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Life in lockdown 2.0 – how is isolation affecting our mental health?

(trigger warning – eating disorder)

Today the British public is waking up to their second day in lockdown and the thought of spending a month like this has left many people in a state of anxiety. Demand for advice and help from rethink.org, a website with advice for mental illnesses, doubled over the lockdown period in springtime. Just last week Mind saw the largest increase in calls to their helpline. 

Mind, Samaritans, Shout and Hospice UK and many other mental health charities have been working tirelessly during this period to support the immense amount of people calling for help with anxiety disorders, how to support someone experiencing suicidal thoughts and help with self-harm. 

Relationships have also suffered the consequences of lockdown. Counselling Kent, a private counsellor based in Kent, has not noticed an increase of anxiety and depression, but rather a very large increase in couples counselling. According to Sian Jones, the Co-founder of Counselling Kent explained how more and more couples are coming to couples therapy via zoom. Sian Jones justified this to the fact that couples are spending much more time together due to having to work from home. 

However, a very common, but not very talked about, difficulty during lockdown was eating disorders. Esme Michaela has now become a body positivity activist after recovering from a difficult time during lockdown. 

During lockdown Esme Michaela was alone in New York and thought she was managing well, but realised then that she had formed an unhealthy relationship with exercise.

“I was putting so much emphasis on having exercise as part of my day that I would feel like crap if I didn’t exercise even though I was literally in lockdown,” she said.

This also escalated to a bad relationship with food. In lockdown it is very hard to maintain a regular schedule, so without a routine and sleep schedule Esme Michaela found she just wasn’t eating properly. She fixed this problem through accountability, by facetiming her friends and eating together to remind her to eat three times a day.

“For most people part of it is having control, but with lockdown we lose all sense of control – we can’t plan our days, we can’t do things that we would normally do which would help us through recovery, so many peoples old habits went back,” Esme Michaela explained.

She explained that she gained weight during lockdown due to not being able to get out and about as much and eating more at home.

“I just felt so not in my body,” she explained. 

A significant factor in this was the media Esme Michaela said. She said everything online at the time was talking about “getting your exercise in, not putting on weight in lockdown, dieting through lockdown, which was so toxic.”

Esme Michaela was in recovery before lockdown, but now realises she hadn’t fully recovered so she wanted this time to be different. That is when she started posting about her experience on her instagram and found that being open about the struggles she had been dealing with really helped her.

“I think, this bit of my recovery I definitely feel like I’ve come further than I had a year ago when I first went into recovery,” she said.

Esme Michaela says she is going into this lockdown in a better place than last time and has a positive attitude now. However, she knows that once she loses control of her daily routines she will start to find it difficult. She wants to make sure that she goes for walks, gets out and about and keeps in contact with her friends and cooks meals.

“Hopefully it will be better than last time and hopefully it won’t be as long but to be honest we will just have to see.”

What started as a form of self care, evolved into an inspiration. Esme Michaela’s instagram has inspired and helped many of her followers.

If you are struggling during lockdown contact the Mind helpline: 0300 123 3393 or visit their webpage https://www.mind.org.uk

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