The mental cost of the lockdown

On Sunday the 15th of March, I woke up at around 8.30 in the morning. This, in itself, was nothing special, but it turned out that it would be a day I will remember for the rest of my life. I got out of bed, did a round on my exercise bike, took a shower and, at around 11.40, went on my way to the pub. I was heading for The BrewDock, my favorite bar in Dublin, aiming to arrive at 12 sharp to make sure I could claim my stool at the end of the bar.
I arrived exactly at noon, but found the door closed. This was nothing to worry about, as they often open a few minutes late on days that Michael, the manager, is off. I fiddled around with my phone for a few minutes, but at 10 past 12 there was still no sign of life. I walked to the back door to see if I could find someone there, but all the curtains were still down. I texted Michael to ask what was going on and he informed me that  they had been instructed by head office in Galway to close down for the time being, due to the Corona virus spread. 

This sucked. I wanted to have a beer and chat with my friends, but with the pub closed, this looked unlikely. Suddenly, I remembered a Twitter feed I had vaguely seen the night before. It was about the pubs that were closed as a result of the virus and was updated regularly by the poster. I fired up Twitter and soon found the message that I had been afraid of: All Galway Bay Brewery bars were closed. This meant that my second favorite pub, The Black Sheep, was also out of commisssion, What now? 

I decided to walk to BrewDog, knowing that they would not be closing until they absolutely had to. I got there some 10 minutes later, ordered a beer and had a chat with the manager. He immediately told me it would only be a matter of hours until the government would order all pubs to be shut for the foreseeable future. This sucked even more, I stayed there, drinking my beers, until, at the end of the afternoon, the inevitable message came across: all pubs to be shut with immediate effect. On my way home, I picked up a bottle of whiskey, drank half of it when I got home, and on Monday woke up to the harsh reality of March 2020. 

No St. Patrick’s Day. No pubs. No fun for now.

I went to work in a frail state of mind. There had been talk of sending us all home, and, at the time, I was fine with that, Halfway through the afternoon, we received word that we were all to go home and work from there from Tuesday onwards. I said goodbye to my colleagues, put my laptop in my backpack and left the office for the last time for the next few weeks. 

Or so I thought.

The next day, I woke up at my usual 5AM alarm, took a shower, and set up my home office in the kitchen. No connection. I contacted my supervisor, who informed me that it might take a few days for our remote access credentials to be activated. Alright, so I had the day off. But what to do? When you’re working, you often wish that you had a few days off so that you can have some fun. But now, there was no fun to be had, No pubs, no cinema, no shopping, no restaurants. 

What to do?

What followed were the most difficult 3 months of my life. I have always been a very social and extrovert person, but I didn’t realize what that really meant until now. I need people around me to function, and without those people, I break down. I tried to make do for the first 6 weeks, sitting in my kitchen all the time, but after that, I just had to get out. 

Taking long walks every day helped a bit, but didn’t entirely solve the problem. In the past 3 months, I have hit a brick wall. I had 2 mental break downs in the past 3 weeks, where I could no longer function at all. I have seen the darkest side of myself and if it hadn’t been for my fantastic flatmate Ana and my friends at the BrewDog bar here in Dublin, where I could socialize a few times a week while picking up my beer orders, I would probably have jumped off the roof. It sounds strange, coming from someone who has traveled the entire world on his own, but I need people around me. I need interpersonal contact to function. The importance of interpersonal relationships does not become obvious until they are gone.

The lockdown ends next Monday, and I am counting the hours. It’s not just being able to go back to the pub, though that is important for me. It’s life going back to normal. Having people around again.
And that, I guess, is the most important thing of all: without others, you are nothing.