OCD symptoms post-COVID: easy to start, hard to end
It doesn’t affect everyone, of course, but there are a lot of people who become susceptible to OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder) symptoms in a situation in which anxiety is heightened and there’s a set of behaviors to focus on that make them feel safer. As soon as the COVID pandemic began, and the health care directives started coming out – stay distant from others, wash your hands (and even groceries) over and over, wear or don’t wear masks and all the rest – I said to some friends that all of America was going to have OCD before this was through, and that it would be quite the boon for therapists.
I was making a joke – kind of. But I was somewhat serious as well, because once such habits are formed it’s harder than one might think to break them, at least for many people. And there are children who probably can’t even remember another way at this point. I’ve had friends who say their grandchildren have become a lot more anxious. As we know, mental and emotional problems have increased in the year since this all began – although one thing I didn’t foresee from the start was that so many of the restrictions would last a year, but that trend became clear, too, after a few months.
So all of that brings us to this sort of thing. The author’s “us” certainly doesn’t include everyone, but I think it includes a lot of people, particularly among Democrats who have followed every command:
Public transit makes us sweat. The prospect of crowded restaurants and bars is thrilling but unfamiliar. People thirsting for daily interaction now worry they’ve lost the ease with which they once socialized. For so long we’ve been looking toward a world that gathers and touches, a world where smiles are unobscured and conversations unmuffled, but the longer we’ve been denied it, the more stressful its return has become.
“COVID definitely has shifted our experience, our perception of what’s considered normal,” said Lynn Bufka, senior director of practice transformation and quality at the American Psychological Association. “We should expect that there’s going to be some period of time when how we respond to the world around us is going to be different, where we’re going to potentially feel like this is … awkward. But what can be helpful is to recognize that everyone likely feels that way to some extent. Now we’re trying to figure out what normal is again.”
Ah, yeah – that “new normal” thing the left keeps talking about and hoping to shape.
More:
Nearly half of Americans say they feel uneasy thinking about in-person interaction once the pandemic ends, according to the American Psychological Association’s 2021 Stress in America report. Adults who received a COVID-19 vaccine were just as likely as those who haven’t been vaccinated to express unease.
That’s because, for the people more inclined to anxiety, these things tend to be irrational. The way it works is that, if they’ve weathered the storm safely, many people tend to have a gut feeling that it was all those precautions that kept them safe, and as a consequence they feel a sense of vague danger at dropping them. And yet it’s necessary to drop them (I’ve always washed my hands when coming home, and I plan to keep doing that). And our health mentors and blue state governors, as well as the Biden administration, aren’t saying much to guide people in the direction of normalcy. Why would they be eager to give up any of their newfound power?
I don’t know about “OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder).”
What I do know is that I have a addictive personality. Once I get into a “habit” it’s very hard for me to turn it around.
Here’s a sad little video
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sN_TMgf5Ogg
They will never let it end. Now they are all in on the variants.
On a more rational level, who will be willing to open a retail business, restaurant, sports or entertainment venue, knowing the precedent has been set that at the onset of any new epidemic, they will risk being shut down and bankrupted? Some will, of course, but many will not, to the benefit of Amazon, Apple, Netflix, and their ilk.
We need a constitutional amendment that prevents this sort of infringement on the rights of people who are otherwise healthy. In Genesis, after the flood God promised Noah with the sign of the rainbow that there would never again be such a drastic punishment. An amendment would be like that, a sign that would allow us to get our lives back again.
No OCD here, or at least not COVID-related. Although I admit that I won’t be returning to the European hug and cheek kiss habit. I was never comfortable with it, and now I’ll claim age and flu virus avoidance to eliminate it; and the three-foot limit for ordinary conversations sounds good too. That’s about arm’s-length for me. Introverts, rejoice!
Could be worse, the CDC could have required one meter distance (3’3-3/8″). OCD? What’s that? 🙂
Raymond Babbitt watched the MSM obsessively. Could have caused his problems.
A bonanza for therapists? Yes! Our therapist daughter is very busy and it’s mostly people stressed over the virus and the lockdowns.
I can see the habit in myself. For twelve months I’ve been very conscious of anything that might be dangerous. Getting the shot and suddenly becoming immune does not seem quite real yet. Is the danger really over? It will take time and experience to come to terms with it.
When I came home from flying in combat, it took me about six months to not get a sudden start from a flash of light from a window or other reflective surface on the ground that looked like the muzzle flash from an anti-aircraft gun. I knew it wasn’t real, but for many months I had been seeing the real thing, and the sudden fear reaction was pretty well ingrained. It will undoubtedly be the same with this.
It would really help if the politics of fear could be removed from the discussion of the virus. Good data and dispassionate discussion of that data have been missing. I just read a speech by Scott Atlas in which he describes the outrageous attacks on him just because he differed from Fauci on lockdowns and other tactics for combatting the virus. It’s long, but can be found here:
https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/science-politics-covid-will-truth-prevail/
Some anecdotal observations: my wife and I have been regulars at Mohegan Sun for years (mohegansun.com). As soon as they opened back up we were there about every 2-3weeks as usual. Not going to let the damn virus totally destroy our lives. Our favorite eatery with the best wings ever has only been open Friday- Sunday. So we’ve been going Fridays, though in normal times we go Thursdays. As you may know CT opened up just a bit more yesterday and we were at MoSun yesterday. My Lord, it was like the flood gates opened…more people than we have seen in 10 months. I went there today to pick up a free gift at 3 in the afternoon and it was jammed! People are so ready for this to be over. I don’t think Fauci et al will be able to hold them back when everyone decides enough is enough.
physicsguy,
I hope you are right. Here in WA on Monday we go into phase 3 but it kind of seems like we have already been there. The number of mask cheats has greatly increased I’ve noticed the last couple of weeks. I went to Walmart this week and saw several older people (vaccinated I presume) walking around with no masks and many others with it below the nose.
Those most prone to OCD’s paranoia remind me of Winston Smith, “the pensive, fatalistic, and justifiably paranoid protagonist of George Orwell’s novel 1984”.
neo asks, “Why would they be eager to give up any of their newfound power?”
Griffin knows, ” They will never let it end.”
Jimmy rights observes, “who will be willing to open a retail business, restaurant, sports or entertainment venue, knowing the precedent has been set that at the onset of any new epidemic, they will risk being shut down and bankrupted?”
Only the ‘connected’ with the financial resources will do so. Watch for businesses like Gov. Newsom’s favored restaurant, ‘The French Laundry’ to thrive and expand.
“We need a constitutional amendment that prevents this sort of infringement on the rights of people who are otherwise healthy.”
What persuasion might be employed to gain democrat acquiescence?
“It would really help if the politics of fear could be removed from the discussion of the virus. Good data and dispassionate discussion of that data have been missing.” J.J.
What possible benefit would accrue to the left in doing so?
Good data has been purposely withheld and dispassionate discussion demonized. Just as the outrageous attacks upon Scott Atlas demonstrates. Those promoting the ‘seriousness’ of this virus have an agenda and goal; the withering away of the middle class’s economic vitality and the establishing of our former inalienable rights as subject to restrictions.
Jimmy on March 20, 2021 at 3:53 pm: “… who will be willing to open a retail business, restaurant, sports or entertainment venue, knowing the precedent has been set that at the onset of any new epidemic, they will risk being shut down and bankrupted?”
But such a possibility or risk is exactly what insurance is designed to mitigate. In this context, insurance properly understood and used is a marvelous invention. On top of that, it would make the insurance companies a stakeholder in avoiding (poorly justified) lockdowns against which they would have to pay claims. For once, a “capitalist oppressor” on the side of the deplorables. Our taxpaying grandchildren and great grandchildren might also be appreciative.
One flaw in this idea is that perhaps everyone in the insured pool would be making claims at the same time, in contrast to the usual situation (fire, theft, accident, health, life) where only a few claims occur out of a larger group of policy holders.
R2L “But such a possibility or risk is exactly what insurance is designed to mitigate.”
I’m pretty sure that business interruption insurance has exclusions for mass events like the lockdowns. Otherwise the insurers themselves would go bankrupt, as your second paragraph hints at.
R2L and Jimmy,
My former commercial short term rental policy specifically excluded loss from a pandemic event.
On another note, I’ve never stopped the practice of ‘Euro air kiss and hug’. I offer a hand to shake, too. I consider these principled acts of civil disobedience.
I have to be reminded frequently about the 6′ distance.
I never left the ‘old normal’.
Been a hand washer long before Covid.
Just before I read this post my husband and I discussed when we would go back to attending Mass at our local parish that we have continued to support financially throughout this California lockdown and for me it will be when masks are optional. Until then I will continue to observe the YouTube Sunday Mass from Sioux Falls, SD. 2 + 2 = 5 cannot subsist in the exercise of my faith.
And…after a year of Fauci News, the long climbdown begins.
The kicker:
https://twitter.com/julie_kelly2/status/1373031808481292290
(Short version: “You f%#@ers actually believed us!?”)
File under: Giving Jonathan Gruber a run for his money…
Things are spotty and I suspect that’s why reactions differ. I have a friend who knew four people who died of (or with) Covid. I know nobody who was sick with it but one woman had a positive test and wasn’t sick. So she was either asymptomatic or it was a false positive.
Our church prayer chain, when referring to Covid, is about half of the folks–many of whom I might not recognize on the street–wanting prayers for people they know. About one degree of separation.
My wife and I drive Meals on Wheels, so we’re out two or three times a week. And in our area, we like to say, we have to coordinate our surgeries. My wife and I have been healthy the last year or so, and so we’ve been busy with one thing or another having to do with less fortunate neighbors. None of whom have been sick with the Kung Flu.
And so the tempo of our lives hasn’t changed much, although the issues which fill our calendar are not the same as in better times. So we don’t feel locked in. Our neighbors don’t bother to mask when visiting. It’s like we go into a somewhat alien world when we’re out. Mask up for Walmart.
But I think I’ve discovered a demographic. It’s people flunked out of HOA school for being insufficiently annoying. They have new opportunities.
Related:
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/03/faucis_fall_from_grace_began_a_year_ago_today.html
H/T Powerline blog.
Not sure I’d call it a “fall from grace”, though. More like a betrayal finally revealed.
What I would like to see is a law that requires all governors, mayors, and medical bureaucrats, who impose medical lockdowns, to take a 75% pay cut during the lockdown. That would at least make them consider the economic damage they are doing to their fellow citizens, and make them have some skin in the game. It’s too easy for a bureaucrat or politician, whose salaries continue unchanged, to impose draconian measures that wreak economic damage on others. However, I doubt that legislatures and councils would be wiling to pass such laws, much less the governors or mayors to sign them. Well, it’s an idea.
HOAs, the pox on our houses?
om. Correct. Good one.
And there are those who think inconvenience is inescapably connected to efficacy. The harder it is to do it, the more they want to do it. I swear, if somebody started a goof about a plastic bag and two feet of duct tape….
And, I swear, there’s the MAKE ME DO STUPID STUFF…OOOHHHH YEAAHHHHH crowd. Doing it isn’t the thing. It’s being forced to do it.
apropos of above
https://www.misskelleymay.com/about-miss-kelley
“Miss Kelly is well known throughout the spanking community, and highly regarded as one of the fiercest, sternest, most accurate, and hardest female tops in the scene. As a top, Miss Kelley is typically quite nurturing, and has perfected the art of giving a spanking for someone’s own good. But over the years she’s also discovered a glorious sadistic streak that makes her “want to hurt pretty things,” while smiling gleefully.”