Surviving Isolation When Isolation Is the Only Option
hello everyone thank you so much for
having me tonight
i’m really excited to share about a
topic that many of you might be a little
bit aware of if you’ve been around for
the past seven months
um i don’t know if you’ve heard of the
word coronavirus or covid19
but it’s very relevant and something
that has obviously impacted a lot of us
so when we think about this word of
isolation um
we’ve been learning a lot and how it’s
impacting our mental health
so we’ve learned how to live differently
how to love differently
maybe how to learn and experience our
world in a different and new way
if you would have told me 365 days ago
that
i would be working from home with my dog
sitting on my feet that i would be
hiring staff members without ever met
meeting them in person
if i would be living two miles down the
road for my grandparents but not being
able to give them a hug
i would have looked at you like you were
a little bit crazy
now when we talk about this this idea of
mental health
and isolation it’s something that’s very
relevant for us and something that most
people are probably very aware of if you
haven’t been impacted by this mental
health
crisis you’ve probably known someone
that has
so when we think about this mental
health component
and its effect on our mental health i
want to go over some some brief
statistics for you
we don’t know a lot about the long-term
impacts of what coven 19 has done to our
mental health
but we do have some research that’s come
out for multiple
multiple different studies and
universities talking about different
ways and unique ways of leveraging
social media
and being able to use technology to
build that connection with one another
we have studies that have come to show
uh
levels as much as 50 for anxiety and
depression
and those suffering from ptsd symptoms
across multi many different
industrialized countries
and being a mental health therapist i
typically work with children and
adolescents that’s usually where where i
thrive
but this is something that’s been new
for me is we don’t typically think of
children and adolescents dealing with
isolation because they’re typically with
a grown-up they’re with an adult and
someone that they care about
and so this has typically been something
that we have focused on with our older
adult population and those who may be
suffering from
an addiction but we do know the
importance of as a social worker one of
our core values is the importance
of human connection and the importance
of
human relationships so when we think
about that
obviously we have to look at things new
and differently
and going off of this ted talk um being
creative and unique
and finding ways to connect with one
another
so i want you to think about your life
here for a second do a little bit of
introspection
i want you to think about a time when
you felt this word before this word of
isolation
maybe it’s been without within the past
seven months of dealing with covid
maybe it is when you had a spouse leave
you
maybe it is a time that you lost a loved
one
or you moved to a new city or you’re the
only person in your community that
thinks a certain way
i want you to think about what those
thoughts and emotions and feelings have
been
and i want you to hold on to those
but before we get started with some of
the tips and tricks that i hope you guys
can take home from today i
as any millennial would do when i was
trying to research and find some ways
of conceptualizing this idea of
isolation when isolation is our only
option
i went to social media and i pulled up
some different um
if you could go to the next slide please
some different things that maybe
people have run into so these are
responses that some of my friends and
family gave
to me and i think some of them are all
very relevant to some of you as well
so thinking about having lack of
inaccurate information
missing physical touch being distance
from people having
not being able to meet a new family
member a new baby in the family
fatigue from worrying about other people
all of these things i think we can
probably
make the list go on and on for things
that we’ve we’ve been dealing with
and i think it’s very interesting as we
think of this concept of isolation
and if you go to the next slide that i
need to differentiate when we’re talking
about this
is the fact that isolation is very
subjective
and when we talk about isolation isolate
isolation does not mean that you feel
alone because sometimes we can be alone
with ourselves
and be okay with that and we might need
to do that
but this idea that isolation is being
subjective is i could walk into a room
with 25 people and feel that i don’t
belong there or i don’t fit in where i
could have a friend go with me and feel
like they are having the best day of
their life
and so when we think about this concept
of isolation we want to think about how
that is subjective and the ways that it
impacts our world
so i don’t really just want to talk
about the issue as a therapist i always
like to help solve problems for people
obviously we listen but we also like to
solve problems
so with this i want to go to the next
slide and think about this concept of
what do i do
so when i’m working with a lot of my
students i frequently have them draw two
circles on a piece of paper
the first one being a smaller circle the
second one being a larger circle
and when we talk about that we i i
consider it different circles of control
the one in the middle are the things
that we can control in our life
and the one on the outside are the
things that we cannot control obviously
with a worldwide pandemic as individuals
there’s not a lot that we can do to
control the fact that covet 19 is
spreading
but as individuals we can focus in on
that that
area and that circle of control so
that’s what i’m hoping that we can do
during our time here this evening to be
able to focus on what are things that we
can’t control
and it’s going to be our connection with
others our connection with ourselves and
our connection with our environment
so if you go to the next slide please
our connection to others so what does
this look like
as i said earlier as a social worker
this is the epitome of social work and
mental health and psychology is our
connection with others and how
our mental health is directly impacted
by our connection with other people
so again we’ve had to be creative and
we’ve had to find new ways of connecting
with other people
so it might be a socially distanced
gathering outside where we typically
would
maybe spend some time in a loved one’s
home maybe we are having to have a
drive-by birthday party
maybe we’re having to do video calls now
instead of being able to go over to our
friend’s house and spend time with them
we’ve had to find different and unique
ways of being able to
come up with ways to remain connected
during our time together
so when we think about our connection to
others we need to find those unique ways
of doing that so that might be writing a
letter to someone that you’ve missed it
seems a little antiquated
but it’s something that can really help
to feel that connection be able for you
to
feel connected with yourself as well
sticking to a routine with your family
so if you live with a group of family
members being able to sit with them on a
monday wednesday friday and say hey
we’re going to have to dinner together
and we are going to spend time with one
another
or maybe even trying to find a thing
such as this tedx talk of going to a
drive-in movie or some
sort of new and creative way of
remaining connected with those that we
love
so we’ve talked about a little bit of
our connection with others but we also
need to worry about our connection with
ourselves and this can sometimes feel a
little bit scary
because this is when we have to think
about what’s going on in our in our
world
and really be introspective and think
about that
so when we think about our connection
with ourselves i want you to think about
what emotions are you
feeling what is your body telling you do
you need to rest
are you feeling anxious about a new
situation are you feeling sad that you
aren’t able to see loved ones that you
typically would want to see
typically a lot of us are in overdrive
right now we are able to
conceptualize what this worldwide
pandemic has been like and our brains
are not made to be able to do that
and so a lot of us are are putting
ourselves in overdrive working extra
hours or
finding new things to get to keep our
bodies moving
but being able to focus on your emotions
and your bodily sensations helps with
emotional regulation
and your ability to regulate what
emotions you’re experiencing and
how you can take that and build that
resilience within yourself
if you’re a parent this is the key to
being able to help your children too
to be able to regulate yourself as a
parent and being able to help your child
regulate themselves through this process
as well
sometimes it may take a little bit of
extra not just introspection for
yourself
you may need to get involved with a
therapist i have my own therapist as a
therapist and my therapist has a
therapist
and their therapist has a therapist so
sometimes we need to
reach out to professionals and be able
to ask them questions
and have them listen and to be able to
have them give us tips and tricks and be
able to
build some of that resilience within
ourselves
this third point that i want to make is
our connection to our environment
so when we think about our environment i
want you to think of a space that
makes you feel safe and at home it could
be in your home
it could be a favorite vacation spot it
could be
somewhere that you remember from being a
child
anywhere that you feel comfortable and
safe and when you think about that
i want you to think about the different
sensations that you can experience in
that time
so for example if i’m thinking about
being in my living room i might hear
my dogs chewing on their bones while i’m
binge watching grey’s anatomy because
that’s the best show that’s ever existed
or maybe we can smell dinner cooking in
the uh kitchen or maybe we can
obviously we’re watching grey’s anatomy
maybe we’re feeling
a soft blanket sitting on top of us
being able to feel those sensations
connecting with our environment and
connecting with the space around
us can be very helpful for us to be able
to connect with ourselves and be able to
feel a little bit more resilient and
calm
in that situation when a lot of times we
feel out of control
so i typically like to focus on some
positive things so i went back to social
media and i asked my friends and family
what were some positive things that came
from
dealing with covet 19 and i want you
guys to take a look at this
and see if any of these things resound
with you or if there’s anything that
maybe you might be surprised by
but something that i noticed when i was
looking at these
and i did not plan this so i was
actually very surprised that it happened
was there are examples of our connection
to self
there’s examples of our connection to
others and there’s examples of our
connection to our environment
and when we think about these how we’ve
been able to move through that time
of feeling isolated and how we have
moved forward and built that resilience
so now moving forward what he we are
going to talk about doing what you need
to do
so this can sometimes be very difficult
for people to set a boundary and to be
able to say
during a pandemic that i might not be
able to
work or be the best partner or the best
caregiver that i can be but i need to
focus on myself
so when we’re focusing on ourselves that
might mean saying no to someone
it might mean um you know taking on a
new hobby that
allows you to de-stress and be able to
connect with others or yourself or your
environment in a better way
so i want us to take us back to that
that beginning thought of when i
i asked you to think about a time when
you felt isolated
and think about what got you through
that time of isolation
or maybe you’re currently going through
it right now but i want you to think
about was there something that you had
to do to connect to
other people did you have to talk to a
friend or a therapist or
seek you know professional help from
somebody else
did you need to connect with yourself
and figure out who you were outside of
that relationship
or in who you were in that new city or
um who you were in terms of what your
belief system was
did you need to connect to your
environment in a different way for me i
started a garden when covet 19 started
and i have tomatoes out the wazoo now um
and so being able to
know that that being able to connect
with ourselves and with others and with
our environment and the impacts that
that can have on us
and i want you to remember this last
slide here real quick
is that you are not alone earlier there
was a speaker that said there are 7.8
billion people in the world
no one is immune to going through cope
at 19 right now and this is something
that we’re all struggling with together
and as i was um preparing and trying to
find a way to wrap up this
this talk i found a beautiful poem that
was written
and i wanted to share it with you and it
is called in the time of pandemic and it
was written by kitty o’mara
and the people stayed home and they
listened
and read books and rested and exercised
and made art and played games and
learned new ways of being
and were still and they listened more
deeply
some meditated some prayed some dance
some met their shadows and the people
began to think differently
and the people healed and in the absence
of people
living in ignorant dangerous and
heartless ways the earth began to heal
and when the danger passed and the
people joined together again
they grieved their losses and made new
choices
and dreamed new images and created new
ways to live and heal
the earth fully as they had been healed
thank you
you