At this point, I think all of us can agree that 2020 has been one of the most painfully stressful years in recent memory. This has been mainly due to COVID-19 and its after effects. Not just the virus—though that can certainly be devastating in many cases. No, the distress COVID is causing in our personal and social lives around the globe is almost as bad as the illness itself. In fact, some are calling this widespread distress “COVID Stress Syndrome.”
Five main types of distress related to COVID have been found: fear about catching COVID, stress over the potential financial and economic consequences related to the illness and shutdowns, xenophobia and fear that outsiders are purposefully spreading COVID, traumatic stress from being exposed to COVID (either directly or through nightmares, news articles, etc), and compulsive behaviors related to the sickness (washing hands, checking temperature, etc) (Taylor et al., 2020). Although it has been found that you don’t have to already have pre-existing mental health issues to be susceptible to COVID Stress Syndrome, you are likely to be more susceptible if you do. Although more studies have to be done, preliminary results suggest that those who were previously diagnosed with an anxiety disorder before 2020 tend to be more vulnerable and less able to cope with “CSS” than those with only mood disorders or no previously existing mental health issues (Asmundson et al., 2020).
As many know, PTSD already exists as its own diagnosis. It was first formally recognized as a disorder in 1980, after decades of near-constant war, violence, and disasters afflicted people across the world and psychologists strove to help them. However, while PTSD can certainly be a shared experience, it’s usually not a global experience, and the focus is mainly on the individual’s trauma. The shared global crisis of COVID has shown us that we still don’t understand mass trauma as well as we’d like to. Most people’s stress and fear are also about the future, rather than focused on the past as is typically the case with PTSD. Combined with the fact that COVID is an illness that affects the body (many survivors have permanent scarring in their lungs and hearts), we’re looking at a large and truly unprecedented new form of trauma (Horesh & Brown, 2020).
When we look back on this time in years to come, I don’t think it will be for the most pleasant of reasons. So many stressful events have happened this year in large part due to COVID that it’s already hard to keep track of all of them—and the year isn’t even over yet! However, I do hope that it’s a turning point in the field of psychology. If we’re able to take the shared experience of 2020, learn from it, and apply what we learn to benefit the mental and physical health of all of all of society, I believe we can better prepare ourselves for any future events that may be similar to the shared stress of COVID—like the impending effects of climate change. But that’s a topic for a different time.
References:
Asmundson, G. J., Paluszek, M. M., Landry, C. A., Rachor, G. S., McKay, D., & Taylor, S. (2020). Do pre-existing anxiety-related and mood disorders differentially impact COVID-19 stress responses and coping?. Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 74, 102271.
Horesh, D., & Brown, A. D. (2020). Traumatic stress in the age of COVID-19: A call to close critical gaps and adapt to new realities. Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy, 12(4), 331.
Taylor, S., Landry, C. A., Paluszek, M. M., Fergus, T. A., McKay, D., & Asmundson, G. J. (2020). COVID stress syndrome: Concept, structure, and correlates. Depression and anxiety, 37(8), 706-714.