Ask Phyllis…
Some of you may have seen the Oscar award winning, interesting film, Everything Everywhere All AT Once. I am still fascinated and pondering this film, which still needs explanation to me and is preoccupying my thoughts. Everything Everywhere All At Once is a very controversial experience. Some folks say it is brilliant and for others, it made them angry and frustrated. I am researching the reviews and summations. My patients come in and talk about it. As I was pondering content for this column, I realized the film was possibly about what I, and many of my patients are experiencing. I realized we are in a new phase, post-Covid, and more people are expressing new angst. Anxiety in a new form has surfaced. The connection to post Covid in this film is the experiencing of alternate realities, new choices of how we want to live. For me, the film has several themes, but the essence is you see inside the mind of the characters. The different realities and choices are hypothesized. We all do this to some degree in our fantasies. The film has a theme of what is important in life and how certain experiences shape our direction in the future.
As we “re-enter” life again and start engaging in person, commuting to work, and traveling, I have heard expressions of exhaustion and negative readjustment. I am seeing more individuals and couples more than ever before. People are complaining about what they are feeling. Generally, what is expressed is sense of exhaustion and annoyance at things that were commonplace before isolation of Covid. A hectic travel and social schedule that was normal. At the start of the Pandemic, people had a chance to slow down and isolate, which, at first, was causing stress, fear and anxiety. Every age group had their own reaction to being isolated. We had to get to know ourselves, have more time with our own thoughts. Some folks did very well. Those who are socially introverted loved the excuse not to socialize. Those who were socially involved in a million things all the time were very anxious. Many adjusted over the year going into the isolation. People adjusted their lives, they developed new hobbies, some had more time with family in the morning not having to commute. Dressing in casual clothes, and only looking good for the waist up on zoom was fun! Some of us used the computer most of the day and in the evenings to find movies, talking to friends and family as well as exploring new interests.
After a while, people found computer communication to be more tiring in some ways but addictive. There was comfort in distancing ourselves from lots of social commitments and scheduling. Then we noticed that things got more complicated and difficult to get things resolved. Customer service staff were low in numbers. More layers and hoops in security on computers made life more difficult and less seamless.
As we started to emerge from the restrictions of isolation, we questioned getting out again and the energy it is taking to do the things we thought we enjoyed. I have heard people struggling about the value of their relationships and evaluating their friendships. Some folks decided to get rid of “toxic relationships. This is the part of the film that mirrors what we have gone though as we re-evaluate our lives after being isolated. The rampant fantasy in the film is what some folks describe is how they were feeling inside their thoughts. Becoming aware of these new desires and evaluating how you want to spend your time is a healthy thing. All of us need to readjust and restructure our time, to settle into a new reality.
I would love to invite comments and sharing of these themes. It would be great to hear from our community about how we changed after Covid. What did you realize had to be different going forward in your life, or were you relieved to re-enter your own routines? Please feel free to write to the Newsletter and let us know if your sharing can be published in the next addition. It will be interesting to see where we will be at that point in time.
