Viral Shutdown Psychology

Social psychology, as opposed to individual psychology, factors in what is happening around us in our civilization, society, personal and intimate relationships. A real understanding of what is happening in our individual consciousness needs to be put into context of the total environment, which today is being dramatically affected because of the stay at home coronavirus lockdown. No one is disputing the fact that the coronavirus has turned life upside down

It’s as if we’re witnessing the ghost of normalcy
rather than normalcy itself — it died so fast.
It’s OK you are not feeling OK.

“We’re all in mourning from the death of normalcy. We’re all knocked off balance, like someone just kicked your bike as you were riding it. You ended up in the ditch. We’re all in the ditch with you. It’s okay to just sit here in the ditch for a while and say, “F–k.”

There is so many thoughts running through our collective minds and it is not comfortable, to anyone paying attention, that a whole way of life is dying in front of us. We feel it in our gut. Most are slightly afraid, many are suffering from full on panic.

Rhode Island sent troopers to go
door-to-door Gestapo style to haul
suspected New Yorkers to testing sites.

We might as well look at some of the positives to this experience, things we can be grateful for. Before drowning in the downsides lets see the bright side for at least a minute. Better this virus than a nuclear war though some are saying this is WWIII. We can see the sky clearing over Europe and Chine as air pollution drops 50 percent or more, which will end up saving lives. Some are seeing the sky as never seen before. Many believed we were headed for disaster anyway so the virus violently forces us to see what we have all done wrong. When we admit what we have been doing wrong we can be right and that’s the nice side of being honest with our selves.

There is no right or wrong to what is happening when we look from a spiritual level. It just is, its happening and we have to deal with the changes the best we can. We are only in the first act of this nightmare. Act II coming right up.

“Without the doctors we are all going to die”
The Voice of Hysteria

“Has the world gone mad? It certainly seems that way to some of us. Even the most cynical never imagined the government shutting down the country for fear of a virus, but it has suddenly become the new normal…. Not everyone has got the fever, that is this panic fever, not the one caused by the Chinese coronavirus. Our world is now firmly divided into two camps. There are those fully invested in the great panic over the virus and there are those who look at the other camp, gobsmacked by what appears to be a general madness. Those in panic look at the rest of us the same way preppers look at normal people. They just assume the gods will strike us down for doubting the virus. Of course, the people in the skeptic camp could be the ones suffering from some form of madness that prevents them from seeing the threat.”

Normal Times Its Not

Do most people have the power to live some kind of ideal life in times of stagnation, collapse, and decay? When life doesn’t happen the way we want most people tend to feel depressed or angry or both. Many people are isolating themselves even before the virus kicked in, brooding, feeling miserable and in general going down the tubes. The fact is people have never been sicker and the predictions now are for health conditions to get worse on physical, mental, emotional and spiritual levels.

The situation really does not look good and that is the biggest understatement I could make. What you read below is an outright horror story of human suffering and pain that is occurring, which is now being compounded by the pandemic.   

Looming government insolvency. Ecosystem collapse. Our complete dependence on depleting fossil fuels. Overpopulation. The accelerating wealth gap between the 1% and everyone else. The folly of pursuing exponential growth on a finite planet. These are just some of the issues from the mainstream that are sending millions under the bus. Only a foolish psychologist would try to isolate the individual from these forces. Making things worse is the fact that there are many professionals who think the answer is pharmaceutical drugs.

A Lot of Sick People

It is estimated that each year, 38.2% of the European population suffer from a psychiatric disorder. The economic burden from psychiatric disorders is excessive, not only because of high direct health care costs, but also because of indirect costs like sick days, disability, and early retirement. An estimated 26% of Americans ages 18 and older — about 1 in 4 adults — suffers from a diagnosable mental disorder in a given year. Many people suffer from more than one mental disorder at a given time. In particular, depressive illnesses tend to co-occur with substance abuse and anxiety disorders. In the United States, almost half of adults (46.4 percent) will experience a mental illness during their lifetime. 5 percent of adults (18 or older) experience a mental illness in any one year, equivalent to 43.8 million people.

“Half my team isn’t showing up. They’re scared, or they’re sick. I would assume someone who really needs the pay would probably come even if they’re ill.”

We Are In The Midst Of The Worst Drug Crisis In American History. There has never been a time in our history when more Americans have been on drugs. According to the most recent government numbers, 24.6 million Americans have used an illegal drug within the last 30 days. Of course the number of Americans taking legal drugs is actually far, far higher. According to Bloomberg, 46 percent of all Americans have taken at least one legal pharmaceutical drug within the last 30 days. In most instances, those legal drugs have been prescribed by doctors with the intention of helping people, but sometimes legal drugs are even more addictive than illegal drugs are. In particular, opioids have destroyed countless American lives over the past decade, and in so many cases those that got addicted originally got them legally. 

A study of over 1 million urine drug tests from across the United States shows soaring rates of use of methamphetamines and fentanyl, often used together in potentially lethal ways. The drug test results came primarily from clinics dealing with primary care, pain management or substance abuse disorders. The results showed that between 2013 and 2019, urine samples testing positive for methamphetamine — “meth” — have skyrocketed sixfold, from about 1.4 percent of samples testing positive in 2013 to about 8.4 percent in 2019.

America’s obesity epidemic, especially among women, is getting worse. Almost half of U.S. adults will be considered obese by 2030 — with women, African Americans and people in low-income households most vulnerable, according to new projections published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine. The American Cancer Society found that obesity-related cancers are rising, including a third of liver cancer deaths linked to obesity.

The Human Tragedy of Coronavirus

Americans Are Lonely, Miserable And Depressed – The Legacy Of A Society That Has Rejected Family, Faith And Patriotism. A new survey has found that the average American only needs 3 hours and 54 minutes “before they start to feel sick of their families.” The holidays are supposed to be a time to come together with family and celebrate, but a new survey finds that most Americans can barely get through an evening with their family before needing a break. A total of 2,000 Americans who usually travel to visit family during the holidays took part in the research, and 75% say they will inevitably need to get away from their relatives and indulge in some much needed “me time.”

FirstLink, a local company that answers the 211
helplines and National Suicide Prevention
Hotline, says calls have gone up 300% nationally.

Mortality from deaths of despair far surpasses anything seen in America since the dawn of the 20th century. There has been a dramatic rise among middle-aged non-Hispanic whites since 1999 in “deaths of despair”—deaths by suicide, drug and alcohol poisoning, and alcoholic liver disease and cirrhosis.[1]

Feeling lonely leads to a 29 percent increase in heart disease. It also increases the chance of stroke by 32 percent. When it comes to loneliness its a bigger killer than obesity. Imagine how much it increases one’s vulnerability to the common flu or coronavirus.

“How long can we allow Americans, who are a
freedom-loving people and patriots, to be under
‘lockdown’ in their own homes without working?”
Chuck Norris
Wall Street Journal

The number of Americans seeking treatment for depression and other mental health problems has increased dramatically in the past several decades. Most patients, however, receive only medication, and the percentage of patients receiving psychotherapy instead of medication has declined, largely because patients are being treated in primary care settings where only medication is generally available. Though most patients do prefer psychotherapy to pharmacotherapy. In a very large study of patients with anxiety disorders, Joesch et al. (2012) found that while adding psychotherapy to a medication alone treatment resulted in a small initial cost increase, the cost-benefit equation was positive in the longer term.

Conclusion

“As hospitals continue to handle an influx of coronavirus cases,
patients who need care but are not critically ill are likely to be sent home.
If home care providers can’t stay afloat or decline to offer services, those patients will “face a rapid, immediately life-threatening deterioration” of their health.”

Chris Martenson says it well, “Given the enormity of the challenge, and the fractured, divisive social and political landscape, you really need to plan for nothing happening. That no vision is coming along, no savior will appear, and that we’re going to merrily continue along until we run out of time and resources to do anything more than regret our mistakes. Odds are we’re going to keep heading straight along our current trajectory. Until — clunk! — we go right over the edge.” The virus is putting everything about modern day life over the edge with a ultra-hard kick.

“The future is barreling towards us at a furious pace. And the pace of that change is accelerating. It’s time to freak out a bit. To get serious about protecting ourselves.  To make different decisions and reorganize our priorities.” concludes Martenson.

This is strong meat we are swallowing. There is going to be a lot to deal with and navigate in the immediate months ahead.