The Journey From Distress To De-Stress

The current pandemic will prove to be a prominent historical event wherein the most powerful and dominant human species, considered to be the crown of creation has been humbled by an invisible parasitic germ that is merely a micro-organism, not belonging to either the plant or animal kingdom.

- Dr. Latha Satish & Ms. Devi Shah

Such a nonentity has weakened the enormous amass of coping mechanisms, traumatizing the entire humanity by posing the greatest challenge of survival itself. All efforts to curtail the situation appear to have fallen short and seem to be inadequate to overcome the unpredictability and uncertainty that underlie this malady.

Unfortunately, the impact of this pandemic situation is not limited to the health aspect alone. Instead, it endangers the overall livelihood, encompassing economic, educational, social, religious and cultural facets as well. Altogether, these can increase the peril of mental health crises among people. Recurring questions such as “How to protect ourselves from being afflicted by this disease?”, “How do we take care of ourselves or manage everything if we get affected?”, “How long will this pandemic last?”, “What will be the end of this?”, “For how long will I be able to dodge or escape from this disease?”, “What will be my future and of my near and dear ones?”, and so on and so forth, cause tremendous emotional turmoil due to helplessness, insecurity, worry, frustration and stress, especially since there are no definite answers to these queries at present.

While these questions and concerns are very natural, it would be unwise to constantly dwell upon them as they would only lead one to drown in a whirlpool of anger, sorrow, depression, dejection and self-defeat. Rather, a more adaptive approach would be to make a simple but significant shift from being problem focused to solution focused, which serves as a cushion to fall back on while dealing with the taxing emotional clutter, thereby reducing reactivity and bringing about regulation and stability.