The 6 phases of isolation
I mean it when I say, the last six months of isolation weren’t what I had expected and yet it was completely unsurprising.
Back in March, my peers and I were stoked about the days ahead, hoping to get into our careers and making plans for the days that lay ahead of us. I personally had a ton of things planned.
This isn’t my sob story about how the events of 2020 have stomped on my dreams, kicked me in the guts, thrown me down a drain and spit in my face. No. It’s about how the people around me (not physically, but you knew that already. Social distance has been key.) transcended through various shifts in mindsets.
So, back to March. All of us were busy with the chaos of our lives. Balancing our career goals and life goals on our fragile shoulders like amateur trapeze artists about to fall on our faces any moment now. Yet, we were happy. Obviously, we didn’t know it then. We thought we knew stress. I laugh as I think about it now.
When the news about the virus broke and we were all sent home, we thought we’d be getting back to our old lives soon. We were all glad to be able to take some time off of the ‘stressful’ lives we were leading.
This was the ‘mini-vacation’ phase. All of us scattered across the country like confetti in a cool breeze. At peace, finally to be home.
Even after the news of a month-long lockdown came out, none of us realised how severe it was. The mini-vacation was on. We started focusing on de-stressing. Relaxing. Improving. It was very reminiscent of the summer breaks back in the school days.
Soon though, the calm faded. It had finally dawned upon us that the situation is far worse and we were being naively optimistic. It triggered an off-the-wall trend among the people. This was when the ‘productivity-contest’ phase began.
We started scouring through our various talents and skills, trying to find one that we wanted to master in the crucial ‘off-time’ we had due to a global pandemic. Creativity ran rampant gloriously through our minds. This was a wonderfully sad coping mechanism all of us had unintentionally garnered. Don’t get me wrong. I was totally here for it. Distracting ourselves with self-improvement? Yeah, sign me up!
This didn’t last so long though. Soon, all of us got tired. Some took longer than others to get tired of it but eventually, we were all tired. This was the beginning of the longest phase, the ‘I don’t care anymore’ phase.
This was the ‘era’ of the ‘Netflix parties’ and ‘zoom calls’ all day long. We had begun to finally accept that this is really going to last long. And since the future seemed bleak, we began stress-relaxing. We stressed about our futures, and we relaxed because there wasn’t much to be done about it. This phase was the longest-lasting because it doesn’t come so easily to everybody to get back into work mode when there isn’t something substantial to work towards.
It was difficult getting out of the zone but we eventually did. We entered the ‘this is how it’s gonna be now’ phase. This was when we began to get back to our lives. Not in the ways we’d have liked to but in whichever ways realistically attainable. Online classes, virtual internships and the sorts. We were motivated and at the same time terrified of how the world would change and how we would fit into this changed world. We tried our best to focus on the now more than the later.
But the terror soon took over. sending us tumbling down a hill that would take us a lot of strength to climb back on to. This was the ‘we’re doomed’ phase. We got lost in our inner turmoil. The unpredictable future had challenged all that we had hoped for and believed in, to a face-off. And it seemed to be winning so far, punching our dreams down, putting our plans in an incredibly strong chokehold where they might as well have suffocated and died.
Slowly but surely, we raked up our shattered dreams, bundled up whatever was left of our hopes and began climbing that hill that we had just very painfully tumbled off of. This was and has been, a tiring journey. We still haven’t reached the top. At least not most of us. We entered the ‘I’ll be okay’ phase. Sure, we stumble and fall now and then, but the one thing this chaotic isolation has taught us is that even though we may be alone in our homes, we aren’t alone in this situation. Someone somewhere is going through exactly what you’re going through and it’s okay because it’s surmountable.
This phase brought with it a lot of introspection and self-discovery. Being alone with ourselves was what we needed for us to know ourselves better. For the better or the worse, we all have changed at least a little. What hasn’t changed is our longing to go back to our old imperfect ‘stressful’ world where we could worry about the easier to conquer challenges. The one where the future still wasn’t certain but wasn’t dark.
Whichever phase we might be in, we’re all safe and sound and able to read a frivolous article by a random person online. Which makes us the luckiest group of people right now.
All I know now is, it has been a bizarre rollercoaster of emotional six months and I have never before known myself better than I do now. And that is the best we could’ve gotten out of this situation or any situation for that matter.
