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The coronavirus pandemic has caused some major changes to the world, including how we interact with others, how we shop, what we do with our spare time and even how much toilet paper we use. Coupled with fears of dying or losing loved ones and the pandemic’s financial ramifications, the current state of affairs can prompt a lot of varying emotions in people, mental health experts say. “There’s no wrong way to feel,” says Dr. Jack Rozel, a psychiatrist at Pittsburgh’s UPMC Western Psychiatric Hospital. “There are going to be a lot of different people feeling a lot of different things. The way people feel is going to shift over days and it’s going to shift over the weeks that we’re going through this.” Realizing there’s light at the end of the tunnel is key in getting through an emotionally difficult time, says Rinad Beidas, a psychiatry professor at the University of Pennsylvania. “This is a finite period of time and it may be a long period of time, but this will end and we will get through this,” she says. “I don’t think the pandemic will fundamentally change who we are as people. It’s just going to teach us some new lessons about ourselves in difficult times.”
What element of the coronavirus pandemic has weighed most heavily on your mind?
