How Coverage of the Coronavirus Pandemic is Affecting Our Mental Health

The Toll of Indirect Trauma And How to Manage It

Photo by Elijah O'Donnell on Unsplash

As COVID-19 rapidly expands across the globe, so does our exposure to details of what it leaves in its wake. A recent study found that during this pandemic, we are all tuning into the news a whole lot more. Turn on the TV, open up your phone, and get sucked into the reports of strict quarantines and death tolls. Inundated continuously with distressing information, it can take us on a roller coaster of emotions. To add fuel to the fire, the Surgeon General recently stated that cases in the U.S. are where Italy was two weeks ago. A sign that things will probably get worse before they get better.

Now it makes sense that we are tuned in, we want to stay informed and learn what we need to do to remain healthy. But seeing stories of doctors having to choose who to save, countries shut down, and images of people suffering every day begin to leave an imprint on us psychologically. And as these constant horrific reports continue, the proximity of this virus gets ever closer, feeding into more intense reporting. This loop, as helpful as it is to prepare us, may be indirectly traumatizing us.

COVID-19 & Trauma

Often when we hear about trauma, it has to do with veterans who come home from warzones and experience Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Those individuals have direct exposure to traumatic events such as witnessing violent or accidental deaths. In contrast, indirect trauma (also known as vicarious trauma) is learning about traumatic events through a second-hand source. Trauma is defined as any event or series of events that leave you feeling helpless, overwhelmed, or fearful of your own life/safety of someone important to you. Regardless of the exposure type, what makes an event traumatic for someone has to do with their subjective interpretation.

Let’s take our situation with COVID-19; it is invisible, you can show no signs of being sick for up to 14 days, and then suddenly have symptoms. There is no cure or vaccine, and we are all vulnerable to a virus that can be fatal. These reports we listen to aren’t just on the screen in front of us; this danger is happening in real-time, everywhere, outside our front door. Research has shown that proximity to a traumatic event plays a role in developing traumatic symptoms. The closer we are to the event, the more likely we are to be impacted by post-traumatic stress symptoms. So now, taking the stream of media reports and the encroachment of COVID-19, it can be easy to understand how we might begin to perceive our world as unsafe.

Our Traumatic Responses

What does being impacted by indirect trauma look like? Our situation can lend to two possible distinct reactions.

The first type of response we could experience is a more anxious reaction that resembles symptoms of post-traumatic stress. It can lead to difficulty sleeping, difficulty concentrating, and obsessive thinking. Media reports and our proximity to the danger can create intense fear and negative thoughts about ourselves and the world.

If you are anything like me, then after watching so many different stories about COVID-19, you might start to feel hyper-vigilant. If someone sneezes or coughs at the grocery store, you might tense up. I get anxious about my exposure and begin to confuse my environmental allergies as symptoms of Coronavirus. Finding myself incredibly sensitive to bodily sensations, the slightest soreness in the throat can lead to a rush of images and stories from the news and, thus, lead to a panic attack.

The other possible reaction to this situation relates to a byproduct of indirect trauma called compassion fatigue. This is when the overwhelming nature of what is going on around us, goes overboard within us. We lose our sense of empathy and feel drained emotionally, mentally, and physically. We may be more cynical about the current state of things and project these new thoughts or feelings onto the people around us.

Both of these possible reactions can be exhausting to our mental health, but we don’t have to be limited to these two types of responses. Maintaining a healthy medium, where we aren’t overly anxious and afraid while also not being too checked out and overwhelmed is possible.

Managing Our Mindset

Due to these uncertain times, we are a lot more susceptible to mental health difficulties. Up to this point, the contextual information shared helps us identify what could be going on with our mental health during this crisis. To help manage our mental wellbeing, here are a few tips that are worth exploring:

1. Manage your screen time: I hope this tip is a bit obvious at this point in the article. After seeing how spending too much time behind the TV can negatively impact mental wellbeing, it’s essential to do what we can to limit our exposure. Don’t mistake this for tuning out completely; proper management might mean spending half an hour a day to get the latest updates on what is going on. After that, find yourself a distraction or switch the channel to something you enjoy. Be honest with yourself and recognize what this exposure limit would look like for you.
2. Take time to breathe: If you feel yourself panicking or incredibly overwhelmed with what is going on, remind yourself to breathe. There are a plethora of mindfulness meditation resources out there that are worth exploring. Certain apps have even announced free guided meditations to help you cope. If you are someone that enjoys going for a walk, a mindfulness activity I enjoy is focusing on my steps. With each step, focus solely on the contact of your foot to the ground; follow your foot as it starts the step, all the way until it leaves the ground, and your next foot starts. Use your footsteps as an anchor to drawback to each time you find yourself distracted during this walking meditation.
3. Radical Acceptance: We all go through troublesome moments and probably now more than ever. Radical acceptance helps overcome these moments by first helping us realize the difference between suffering and pain. Suffering is when we attach our subjective experience onto a painful moment. For example, maybe someone you know and love contracts the virus, it can be painful to hear, and suffering can look like this in your mind: “This can’t be true. This is not fair.” Thoughts like these show how suffering can pull us out of the moment. So the practice of radical acceptance is when you agree with what life has thrown your way. Accepting reality can be difficult. You will still feel upset, but you will prevent those feelings from extending for longer than they need to.
4. Online Counseling: Traumatic stress is not easy to handle, and seeking help is by no means a sign of weakness. Thanks to the internet, counseling services can still be provided during these social distancing times, and just because it’s online does not mean it is any less helpful. If you find yourself struggling, remember, you are a google search away from help.