My daughter has always loved science. When she was still a young student her science teachers would universally praise her abilities to deeply understand scientific theories. Eventually she herself became an environmental consultant and a science teacher. After moving to the midwestern United States she earned a nursing degree and worked in one of the largest hospitals in Chicago with the sickest patients in the city. Eventually she and her family returned to Texas where she devoted her time to raising three brilliant children while sometimes substituting for school nurses and middle school science teachers.
At one point in time she seemed to be researching the possibility of a world wide pandemic. She recommended different books to me that told the story of the Spanish Flu pandemic that killed tens of millions of people throughout the world in 1918. Then she showed me a box that she kept in one of her closets that was filled with items that she might need in the event that another such pandemic might arise. She was fairly certain that sooner or later we would all witness such a thing and she wanted me to be as vigilant and prepared as she was.
While I did not actually think that I would live to see such a thing I had become more aware of the signs of trouble than I might otherwise have been without her tutelage. When the first winds of Covid began causing disturbing deaths I began to prepare just in case it became the one that would rival other pandemics of the past. Fortunately I was ready with every possible supply and my husband and I weathered the horrific time without incident and mostly with optimism.
Sadly we nonetheless witnessed the deaths of so many people, including some that we personally knew. It became a dark time for the world and in the process left not only physical damage but psychological destruction as well. Of late I have noticed a kind of worldwide pandemic of hopelessness that has infected individuals and nations with anxieties, deep depression and sometimes even wars. Many of the emotional after effects of the pandemic are only now coming to light.
The first tangible sign that I saw of this came with the suicide of a wonderful man who had been a mentor to one of my grandsons. His business involved personal training of runners and during the height of the pandemic he lost most of his former customers. So too did his athletic store sit mostly dormant, thus sending him into financial ruin. I suppose that he was so overwhelmed that he saw death as his only way out.
There have been many reports of depression particularly among teens who were students during the time of the epidemic. They lost graduation ceremonies and often spent months attempting to learn remotely. Freshmen students never got the opportunity to meet new classmates. Seniors had no proms, no football games. it was a tough time during their formative years and some of those young people never quite healed.
Isolation can be as much of a killer as a deadly virus. I understand how that works because we were quite cautious during the height of the pandemic, staying mostly at home because my husband has heart disease and because we were caring for my father-in-law and his wife who were both in their nineties and afflicted with heart problems and cancer. We made the best of our situation but missed our usually busy social schedules. We even somehow lost friendships during that time and are only now beginning to resurrect those relationships.
I have watched so many people struggling to return to a state of normalcy that I have not been totally surprised by the lone wolf killers whose minds went to dark murderous places when they became cut off from family and friends. it’s hard to know which comes first, the depression or the tendency to pull farther and farther away from other people. A common thread with murderous individuals seems to be that they all have tendencies to brood alone over situations that bother them and then act out on their need to do something to right their perceived wrongs. Theirs is a sickness that infects minds and ends with them spreading poison, hate and death to other innocents.
I can’t say that I have a solution to the pandemic of hopelessness but I do believe that we have to be just as vigilant to the possibility of the spread of mental sickness as were are to the spread of a virus. While there is no vaccine for such a thing we should be observant and willing to reach out to anyone who seems to be going inward. It is wrong to just walk away from individuals who are obviously suffering and whose minds are infected. We would do well to stay in touch with them and not ignore signs that we will recall later when they have harmed themselves or others. We must be as alert to the signals as a doctor would be to symptoms of a disease.
Take a bit of time to consider someone you know who is homebound, chronically ill, sitting mostly alone in a darkened room. See what you might do to help them return to a healthier state of mind. You may be just what the doctor ordered in preventing harm.
All It Takes Is A Little Love 