During confinement, the most common consultations that mental health professionals had were focused on anxiety, grief management and relationship problems, according to different psychology services. Now, when the strictest phase of the quarantine has already passed, citizens face other situations that generate emotional conflicts. One of them is the difficulty to resume social ties. It’s not just that they don’t feel like leaving the house, but it’s hard for them to feel close to their friends or partners again. “What is being seen is that there are people who have been alone and it will be difficult for them to socialize again,” explains Ovidio Peñalver, psychologist and author of the book Collective emotions. “They have become accustomed to keeping their relationships exclusively online because they had no other choice. Let’s say that what has changed in many people is the way they continue to nurture their relationships, not their ability to maintain them.”
With the opening of the phases, many citizens have begun to meet again with family, partners and friends and it is common for those who do not feel that need to feel guilty. But the experts consulted assure that it is an adaptive and learning process. “Many people have realized that they want to change things in the life they had and they don’t want to maintain dynamics that make them go back to what they were before,” explains Elisa Sánchez, a labor psychologist.
“There are people who have told me that they have now become aware of what they want to do with their time. They have even reconsidered if a relationship is good for them or if they should distance themselves.” As a consequence, Sánchez ventures that there will also be people who leave their partners or abandon certain interpersonal relationships because they are not pleasant in their lives.
Those who have spent the quarantine alone, having no contact with family or friends at home, have changed their habits without taking into account the rest of society and are now forced to go through a reverse process that forces them to rejoin . “We have created routines that give us individual well-being, we have learned to be alone and some have even reduced emotional dependence on other people,” explains Sánchez.
Forced loneliness has meant that those who live alone have had to create hobbies and routines for oneself in order to survive and protect themselves from everything that was happening during quarantine. They were no longer able to meet others and socialize, so they have found other things that are rewarding and that they can do on their own. “Now they have to stop taking time for themselves and at the moment it is not compensating them.” Sánchez refers to the fact that the cost of leaving is now higher than before. “The mask, queuing for the terraces… if it causes you a lot of inconvenience, it’s not worth it. But I don’t think it’s bad or negative, it’s an adaptive and natural process.”
Laziness is added to this equation: living day to day with implanted routines to one’s own liking, it is easy for having to adapt to others to generate reluctance. “It is common for someone who has spent so much time alone to become lazy. Now, hanging out with others involves tidying up and dressing, getting organized, meeting schedules… There are people who are now lazier, but from psychology we assume that they will end up readapting to their old habits,” adds Peñalver. Older people have it more complicated. They have also had it during confinement, having more difficulties accessing and using technology. Now, in addition, the fear of contagion is added when it comes to socializing. A fear that, according to Peñalver, will last for a few months.