“Mental Health”

 

            In March of 2020, I participated in the Psychological Impact and Coping During Covid-19 research study done by The COVID Research Team, Ferkauf Graduate School of Psychology at Yeshiva University. The detailed questionnaire asked about changes in sleep, eating, concentration, and mood. I completed one month, three month, and six month follow-ups that continued to monitor my personal response to the pandemic.

            This drill focused my attention onto the resilience caregiving gave to our family. With Huntington’s disease, we’d already survived tending to a horrendously devastating disease. We’d already experienced pulling in our lives to a tight circle that relied on finding positivity and grace in handling Mom’s long, slow death. Caregivers don’t leave their homes that often. Visitors dwindle down once friends realize that the news never gets better. Caring for Mom honed my coping strategies for isolation and uncertainty.

            My mental health advantage took a battering when the flaws of friends and family members pushed to the foreground. Some people refused to wear masks, stay home or social distance. They continued their proclamations of individual rights through vaccine rejection. A few have become seriously ill with Long COVID symptoms. Several died. They refuse to follow their own doctor’s suggestion spouting that they know better than the medical community.

            Their attitudes broke my heart. Their declarations that their own needs outweigh the health of a community made me realize that we lack common ground. They closed their minds to anything I offered by demeaning me and my well-documented sources.

            These relationships forced me to add a layer of mental health checks to my interactions with other people. My high tolerance for toxic family and friends shifted because of the pandemic. My own mental health required no contact with those who spew propaganda. My own mental health compelled me to nurture friends and family who show a level of empathy, grace, and community in their lives.

 

Copyright 2022 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman