A professor of psychology says, “I never wanted to practice. Went into research and teaching straight away. But since COVID I feel like a practicing psychiatrist. We are not allowed to use the word “neurosis” anymore but there’s no better word. COVID awakened an enormous amount of neurosis in people. Many people are barely holding on, they’ve lost touch with reality. Depression, anxiety, borderline – it’s all at an all-time high”.
He’s right but I have no idea why this is happening. Our lockdown was only 10 weeks. We reopened back on June 1, 2020. There were no lockdown strictures, persecution, curfews. It was unpleasant but nothing to freak out about 3,5 years later.
An enormous number of people is unraveling. Obviously, not everybody but a lot. I honestly don’t get it.
Clarissa's Blog 
“enormous number of people is unraveling …. I honestly don’t get it”
When I moved to central-Eastern Europe, one of the things I noticed was that, overall, people were generally more… sane than in the US. People used to ask me what was going on in the US to make act so crazy and at first I didn’t understand and later after understanding somewhat… I didn’t have much of answer.
Part of it might be related Uncertainty Avoidance (how members of a culture deal with uncertain situations). The US is pretty low and Poland (and Ukraine) and pretty high in Uncertainy Avoidance.
Think of it largely as a question of optimism (US) vs pessimism (Poland/Ukraine). People in more pessimistic cultures tend to deal with systematic failure (or catastrophes) better then people in more optimistic cultures. Even non-Americans like your Arabic teacher will absorb the majority values and in the case of the US (which has been dealing with big uncertainties for a few years now) that’s gonna push a lot of people over the edge.
There’s probably more to it but that’s probably part of it.
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It’s not because of COVID. Things were unraveling before, COVID just accerated or made things more obvious.
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That’s very possible but what is it? What’s causing this? There’s got to be something.
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We’re going through an era of chaos and change. A lot of the ideologies that underpinned the post world war 2 order are becoming undone: Globalization, pax Americana, worship of the free markets, religion, etc.
In addition, this long peace and prosperity has weakened people’s ability to tolerate uncertainty and chaos as cliff arroyo pointed out.
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The lockdown mandate in your area was only 10 weeks. The lifestyle disruption strongly encouraged by peers and media (at least the peers and media valued by the cultural segment that most faculty come from) was much longer.
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That’s a good point. Those of us who resumed normal life on June 1, 2020 were a small minority.
So you think it’s COVID catching up with people?
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That plus the way progressive academic culture just feeds neuroticism on every possible level. Wokeness is all about critiquing impurity in every possible way. And it encourages people to take their cues from whoever has the worst personality disorders.
Also, we now characterize any sort of distress or unhappiness as a mental health problem, which is like characterizing any cut or bruise as physical trauma.
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People seem fine here. Maybe it’s limited to academia?
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