March 27, 2020
During this COVID-19 outbreak, people are being asked to stay home and away from others as much as possible to stop the spread of the virus. But people are creatures of connection and habit, and when daily routines are disrupted, it can impact their emotional well-being, said Dr. Thad Ulzen, a psychiatrist at University Medical Center.
Coping with isolation is challenging, said Ulzen, who is also professor and chair of psychiatry and behavioral medicine for The University of Alabama College of Community Health Sciences, which operates UMC.
“We move about, with reckless abandon I might say, as part of our daily experience of life,” Ulzen said. “Now, we can’t see family and friends, or travel. We’re isolated. It’s a real sense of loss of control.”
“And if you do test positive for COVID-19 or are exposed, you have to quarantine for two weeks. It’s like house arrest,” he said.
As a practicing psychiatrist, Ulzen said he is alert for signs of behavior change in people are coping with isolation.
“If we are not able to reduce the rate of new (COVID-19) cases by testing and isolation, we could get into a situation where people’s behavior becomes impaired. We’ve heard about people fighting in stores over toilet paper. People are feeling out of control already,” he said.
“There is already a silent sense of food insecurity,” he added, noting that chicken, a popular food item in the South, is currently hard to find in grocery stores.
Ulzen said a key way for people to gain a sense of control in this COVID situation is to have accurate information about the virus. “Health-care leaders can provide accurate information about the condition. Most people who test positive (for the virus) might not have a serious illness. And those who get sick do get well,” he said.
People have endured widespread traumatic events before and have recovered, Ulzen said. Locally, the city of Tuscaloosa experienced a devastating tornado on April 27, 2011, during which 65 people were killed, 1,500 were injured and portions of the city were destroyed as the mile-and-a-half wide storm, with attained winds of up to 190 miles per hour, tore through the city.
But Ulzen noted that COVID-19 is different. While the tornado was traumatic, it was finite. “This is a very different situation. Pandemics unfold in slow motion.”
For now, routine is important, Ulzen said, because “it provides some predictability in isolation.” So, create and follow a daily routine, maintain a healthy lifestyle, limit news consumption to reliable sources and stay virtually connected with others.
“Being cooped up doesn’t have to be a negative thing,” Ulzen said. “It’s a time when people can really get to know themselves better.”
