COVID has sown extreme and sometimes irrational fears and high levels of anxiety in our senior and elderly population. The constant onslaught of NEWS of how the main fatalities of COVID is the aging population is not making any thing easier for them. Most of them as is have certain lifestyle disorders—diabetes, blood pressure, asthma etc.—to deal with and with COVID now invading the world, it is making them very worried, depressed, anxious and sometimes driving them to the extent of wanting to hide from everyone and everything.
Though the mental health professionals are doing their best to counsel them here are a few cases that make it clear that feelings of paranoia, loneliness, depression, anxiety and stress are the reasons for the depleting mental health among the seniors and elderly.
“We are all going to DIE. Go inside. Don’t come out,” Devendra a 72-years-old man was reported screaming from his 3rd floor balcony in Vivek Vihar, East Delhi. Devendra is a classic case of where paranoia takes over the thinking mind and pushes a person to do or act in an irrational manner.
His family members were worried about his extreme anxiety, restlessness and insomnia. They reported him getting up in the middle of the night to sanitize the door handles of his home, shoes, hands etc. Nothing worked to lower his paranoia; rather this anxiety and fear of death worsened thanks to the incessant inflow of NEWS on TV and whatsapp groups. Every picture of hospitals and sick people and pieces of news about COVID-19 death rate made him react irrationally to even normal things such as eating or using the toilet.
Devendra started distancing himself from others worrying that they would infect him and eventually and kill him. He even pressurized his family members to keep away from him. He didn’t even allow any family member to go out of the house with the fear that he/she might get infected, bring infection to home, and he will get infected by the same, and ultimately die.
Savita, a 60-year-old woman who lives with her daughter in Ghaziabad, started following the NEWS on COVID-19 obsessively. She would check world trackers every few hours and tell her daughter dismaying stories of peaking death rate. Savita’s worries flicked her anxiety to a new high and she started taking excessive care of herself in order to not get infected.
Her self-care increased and she thought her environment and clothes need to be cleaned frequently so she started washing clothes repeatedly, bathing more than twice a day and would frequently change bed sheets. She felt that if she didn’t follow this cleanliness routine, she would get infected with COVID and die and no one would even notice. Her daughter mentioned that she had developed depressive symptoms in the form of continued sadness, moodiness, long bouts of sitting alone and thinking, and decreased appetite. She was self-absorbed and poor with her interactions because she was fearful that if she does interact even with the social distancing she’d die.
There are a number of seniors who have started getting panic attacks about dying. Excessive consumption of NEWS, deaths or infection in similar age group people, worries about put into isolation and not be taken care of are some additional dark, dreary thoughts they are carrying with them.
It is essential for them to
- Stop excessive consumption of NEWS. Stay updated but do not obsess.
- Listen to and follow only reliable sources of information.
- Stay away from social media including whatsapp groups.
- Stay connected with friends and family and see them as a support rather than a threat
- Try and lead as normal a life, with precautions and COVID guidelines so that the extra worry does not become a threat to mental peace.
- Accept that they are vulnerable but stay positive and happy, and focus on their immunity rather than dark thoughts of dying
- Seek help if they feel extremely worried, depressed, have suicidal thoughts.