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  • Writer's pictureT. Degiovanni

This isn’t the Misery Olympics – Toxic Positivity, Mental Health and Privilege in Lockdown

Updated: Nov 15, 2020

Sometime during the global lockdowns of March 2020, I was texting one of my closest friends about how I was doing. She had recently lost one of her University friends to COVID-19, had to move countries at a week’s notice, and was herself enduring chronic pain and illness due to lack of access to her usual medical treatment. I, on the other hand, was medically healthy, was being taken care of in a beautiful house in the countryside, and the only thing I had lost to the virus at that point was the end of my Masters programme and some of my sanity. When she asked me how I was doing, I felt so silly complaining. I would say things like, “but obviously in the grand scheme of things its nothing”, or “but of course it could be worse”.

This friend, by the way, is probably the most selfless, empathetic human I have ever had the pleasure of meeting. Her response shocked me into the stark reality I needed to accept. “Tzeitel,” she said, “This isn’t the misery Olympics. You’re allowed to be upset and to struggle, irrespective of others”. It was something I hadn’t yet allowed myself to do. Always reminding myself of the death toll, of my lockdown privileges, of all the things I was lucky for, I still couldn’t understand why, despite those things, I was still so unhappy. I still had no inclination to bake banana bread, or upskill, and even going on walks in the gorgeous English countryside felt like climbing Everest. I soon realised that it’s because I hadn’t let myself be upset - over the things I lost, the life that stopped, and the state of the world around me. My friend was right. This wasn’t the misery Olympics, and everyone was entitled to be upset about how this unprecedented situation was affecting them, and how they were able to deal with it. I soon accepted that my mental health was poor, that my bi-nightly tears were a product of deep unsettlement and anxiety, and that bottling up emotions and pretending to be okay wasn’t noble, it was damaging.

Going into this second lockdown, I was worried. Not just for myself, but for all the many people who were still getting over (or were yet to) the emotional toll of the first round. Isolating then was hard, and long, but there were sunny days, zoom quizzes and a sense of novelty to the situation. With days getting darker earlier, the weather making outdoor meetings implausible, and financial uncertainty on the rise, I was mad. I was mad at the government, I was mad at the situation, and I was mad at all those people who were saying “it wasn’t going to be as bad”. Though the importance of community and togetherness has certainly circulated throughout the past 9 months, so has a lot of toxic positivity. Online, people seem to find it perfectly easy to share their highs, their runs, their positivity mantras, their new skills and their seeming unaffectedness. They do so, however, to the detriment of those who are struggling. To those who, unsurprisingly, will be sharing a different lockdown experience, a different set of challenges, and a different mental headspace. The days of “we’re all going through the same thing” and “we’re all in it together”, though comforting in sentiment, are gone – and where they ever really there to begin with? Perhaps initially.

But as the past 9 months have unfolded, this pandemic has torn through that collective experience, affecting people in such varying ways, exasperating previous inequalities and situational differences to the point where ignorance is no longer bliss, but gross negligence. Though one person might be happy, another may be in a different country to their family, unable to see them. Whilst one person may be content in lockdown with their partner, or friends, another might be in a lockdown with strangers, living alone, living back home away from all of their friends, or unable to go home because a family member is high-risk. Some of us have experienced the loss of loved ones, the loss of friends to suicide, the loss of our lives as we knew it. Some of us might be isolating in a tiny apartment, sharing space, or have no access to outdoor spaces at all. Some might be unemployed, disheartened and disillusioned, whilst others continue to happily “WFH” and enjoying the change of lifestyle. The list goes on, as do our varied and complex experiences. So whilst this is certainly not the misery Olympics, and everyone is entitled to their individual and situational struggles; if we do not start moving with empathy, understanding and consideration of those struggles, no mask, sanitiser or vaccine is going to protect us from the mental ill health that will continue to ensue, or the divides this pandemic has created.

With so much talk about privilege the past couple of months, be that white privilege or economic privilege, we must allow ourselves to be unhappy about the situation whilst also recognising our lockdown privileges. Challenging the positivist dialogue of growth and improvement, I firmly believe the most important growth we can go through is into more compassionate, understanding and empathetic individuals than we were before.



Copyright: ©Antonio Rodriguez



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