). Therefore, isolation is one of the fundamental problems contributing to destroying the psyche.
Conclusion
The pandemic has struck the human psyche and increased the number of patients with various mental disorders. People with COVID-19 have a significant risk of getting neurologic ailments accompanied by insomnia, depression, and suicidal thoughts. However, the pandemic threatens not only those who are ill: the tense climate contributes to strengthening common panic and fear. Therefore, people should strive to keep calm and not allow the virus to acquire their psyche.
References
Caan, W. (2021). Mental health support after COVID-19: Closer relations between general practice, psychology, and occupational health. British Medical Journal, 373, 1588. Web.
Czeisler, M. E., Howard, M. E., & Rajaratnam, S. M. (2021). Direct and indirect mental health consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic parallel prior pandemics. American Journal of Public Health, 111(9), 1589-1592.
Miyah, Y., Benjelloun, M., Lairini, S., & Lahrichi, A. (2022). COVID-19 impact on public health, environment, human psychology, global socio-economy, and education. The Scientific World Journal, Web.