It is not easy to be among “those who are suspended”, as Virgil defined limbo in the second canto of Dante’s Inferno. Today he lives thatuncertainty who is forced to spend hours, but increasingly days, waiting to swab or to know the result to find out if he has been infected with Sars-Cov-2; or who has been infected and no longer has symptoms but continues to test positive on the molecular test (it is estimated that it can happen to one in five); or even those who wait for the terms of the quarantine or fiduciary isolation. Suspended lives that are not a walk in the park because, as the experts of the Italian Society of Psychiatry explain, a “limbo” anxiety is spreading that is no longer the generalized one of the first part of the emergency, in which the unknown was faced and a collective shock: now theanxiety it is specific, from “suspension of time”, and increases mental illness by promoting difficulty in concentration, a sense of disorientation, sleep disturbances.
Anticipatory anxiety
“When you have an illness, the waiting phases, for example the examination to be done, the report, the therapy, cause anticipatory anxiety,” explains Massimo Di Giannantonio, SIP president and professor of psychiatry at the University of Chieti-Pescara. “In the case of Covid-19 we are faced with a viral infection that arouses concern and anguish because it does not have a specific treatment and for all the media hype it arouses: the suspension of time is perceived by those who wait for the” judgment “of the tampon, to take the test or the end of quarantine as an altered and dilated, apparently infinite wait, which can be lived in different ways depending on the personality. Some passively undergo it and the waiting then becomes a sort of alibi for a renouncing attitude, which however multiplies the problems; others are impatient, react aggressively or even violently; still others try not to take into account the limitations by paying the consequences, even legal ones ». In those who already have symptoms of depression or anxiety, unfortunately more and more widespread given that it is estimated that they can affect one in three people following the pandemic, the effect of staying in limbo is even worse as explained by Enrico Zanalda, co-president of SIP and director of the Mental Health Department of Asl Torino 3: “The intensity of anxiety can grow to the point of inducing the” despair of Cassandra “, of the catastrophic prophecy: we are convinced of being condemned and the rumination of negative fantasies can even lead, in extreme cases, to desperate behavior. L’anticipatory anxiety it can concern 5 percent of those waiting for a report, in the case of Covid we fear it will be much more frequent. After the lockdown we have recorded an increase in the diagnoses of post-traumatic stress disorder, now we have to learn to manage mental well-being in a phase that forces us to expect numerous expectations, including the future vaccine; the best antidote is to feel committed to a collective project, such as personal protection and the protection of others, through rigorous compliance with health standards that allows us to look to the future ».
Anger and social malaise
In addition to limbo anxiety, this new phase of the Covid-19 pandemic is bringing to light another discomfort, the encirclement syndrome: infections and restrictions are increasing, but the emotional attitude of many is no longer that of last spring , when solidarity prevailed. We feel surrounded by the virus and by the measures to contain it, by the numbers of the pandemic and the fear that hospitals will become saturated and also for this reason, as the co-president Sip Enrico Zanalda observes, “Today we are less willing to tolerate incompetence and incapacity management; furthermore there is an element of further uncertainty, because it is not known what the future will be, how long and how the restrictions will continue. If there were certain times and methods, we would be willing to accept them better. The first experience of lockdown from the point of view of social cohesion was positive, it was tolerated, but it was thought to be over ”, observes the psychiatrist. “The second wave was expected and it angers many that apparently nothing has been done to prevent the infections from resuming and accelerating.” The malaise is growing and, according to Zanalda, those who could experience anxiety, episodes of anger or mental distress are above all “Those who do not have a steady job and are under forty years old: these people, if they do not have a minimum of exposed to a dangerous exasperation. Young people are equally at risk, more affected by the restrictions but less by the disease: it is difficult for them to give up social life, malaise is more likely ».
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