“In the wake of the lockdown era, it’s overall easy to feel very alone and like a social outcast…”
How to even write a fairly short version of this? Maybe by starting off saying, that here even four years after the world first locked down in response to COVID-19, and two and a half years after everything has supposedly returned to “normal”, that is the absolute last thing I have and likely ever will.
The lockdowns in 2020, got to a point for me where it completely reset and I lost all faith in the world order, and it felt like there was nothing left to save. Put simply, lockdown happened at the worst possible time, when I was short of mere nine months out of high school, ready to enter the essential shaping years of my youth, taking on all the supposed opportunities of the world, wanting to travel especially. All that being taken away left me with a lack of sense of purpose in life, and in December 2020, when Denmark went into its second full lockdown, after nine months of so patiently and naively waiting for a “return to normalcy”, I just couldn’t do that any longer, and it all led to a complete mental collapse and personal reset. I became depressed, got so angry and sad, felt so set aside and lied to, and contemplated and was more or less set on ending myself…
As I had made it out of the darkest dark in the wake of my collapse and as 2021 started, a new start came quite literally with the first day of that year, and so too was I ultimately liberated. Getting into detail about everything that has happened since then can’t be explained without writing a novel if not several. In short, these last three years have been a journey of light, darkness, “rebuilding” whatever that may mean, revelations, self discovery and so much more. For me it was the lockdowns, but whatever serves as the catalyst for one experiencing such a collapse and grief, it makes you completely rethink yourself, makes you more humble, and you learn what really matters in life. Something I’ve also really come to believe in, is there’s really no such thing as “moving on”; all you can do is face your grief, make it a part of you and live with it, and that will make you stronger than you imagine.
Even to this day, there will still be phases where I’m having new revelations or making new realisations. Two things I’m confident about though, all that really matters is friends and family, and all that’s really important to me is surviving, taking things day by day, till that becomes months and that becomes another whole year. Looking more than even just a few months ahead isn’t as easy as it once was, and I’m surprised and grateful I’ve even made it this far. That and not relying on what I’ve come to call the manufactured world, as well as some made up illusive grand plan for the future. Even if I now could continue all those traveling and other plans I had prior to 2020, the want and need for that is just so long gone, and it’s simply something I have no desire for at all.
In the wake of the lockdown era, it’s overall easy to feel very alone and like a social outcast, having a hard time adapting to everything suddenly and supposedly returning to “normal”. Although I sadly, sincerely, and to some extent surprisingly doubt it will happen, I can only hope more will be done to actually remember this dark era, and look back on everything that has happened in the wake of its events, including more focus being shifted towards those of us, who never moved on from the darkness of it, and have had our personalities and mental health completely redefined because of it. That and just spread and accept of this idea, that “normal” is the last thing anything is. A bigger collective approach to it leaning towards this, is one thing I strongly think would make me feel less alone and excluded, and overall make it feel easier being part of this post-lockdown world.
Maybe it will never happen, but I say to myself, maybe it hasn’t happened yet because humanity still isn’t ready to face and look back on this dark era. Something that is still such a fresh wound, none of us ever saw coming or thought possible in a million timelines.
Alright. As said, this is merely the short version of everything that’s happened these last years, with me and my mental health in the wake of the lockdown era, and I could write pages more, but it sums up most of what I feel is most important. I hope these words can make for a sense of peace and relatability for someone, being the words that might be hard to put on something one self.
-Gus, 24, Denmark
