Mandatory # Mask #Mental health #Musings
Anything novel, anything enforced , anything connected to a disease will have its mental health implications, doesn’t matter the scale . So yes , the spread of Coronavirus and then the mandatory face masks is one such thing. It’s causing people to experience various forms of anxiety and phobias and even panic attacks in some. Namely, claustrophobia as air passages like the nose and mouth are covered, cloth too close to skin (irritability), Anthropophobia, everyone around us is seeming ominous with their face coverings and those not following the rule of wearing masks are looked upon with disdain .
I’m not sure my write up is supposed to inspire people to wear masks. But maybe it gets them to think in more creative ways than just considering it a requisite inclusion in our lives.
Let’s not be so afraid of 25 cms of this cloth or the various types like N95 (name more fit for a fighter plane) or the layers necessary to make it safe, 1–2–3- n.
I, for one, dreaded it’s use even before I actually adorned it. My assumptions were based on the discomfort reported by others. Of course, in some matters we are all easily influenced.
And then came the day I finally stepped out of my home, put it on and acted all responsible in the name of the pandemic.
That’s when I came up with some plain speak musings about wearing the mask.
- It covers the one face feature I was always complexed about . My nose. I’ve considered it a bit too long and ill shaped. So, now that that’s been taken care of by being covered up, I can compete, in the sense of looks with all those sharp nosed people I envied all along.
- My closet ambition was to become a surgeon. Mostly because I wanted to fix people literally and all through my growing years I imagined myself in scrubs and a mask, walking up and down the aisle of a hospital. Well, here I am, with at least one attribute of the surgeon look.
- Somedays when I wear a mask matching to my outfit (cast out from the same print as the outfit), I feel like a character from Arabian nights. I never thought I could get that look and flaunt it publicly.
- I, part, suffer from social anxiety, so making small talk in random places with acquaintances has never come easily to me. So with everyone’s faces covered in masks, I try and get away by not acknowledging some people and in my head I use the excuse that I didn’t really recognise them.
- I’ve always enjoyed wearing accessories, makes me feel spiffed up. Scarves tied up in different styles in the winter. Pearl strings in summer. Coordinating a mask with my dress is an added excitement to my primp.
- I see a lot of young entrepreneurs doing brisk business with mask making. That’s a good sign of economic activity. Materials are being purchased and people are getting tailoring and marketing jobs.
- For anyone who complained about other’s bad breath , well , you may now be at peace and realign yourself to some positive qualities in that person.
- With the changing season, many people including me suffer allergies from pollen, harvesting air and the morning/ evening dip in temperature. Wearing a mask is actually working and keeping me protected from these.
- The mask, by default accentuates the one feature that speaks for itself, the eyes. It’s so much easier to communicate with people by just looking into their eyes. Eyes in my opinion are eloquent, captivating and convey emotions.
Picking a quote of Charlotte Bronte, an English novelist and poet.
“The soul, fortunately, has an interpreter-often an unconscious but still a faithful interpreter-in the eye.”
I have found my safe haven in the mask, hope others do too.
So, hey, try and come up with whimsical ways to deal with this observance, makes pandemic life easier and safer.
Let’s mask up I say !
