Re-entry into Post-Covid Society
From cells to communities, here are some reintegration projections.
It was February 2020 and I had just received my certification in Mental Health First Aid. Only weeks before the world shut down and we entered a global pandemic, I had no idea how much this certificate came into my life in divine timing. In the first few weeks after the shutdown, I quickly began to consider how our mental health would be impacted. Coming from a family of refugees, who fled war, who lost everything, and who had to re-enter society after serious trauma, I began to think about how our re-entry into the world after the pandemic may mimic the re-entry of war survivors, child soldiers or incarcerated people.
I reflected on how my family had become less trusting of the world, and more faithful in God. I reflected on how they had become catastrophic thinkers, and also incredibly resourceful minimalists. And I considered how suicide rates, divorce rates, and depression rates would be impacted. Years after the pandemic has released its grip on us, I think it’s fair to say we witnessed a bit of it all. In 2020, I interviewed a clinical psychologist, political scientist, and formerly incarcerated person, and gathered their predictions about what we could expect from re-entering society post-pandemic. Three years later, I’m sharing these predictions as a way to normalize what many of us have been feeling and as a reminder that we are all still in recovery.
The Link Between News Headlines and Catastrophic Thinking
“Is this really matching the reality? Is this happening or is this a projection of what could happen?” - Megan E. Spokas
Megan E. Spokas is a Clinical Psychologist at Princeton University. She teaches grad students and she specializes in trauma, suicide, and suicide prevention. I asked her about catastrophic thinking, which is an example of extreme thinking, and how the media affects the ways we interpret things. Megan explained that it’s reasonable for many of us in uncharted territories to have our thoughts take us away to worst case scenarios. This happens when we’re faced with uncertainty, and we are looking to fill in the blanks. Even if we’re not prone to anxiety or depression, many people struggle with how to make sense of a new reality in a way that doesn’t leave us feeling hopeless or helpless. Especially when we’re fed extreme viewpoints via articles and headlines.
How common is it to read a headline and think you get the story? We need to be aware that these headlines are meant to catch our attention, but can easily spiral us into a less helpful place. When you read the whole story, you often learn there is a more balanced perspective. Once we start telling ourselves or others a story, we meld with these stories and start to expect the worst thing to happen next. The more we get wired to do this, it extends to situations that aren’t catastrophic and it becomes habitual. Megan offers that we create routines to protect ourselves by being aware of our thinking patterns and asking ourselves, “is this really matching the reality? Is this happening or is this a projection of what could happen?”
I asked Megan how we can regain control of this unhealthy habit and she recommended engaging with logic when your brain hijacks you to start thinking about the worst-case scenario. She spoke on the importance of practicing mindfulness and meditation. Valuable for our thinking patterns, she explains that if we’re aware of what’s happening here and now, we can be more aware of catastrophic thinking. “Mindfulness is a matter of awareness of the current moment, with the stance of acceptance–a piece that can get lost. If you’re just aware but not willing to experience it or accept it as it is, it’s not helpful.”
The Link Between Social Connectedness and Suicidal Thinking
“The less a person feels socially connected to their world, the more at risk they are.” - Megan E. Spokas
I was interested to know if we could predict spikes in depression, substance abuse, self-injury, and suicide rates. And more importantly, I was eager to learn how people can let go of feeling powerless and cope with “suicide triggers” like layoffs, homelessness, and social isolation. Megan explained that, “the less a person feels socially connected to their world, the more at risk they are.” Risk factors that elevate someone’s risk to suicidal thinking and death by suicide include unemployment, economic strain, financial burden, and social connections. While policy makers increased Telehealth and professional services, suicide prevention isn’t limited to mental health services.
When destabilized, as we were during the pandemic, humans rely on their social connection so heavily that we don’t even realize it. We don’t realize how hard it is to miss small talk over a coffee. One of the main motivators when we are in emotional distress is to take the edge off, and this usually happens with a substance or alcohol. Many people were trying to “make it through” the life-altering pandemic, but it lasted an extended period of time so there was no concept of when it would end. It was more necessary to find strategies to fix the stressors but solutions were murky.
Megan emphasized that, not only is it important for us to check in on friends and family and let them know that they aren’t a burden, we also need to pay attention to if they have access to firearms. You may know or be living with someone at risk and limiting access to firearms is vital when someone is in crisis. Though many “people argue that guns make them safer, people who live in a house with firearms are more likely to experience violence,” she explains. Did you know that multiple states have passed legislation that when a person is in a mental health crisis and has access to a firearm, that firearm can be removed? People can argue that you can always have access to something but firearms are the most deadly method–there’s no coming back from that impulsiveness.
The Link Between Mental Health and Economy
I also interviewed Aviva Klein, a political scientist whose background was in counterterrorism and had spent years working for the FBI. She had also worked with child soldiers in Uganda, as they re-entered society, and had interviewed 30 of them about what life was like to reintegrate. She found that the overlap between their reentry process was similar to those who defected from Al-Qaeda. Aviva continued on interviewing ex-militia from Sri Lanka, Indonesia, and Columbia to see how they fared in mainstream society. She found that they outperformed others because “they were so dedicated to a second chance at life.”
Though different countries had different approaches, we could probably take a bit from all re-entry methods. For example in Columbia, they look at re-entry holistically and effortfully address mental health issues. That’s because mental health and the economy are deeply linked, which makes sense–our self-worth allows us to channel our productivity. When a mental state of victimhood leaves us stagnant, a critical piece of re-entry is to get people out of these mindsets and provide them with the belief that they can grow past their traumatic experience. And further, for people who have identified so much with their job and now don’t have a job, how do you decouple these two things? Aviva shared that what she saw was the importance of helping people transition forth into society and providing them with jobs. “If people don’t have a job, they will return to that behavior even if in their minds, they’ve left that life behind.”
The Link Between Fault and Responsibility
“It may not be our fault that we’re in a situation but it is our responsibility to manage and change the situation based on our interpretation of that experience.” - Aviva Klein
In Uganda, there were minimal resources but the rehab center that worked with child soldiers re-entry did a fantastic job at helping kids mentally by teaching them to forgive themselves. The difference between fault and responsibility is that “it may not be our fault that we’re in a situation but it is our responsibility to manage and change the situation based on our interpretation of that experience.” Aviva told me stories about how some of these kids had to bite their own parents to death, and re-entry work was focused on how they can see that this was out of their control and certainly not in their will.
Aviva explained to me that a lot of challenges in reentering society for people in post-conflict zones mirrored that of incarcerated people. “It didn’t matter if you were innocent, guilty or a child, it was all the same.” That led me to my next question (and interview): how do you loosen the reins on being under oppression? How do you free yourself?
The Link Between “The System” and Trust
I interviewed Hector Guadalupe, who had been incarcerated for 10 years and spent 3 of those years in solitary confinement. He’s now a leader in the fitness industry and the founder of A Second U Foundation, a NYC-based organization that has hired nearly 400 personal trainers that are all formerly incarcerated. Though Hector says his view of the world was shattered from early childhood because of where he came from, he’s a strong example of alchemizing pain and turning it into power. “Brooklyn was like the Gaza Strip, 7am going to school with gun shots ringing out.”
I was interested in speaking to Hector about trust, as we saw the theme of mistrust rise during the pandemic–especially in regards to the vaccine. Marginalized communities were on the frontline and less protected, but this system that forgot them had been in place long before Covid-19 struck. There’s many reasons why POC communities haven’t trusted systems, especially medical ones who have discriminated and neglected them throughout history. Hector, who learned everything there was about the narcotics trade from the tender age of 12 years old, knows firsthand how it feels to live with mistrust of people and systems.
When it comes to trust, it’s been over a decade since Hector came home, and while he’s gained tons of support mentally and emotionally, he still has a hard time trusting people wholeheartedly. “Being incarcerated kept my spirit down, it worsened my spirit. I didn’t start rebuilding til I got home.” Though today, Hector will admit he likes systems and shares that he learned a lot about discipline and rest in prison, he can admit that coming home was traumatizing. Upon re-entry, he experienced being on edge, feeling bitter, and having very little patience. He discussed feeling agitated, frustrated, and that even social media felt like an unsafe place for him. Hector compared coming home and navigating life again to being a newborn, except with nobody to hold your hand.
The Link Between “The System” and Choice
“Being institutionalized has nothing to do with prison. There are institutionalized people who have never been in prison a day in their life.” - Hector Guadalupe
Experiencing the pandemic was unique for someone like Hector, who referenced it as an “equalizer”. “Right now, this shit got the whole world humbled. There’s nobody’s door it can’t knock on. The wealthiest people are lonely as hell right now, they’re feeling it.” But Hector believes we needed this reset, and that everyone needed to be forced to sit down. Though he predicts our mental health will be affected, he also breaks down that, as he saw in prison, some people will use this trauma to their advantage and focus on empowerment, while others get stuck in the trauma and ignore how they’ve been affected. Hector’s advice? “People gotta believe in recovery. People gotta believe in self-care.” He advocates that we need to remain strong, keep fighting, and keep believing. He also explains the importance of hope, coming from an environment where people are serving time, who know they aren’t going to make it out alive but keep believing because it helps them get through the days and be able to stand in the face of that much trauma.
In speaking to Hector, I’m reminded that we are all institutionalized and follow systems. “Being institutionalized has nothing to do with prison. There are institutionalized people who have never been in prison a day in their life.” Hector wants us to reflect on how we use the system to serve ourselves. No matter where you are, home or prison, he says we need to focus on controlling how we spend our time. He compares himself reading books in solitary confinement to Jeff Epstein, who killed himself. “The time is yours. Figure out how you use your time, that’s how it becomes positive or negative.”
Navigating Post-Covid Society
A lot of people are exposed to trauma and the vast majority will recover. They show resilience, rely on their social networks, and find ways to put it in perspective to the overall narrative of their life story–especially if they’re feeling supported in their relationships. Others may struggle due to a longstanding history of trauma, where early childhood foundations were not established, and it’s harder to look at the world with hope and positive expectations of others. The more you experience trauma, the harder it is to make sense of it.
The word trauma itself comes from ancient Greek and means “wound”. In my Mental Health First Aid course, I learned that trauma is a psychological wound and unlike our bodies that have tissues to automatically repair damage that occurs, our minds don’t. We need to go an extra step to get help and heal our wounds. Megan added to this by sharing that “trauma is like a wound that scabs over, it can be sensitive if you haven’t cleaned it out or taken care of it.” It’s painful. You have to go back to some of the darkest points of your life and try to make sense of them. Avoidance doesn’t push trauma away, it only keeps it around.
The majority of people will find a way to manage their emotional reactions in a way that doesn’t interfere with their life, while others haven’t found ways to manage it and can use professional help. I watched many of us lose friends to suicide during the pandemic, and we live with guilt that we didn’t tell them that they aren’t a burden or self-blame that we didn’t do something to prevent it. I witnessed many of us watch loved ones numb through unhealthy habits and didn’t say anything to avoid them feeling judged. I still have many questions on how we navigate our post-Covid society. How do we show up for one another and have honest conversations? How do we stop speaking on recovery as though it’s shameful? How do we forgive ourselves for how we spent our time during lockdown? And finally, how do we come home to ourselves?