STAYING AT HOME
Restrictions have eased and stay at home orders are over, but for some people a lasting effect of the pandemic is a desire to remain in self-imposed lockdown
With the world finally opening up after two years of lockdowns, not everyone is enthusiastic about returning to their preCovid lives. There is a section of society that is perfectly happy to remain in a self-imposed lockdown of sorts. Some even say they were extroverts or social butterflies in their previous lives, but are now coming up with every excuse they can think of not to return to the office, and the idea of a night on the town fills them with horror.
Where FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) was very much a pre-covid acronym, perhaps a more appropriate one for the post-covid era is HOGO (Hatred of Going Out).
The Behaviour Report founder Dan Gregory says more and more people are admitting to having HOGO – which is a more extreme version of JOMO (Joy of Missing Out) – following the easing of restrictions.
“A lot of people are coming out of rolling lockdowns reluctantly,” Gregory says.
“They may still enjoy the experience of going out, but the hassle, risks and downsides (usually other people) tend to outweigh any enjoyment.
“This manifests in those who are sticking with their online shopping, those employees who prefer to work at home and those for whom a pizza and a bottle of red holds more allure than any number of ‘Hats’ or ‘Michelin Stars’.”
Rebecca Philpott, 23, used to be out every night of the week.
The Gold Coast uni student was in five extracurricular clubs, including a networking group, and she was president of an outdoor adventuring club, which involved organising bouldering, climbing and hiking for groups of people. She was often out until midnight.
She’s now quit all the clubs and prefers to stay home cleaning, organising and when she has time, sewing.
“I was very much a social butterfly,” she says. “I was always the one arranging and instigating all the events. But my friends now say I am MIA (Missing in Action).
“I just want to stay inside, but I can’t really explain why.”
Philpott says looking back at her pre-covid life, a lot of the time she felt “obliged to go out”. “It became part of my character,” she admits. While she says her life was more exhilarating before Covid, she’s now more “comfortable and content”.
She even wishes her uni course was still online: “It was just more convenient.”
When lockdown first happened, Sydney digital marketing executive and yoga teacher Roberto Demante, 36, felt like a weight had been lifted off his shoulders and that he could “breathe for a moment”.
“That anxious feeling in my stomach was gone,” Demante says.
“The idea of everything opening up again – I don’t feel like I have it in me. I don’t want to go to bars drinking and clubbing. I don’t want to absorb everyone’s energy every day. I’ve stopped socialising with family and friends.
“I’ve recalibrated what I want to give the world. I’ve become a homebody.”
He says without all the drinking and socialising, he’s now fitter and happier than ever and he never wants to go back to his old life.
“Nobody wants a burnt out yoga teacher,” he says. “There’s some anxiety that there will be a tipping point when there will be pressure to return to the office.
“I will fight tooth and nail not to go back.” National Growth Areas Alliance chief executive Bronwen Clark, who is calling for the government to invest in the suburbs now more people are working from home, doesn’t want to see anyone forced to go back to the office. “The experiment has happened,” she says. “We proved it works. You know the weight of public opinion is behind this.”
Meanwhile, research by consultancy Retail Doctor Group found that around one in three people currently work from home in some format and, of those, a quarter expect to continue to work five days a week at home.
Retail Doctor’s head of insights Anastasia Lloyd-wallis says people value their time more than they did before Covid.
“Click and Collect is popular not just because of the hygiene factor but because it saves time,” she says.
Some people – especially those who enjoy
working from home – will never go back to the way they lived their lives before Covid, according to the Australian Association of Psychologists board director Mark Baxter.
He says in many cases parents have really benefited from working from home and dads in particular have been able to bond with their children more.
“Our world has shrunk. In some instances people don’t need to venture out of their local neighbourhood, which some people love,” Baxter says.
“Most people want to work half the week at home and half in the office. They want to spend time in their local environment, talk to their neighbours, be with their families more and exercise more.
“I think it is very, very healthy to get that balance. The problem comes when you don’t want to leave your house anymore.”
He says some of his clients, who suffer from anxiety, are finding resuming normal life overwhelming.
“Covid gave them a great excuse not to go out or do things which were out of their comfort zone,” Baxter says.
He advises those who are reluctant to keep pushing themselves to do things they don’t want to do and to remember that being around other people is “normal”.
He says Covid exacerbated problems in some people’s lives, by being an amplifier to whatever was already there.
“So if a couple were having marital difficulties then Covid made it worse; if a person felt nervous going into certain situations, that may have escalated to become more serious,” Baxter says.
“There has certainly been an unprecedented increase in demand for our services. We’ve got the worst mental health crisis we’ve ever had.”
A study of more than 1000 people aged 16 to 21 by youth mental health organisation Reachout found almost 60 per cent felt more stressed about the future because of the pandemic, especially around financial security.
And a report by health fund AIA, The Power of Social Connection, found the number of people living with depressive and anxiety disorders increased by more than a quarter in 2020 alone.
According to the report, 15 per cent of Australians say they felt lonely and 20 per cent suffered higher levels of stress.
More than 600,000 accessed virtual mental health services.
Calls to Lifeline have increased by up to 40 per cent in the past two years.
Drug and alcohol use also increased during the pandemic, with a government body finding that one in five people were drinking more.
Living through lockdowns also placed extra stress on families and relationships, with incidents of domestic violence increasing.
In Victoria, which endured six lockdowns totalling 262 days, police attended to nearly 93,000 incidents in the year to March 2021, up 7000 on the previous year.
The Butterfly foundation, which supports people with eating disorders, also saw an
increase in demand for help as people spent more time online.
“People had a lot more time to reflect on their own body image and that became a real problem,” says the Butterfly foundation’s Alex Cowen.
Others spending prolonged periods of time online, perhaps angry at the loss of their jobs or freedom, found themselves drawn to violent extremism and conspiracy groups.
Australia’s top spy boss Mike Burgess says “online radicalisation is nothing new, but Covid-19 sent it into overdrive”.
The head of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation says “more time in those online environments – without some of the circuit breakers of everyday life, like family and community engagement, school and work – created more extremists”.
Baxter, a working psychologist alongside his board role, says he has gained new clients who became conspiracy theorists because of Covid.
He says their fears have been fed by misinformation on Facebook and Youtube where they’ve found like-minded people online, who have reaffirmed their beliefs.
“The pandemic has seen most people in the community, including our customers, feel overwhelmed, unsettled and at times anxious,” says Damien Mu, chief executive and managing director of the health fund AIA Australia, which commissioned The Power of Social Connection report.
Mu says losing social connection through loss of employment, or through a lack of sport, has been difficult for many. However, those already vulnerable because of an existing physical health issue appear to have suffered the most.
“Prior to the pandemic 30 per cent of customers undertaking mental health coaching had a physical condition and this has increased to 70 per cent,” Mu says.
“While lockdowns were important to stop the spread of Covid-19, life as we knew it stopped and that was challenging.”
Many of the more vulnerable people in society have decided to stay isolated for fear of Covid. That even includes some who have no underlying health issues, but remain concerned about the health risks.
Mother-of-two Paige Mcinnes decided not to let her two children attend school this term, wears her mask when no one else does, and has not had anyone visit her Brisbane home since the borders opened.
“I don’t use the term ‘post-pandemic’ because the pandemic hasn’t ended, despite our government’s efforts to remove all reminders such as masks, QR codes, daily briefings,” she says.
“As a mum of two young children, I’m baffled by the nonchalant attitude of many people, including parents. It’s clear that Covid case numbers are still very high, especially in schools, yet most double-vaxxed adults don’t seem to care for unvaccinated children, healthcare workers or the immunocompromised members of our community.”
She believes people are being “extraordinarily selfish” and that we should be increasing protections rather than removing them.
“Opening borders and removing all protections has caused me incredible anxiety and I actually miss the sense of safety and security that came with a suppression strategy, even if it meant occasional lockdowns,” says Mcinnes, who was an avid traveller before Covid.
She’s now homeschooling her kids Charlotte, 5, and Lachlan, 7, and working on her new business through the night.
She admits she’s exhausted.
Both children are double vaccinated, but she’s not sure whether she will let them return to school next term.
“I once had hope things were going to go back to normal,” she says. “I have less hope now.
“I’ve lost touch with my mum friends as there are no playdates anymore.”
Baxter says that while Covid was, clearly, unplanned, because almost everyone went through it, the process has ended up being like an experiment.
He says humans are quick to adapt and many got used to living a more isolated life during Covid. While the lockdowns protected people, we have all paid a price.
“We were protected but not connected. We have to learn from that,” he says.
Emily Unity, 24, thought she had her multiple eating disorders under control until Covid-19 hit.
Unity, who lives on her own in Melbourne, says when the lockdown happened all her support disappeared in a moment.
“The life I had built to create this sense of self and wellbeing all fell apart,” she says.
“All my safety nets were taken away at once. “I was on my own in a studio apartment and I was just 20 seconds from my fridge at any time. That was really hard.”
She says since being diagnosed with anorexia, bulimia, binge eating disorder, avoidant or restrictive food intake disorder and compulsive exercise disorder 10 years ago, she has worked hard to find a way to stay healthy.
Part of that involved eating with friends at set times during the week and making a promise to herself to go to a particular restaurant to get food even if she was not feeling like eating that day.
Unity says lockdown also resulted in her selfimposed rules around social media fall down.
She found herself “doomscrolling” – endlessly scrolling on social media – which had a negative impact on her mental health.
“I know people use photoshop on Instagram but I still wished I could look like some of the people I was seeing,” she says.
She says she lost control of her eating for about seven months during Covid.
Eventually she adapted to her situation and started booking in a lot of video calls at noon so she could eat at least one meal a day with others.
“Before Covid I always knew I could relapse at some point, but I thought it might be a slow process. I never imagined it would happen so quickly,” she says.
“When Covid happened it felt like the rug was ripped from under my feet.”
I was very much a social butterfly. But my friends now say I am MIA. I just want to stay inside, but I can’t really explain why
For help call Lifeline 13 11 14; Butterfly 1800 ED HOPE (1800 33 4673)