When lockdown first started last year, I decided to create some goals for myself during this time. They were:

1. Learn to Hula Hoop
2. Take up running again
3. Wear matching pretty underwear every day

I met these goals with varying degrees of success: the hula hoop and I are mutually incompatible, my undie collection has been overhauled although I sometimes yearn for a pair of large comfy pants, and I have developed a love-hate relationship with running. So, some success.

I also had some looser plans about how I was going to manage the restrictions imposed by lockdown, particularly the social restrictions. I have always considered myself to be a relatively social person and I thought I would struggle with the isolation. I expected that I would keep in contact with friends by regularly texting and messaging them, and that I’d be utilising my newfound proficiency with Zoom to regularly ‘meet’ with people.

It turns out that I did few of these things. I am, it seems, actually a rather antisocial person who likes to be in her own bubble and to be left alone. I miss the hugs, but I actually seem to quite like having the space and time by myself and with my little family, and not having to bother with anyone else. Shock, horror, I am an antisocial grump. Who knew?

I have slowly adapted to this newfound antisocial status. I haven’t changed my earrings in months. My use of make up can be hit and miss. I haven’t worn anything other than activewear or tracksuit bottoms for longer than I care to remember. I am enjoying the freedom of putting my pyjamas on at 7pm when I am getting the children ready for bed. All very normal I think, lots of people I know are in their jammies until midday so this is nothing surprising.  But the surprise for me is that I am enjoying this simple life.

However, there will be a return to normal at some point. And whilst I am looking forward to it, part of me is apprehensive and not yet ready to return to the social interactions of the real world.  The idea of having to go out of an evening – shudder! Going out at a time when I have become accustomed to putting on my pyjamas feels unnatural.  And actually seeing people, even people that I like, fills me with a sense of unease. Not because I don’t want to see them, but the immediacy of it feels a little overwhelming.  It turns out that as the world has shrunk in, gradually so have I. I am happy with my little routine; pottering around the garden, cooking, cleaning, looking after the kids, exercising and working. I don’t feel I need to add anything to it. Friends? Pah! Socialising? Pah! It’s amazing how quickly we can adapt to a new way of life and that deviating from this new path now feels uncomfortable.        

I saw the same process happening with my seven-year-old daughter. She went from missing her friends terribly, regularly facetiming them and watching tv with them – with the phone propped up on a little chair next to her so they could watch the same program – to gradually having less contact and then becoming apprehensive about seeing them again. Her best friend would pop by occasionally for a doorstep chat and as time went by my daughter became increasingly shy with her friends. However she also bounced right back when schools returned this week and she now feels as though she has never left.

This raises the wider issue of how lockdown has impacted the nation’s mental health; the horrible tension between the necessity of preserving physical health and negatively impacting mental health. I see in my clinical work how much individuals are struggling with the effects of isolation and the narrowing of repertoire of activities and social contact in addition to their pre-existing difficulties.  For those of us with good support and robust emotional health, the lockdown has presented challenges, but for those without these protective factors the impact has been catastrophic. It shows how much we need social contact, how much we need freedom and activities into which to put our energy.  How the restrictions of these liberties can impact our mental and physical health, change how we see the world and our place within it. These have been unprecedented and interesting times, it remains to be seen how the long term impact of this will play out.

But for myself, I need to focus on spreading my wings a little, letting go of the comfort and predictability that lockdown has enforced, and to try and imagine a world outside my comfortable bubble. I know that as soon as I see my friends and family, and maybe go out to dinner – and have long overdue hugs –  it will feel as though no time has passed and I will wonder how I ever managed without this freedom and sociability.

Until then I may get a little practice in – put on my jeans, change my earrings, reacquaint myself with my mascara. Life after lockdown – it may be one small step for this one woman, but it is a giant leap for mankind.