Corona - Depression, anxiety, stress and anger
Since 2020, we have been living in extraordinarily challenging times. We have experienced a significant change in our professional and private everyday life since the beginning of the Corona crisis, this causes insecurities, fears and also anger in many people. The number of people with mental health problems such as depression and anxiety has risen dramatically.
Due to the Corona crisis, many people are experiencing trauma at the moment for a variety of reasons.
Anxiety and depression increase in the Corona crisis
The Corona crisis evokes fears and emotions of various kinds in many people. Many people are afraid of contracting the Corona virus and fall into a spiral of anxiety and isolation, while for others the Corona measures have a psychological and physical impact.
For people who were already struggling with depression and anxiety before the Corona crisis, the symptoms have worsened. Group services and support services that affected people have used have fallen away due to the restrictions.
Depression and anxiety - even previously mentally healthy people can be affected in the corona crisis
Other people who have never had to deal with depression or anxiety are driven into isolation by home office and e-learning. We are social beings and depend on surrounding ourselves with other people. We are forbidden physical contact. We are kept at a distance. Masks make non-verbal communication impossible. Small children need the facial expression of their parents to receive feedback, with a mask an impossibility.
If all this falls away, it can have serious consequences for the psyche.
Common feelings associated with the fear of contracting Corona
- Fear of dying
- Fear of death
- Fear to suffer
- Fear of becoming infected with Corona
- Existential anxiety
- Panic
- Fear of loneliness
- Fear of isolation
- Fear of the future
- Fear of losing relatives
- Fear of other people
- Stress
- Uncertainty
- Insecurity
- Fainting
- Resignation
- Aggression
- Excessive demand
- Despair
- Feeling of loss of control
On the other hand, the Corona measures also have a drastic effect on people's psyche.
Effects due to the Corona measures
- Parents die lonely and isolated in old people's homes
- Relatives cannot say goodbye to dying people
- Contact bans
- Births with mask
- Births without the father of the child
- Refusal of treatment without mask
- Bans on visiting relatives in nursing homes and hospitals
- Loneliness through social distancing
- Quarantine
- Postponed operations
- Home office and the associated isolation
Common emotions related to the Corona Crisis measures
- Fear of losing one's job
- Existential fear through lockdown
- Fear of starvation
- Despair
- Fainting
- Helplessness
- Hopelessness
- Anger
- Trouble
- Fear of punishment
- Fear of social exclusion
- Fear of compulsory vaccination
- Lack of perspective
- Fear of the future
- Fear of encroachment by the state
The Corona Crisis Triggers Old Childhood Fears - Retraumatisation
The Corona crisis triggers old fears and other deep emotions in many people. The current events do not cause the emotions and feelings, but rather unprocessed early childhood experiences and traumatisation such as fear of death, fear of loss, fear of existence, powerlessness, hopelessness, helplessness, which were unconsciously stored in us, are reawakened by the current situation. Currently, retraumatisation is happening worldwide.
Are you suffering the consequences of the Corona crisis?
Many people have been brought to the edge of what is emotionally bearable in this extreme situation. Deep fears or anger are hidden under the surface. In my Emotional Release sessions you go to the source of these deep emotions, they are old emotions that have been stored in you for a long time.
Why we suppress feelings - a survival strategy
Most people suppress their feelings because they have not learned otherwise. We were conditioned as children to suppress feelings. We have even become very good at suppressing feelings. Most people have become so good at it that they no longer notice that they are suppressing their feelings. Superficial feelings we sometimes still allow, but the deep feelings we suppress because we are too afraid of feeling those emotions.
By suppressing the feelings, we try to keep control. However, the fear and other feelings do not go away by suppressing them. Feelings that are not felt in a healthy way are stored in the body.
Splitting off the traumatic experience
When people have had a traumatic experience and no helpful coping strategies are available, we compartmentalise the traumatic experience. You can think of this as putting the traumatic experience in a box and hiding it in a dark corner. On the outside, we behave as if nothing has happened. However, the contents of the box are still there and fermenting away.
Under aggression, for example, there is often fear or other feelings that we repress. Fear that should not be felt, fear that is suppressed. Aggressive behaviour suppresses fear, feelings of powerlessness, helplessness, being at the mercy of others or other deep feelings.
The stronger the feelings, for example fear, become, the more we try to suppress them because this is the only coping strategy available to us. We have not learned otherwise.
What happens when we suppress feelings and split off traumas?
- We lose the connection to ourselves
- Suppressing feelings costs an enormous amount of energy, we feel exhausted
- We feel joyless, since we cannot selectively suppress feelings, all feelings are suppressed
- Depressed mood
- We are on autopilot
- We develop avoidance strategies to suppress the emotions (eating, smoking, alcohol, Netflix, excessive activities, etc.)
- We are easily triggered by others
- And much more
If we are permanently in a state of anxiety, this leads to increased release of cortisol, our stress hormone, chronic stress is the result. Increased cortisol weakens the immune system, we become moody, irritable, depressed, it is difficult to concentrate and focus, to make decisions and much more.
Corona anxiety and corona depression - how to get out of it?
When the early childhood fears and other deep emotions that are locked inside us are worked through, the current situation, whatever it is, can be dealt with more easily because the Corona crisis has triggered the early childhood unprocessed traumas and emotional hurts and old fears.
How I can support you through the Corona Crisis with Journey® Therapy and Emotional Release Therapy for Anxiety and Depression.
Emotions are - soberly considered - energy in motion, e-motion. Body sensations that travel through our body, nothing more.
What makes the emotion feel painful to us is the story we have connected to the emotion. The connection we have created between emotion and story is the problem.
With the Journey® processes I guide, you learn to separate the story from the emotion and feel the emotion again for what it is: a body sensation rushing through our body in minutes. No more and no less.
Stefanie Heinlein
I am an expert on narcissism, healing practitioner & mentor. My mission: emotional release & working with the subconscious mind. I supported people to free themselves from the shackles of their emotional hurts and traumas, and related repressed emotions and patterns, regardless of the cause. My particular area of heart and specialization is supporting women in releasing their narcissistic trauma so that they can once again live a self-determined life with self-love, self-worth and self-confidence.
