Those of us who are lucky enough to be working are probably mostly OK, I guess??
This is disturbing, however:
No, I 100% believe it, and those who are working aren't immune.
I could tell that it was affecting my wife, and only over the last week or two has she recognized that I was right and that it was getting to her a lot more than even she was admitting. She not only is still working, but is still going into an office every day. But it's just wearing on her.
Part of it is the worry or stress of the virus itself, but I think it's more due to the disruption of life. Her best friend who is undergoing chemo for breast cancer and she can't be there to support her in the way she normally would. Even though we don't go out that much we're told we can't, which suddenly makes our normal behavior seem limiting. She can't go to brunch with her girlfriends. She feels unable to even walk the aisles of Target, which for her is stress-relief, and instead is doing buy online / pick up in store. She's going to an office, but is bored out of her mind because without patients coming in her workload is minimal; she mostly just sits there and waits for the phone to ring. There's the lack of F2F interaction with her dad and stepmom, who live only a few miles from us now. We would have had them over for Mother's Day and didn't due to coronavirus. And while it might sound completely trivial, she can't get her nails done.
None of these things, by themselves, would probably affect her. But you add them all up, it just wears her down mentally.
People want their lives back. She works in healthcare. She realizes, logically, how serious this is and why it's important to take all the precautions that we've taken. She knows you just can't magically wish away the virus. But emotionally... She wants her life back.
The idea that somewhere near 50% of the population is reporting mental health issues with this doesn't surprise me at all.
