Skopje, 12 October 2021 (MIA) – Mental health is a challenge in pandemic and post-pandemic conditions. People who never thought they’d ask for help have been doing so since the beginning of the pandemic. Psychologists expect a mental disorder pandemic once the Covid-19 pandemic ends. After months of working from home, the world has started to slowly go back to normal, but the opposite effect is happening – people are feeling anxious and struggling to accept returning to work. Talking to psychologists shouldn’t be made into taboo, because it helps us understand, accept and overcome our mental conditions. Talking to a psychologist has a positive influence on us and our health. Psychologist and therapist Radmila Zhivanovikj says in a statement for MIA that there’s no recipe for perfect mental health. Everyone should try to find appropriate ways to help themselves operate with more authenticity, without fear, panic and despair. This year’s slogan of the World Health Organization (WHO) campaign marking World Mental Health Day (October 10), is “Mental health care for all: let's make it a reality”. World Mental Health Day aims to raise mental health awareness worldwide and mobilize efforts to end the stigma. The WHO says that Covid-19 severely affected people’s mental health. “We have reasons to be optimistic, though. During the World Health Assembly, held in May 2021, governments worldwide recognized the need for an increase in quality mental health services on all levels,” the WHO says. When the pandemic started, during the declared state of emergency, the Chamber of Psychologists of North Macedonia published the contact information of 40 volunteer-psychologists on social media. Most of them had special training for first psychological aid and are therapists. Mirjana Jovanovska Stojanovska, president of the Chamber of Psychologists, tells MIA that the psychologists offered psychological help on social media, and they were available to everyone in the country who needed psychological help for the troubles that arose for them related to the curfews, isolation, and drastic life changes. She also says that there were psychologists who worked with teams of volunteers from the Red Cross and phone numbers of psychologists from the University Clinic of Radio Therapy and Oncology were made available for the patients to call for psychological support. The pandemic caused some positive changes as well, as well as negative ones. Some people started working from home, which allowed them to spend more time with their families. Almost two years later, the vaccines have enabled parts of the world to start going back to normal, but people are anxious and struggling to accept going back to work. “Many people felt isolated and threatened at the start of the isolation period, but then many were happy to stay at home. It allowed them to get closer to their family, spend more time with their children, dedicate time to do things they wanted to but never had the time for. Getting back to work was an issue for these people and there was resistance,” Jovanovska Stojanovska says. She adds that people are habitual creatures who find it difficult to change. Habits mean that we move in predetermined lines in life, which helps our bodies conserve energy. Changing our habits takes energy and our bodies resist, which makes people anxious, according to Jovanovska Stojanovska. Zhivanovikj says that we need to let go of the notion that there is constant bliss, and we shouldn’t be afraid to grow from unpleasant experiences. “We should face our ideals head on and become more grounded in our bodies, in reality and our relationships with others,” Zhivanovikj says. She adds that psychologists and therapists, as professionals who offer psychological help, have also undergone personal and professional transformations. “There were intense changes in the beginning with transferring psychological help from face-to-face conversations to the online sphere. Despite our concerns, we successfully adapted to the changes. Clients actually felt much safer to get psychological help from the privacy of their homes. Many companies who were concerned about the health of their employees organized various activities for psychological support and counseling. Psychological education has transferred to being fully online, and we’ve had a huge response because people didn’t have to travel in order to get access to content they’re interested in,” Zhivanovikj says. Unfortunately, in North Macedonia, it’s still taboo to ask for psychological help, regardless if people need it or not. “Asking for help has been stigmatized in the past as well, and it still is, despite the gradual changes in things. Mental illness is still the reason for strong stigmatization, and the perception is that people can’t adapt to normal flows of life, which really isn’t the case. Their families also hide things, and people prefer to hide instead of openly talking about things, get support and acceptance in order to find ways to self-manage their illness. On the other hand, the prevalence of mental illness is getting greater. That’s why we should talk about it a lot more, and why we should work on demystifying the state of mental dysfunctionality, something we’ve all been feeling lately,” Zhivanovikj says. Jovanovska Stojanovska points out that people who thought they’d never ask for help have been doing just that. The pressure of isolation and the fear caused them to develop psychological disorders which caused them issues in their daily private and professional lives. The influence of Covid-19 has caused mental disorders in teenagers Epidemics and pandemics have always caused great threats to public health. Our lifestyles changed almost two years ago, when the world first faced the Covid-19 pandemic. From constantly hanging out face-to-face, the world began living in a virtual world, which brought protection and safety to some, and anxiety and depression to others. Young people, especially teenagers, took the quarantine, curfew and social life isolation the hardest. Instead of socializing with their peers, attending classes in school, they were forced to sit in front of a screen and live “the new normal”. “Teenagers and young people, and their families, seem to have accepted and managed ‘the new normal’ much harder, if we can even call our current situation any kind of normal. Their movements and contacts were severely limited, young people developed huge fears for themselves and their loved ones, they had panic and anxiety attacks, they started socially isolating themselves, losing touch with reality and the only way for them to talk to anyone was through social media. This motivates them to get even deeper into the online world. Some people managed to use it well, and others abused it,” Zhivanovikj says. The president of the Chamber of Psychologists points out that some young people retreated behind screens and are taking the return to reality hard, so many parents have asked for psychological help relating to the problems their children faced in terms of social living. Psychologists have confirmed, as well as scientific research, that young people who have retreated and isolated themselves from the world have difficulty in functioning. Depending on the teenager’s character, regressive behavior, tantrums and anger outbursts have been noticed, as well as complete disinterest, lack of willpower and boredom. All of these things cause difficulty when it comes to completing their schoolwork, socialization and normal everyday functioning. On the other hand, almost two years later, they have gone back to school with their peers, under special protocols. Zhivanovikj says that some students are happy to be back, but some of them have gotten used to the comfort of their home and attending online classes, which makes it harder for their parents to make their kids go outside, and it’s become easier for them to replace physical contact with virtual contact. “I honestly think that they have more freedom, especially when they’re appropriately guided by their parents, with the possibility to return to in-person classes, as well as the possibility to choose,” she says. Jovanovska Stojanovska says that going to school and meeting their peers is important for teenagers, and the pandemic has been going on for too long for them to withstand the limitations without consequences. The pandemic has brought on an economic crisis, loss of jobs and reduced income “The pandemic shook the economy and it jeopardized the livelihood of many families, limiting children and young people to sit in front of screens. Communication with others and the world has become limited, we’ve suffered losses instead of gaining anything and the balance of our lives shifted. Divisions increased, many people lost their jobs, others found work that suited them better. Many people lost their loved ones. Many people lost themselves, too, what they used to know about themselves, things we can’t see anymore,” Zhivanovikj says. She adds that many people suffered declines in confidence, and hate speech and manipulation found fertile soil to blossom in. Negativism found its way to become realism. No one could predict these shifts, no one could prepare for them, and they caused the biggest psychological distresses as well. “People with limited capacities and support have also had to face the losses they suffered. Many of those losses couldn’t be predicted, they were sudden, heavy, close, irreversible, without a chance to say a last goodbye. Many people want to forget 2020. Even when talking, they don’t know how to reference it. There isn’t a single person who wasn’t touched by it, or who was out of the loop. The pandemic traumas, although still fresh, will be remembered for a long time in the lives of those who truly felt them,” she adds. Jovanovska Stojanovska says that we’re on the brink of an economic crisis, and our mental health is going to suffer in the future. “We’ve pushed through this past year and a half somehow as a country and as people, activating all of our spare reserves. We’re running low, and we’re about to face increases in prices and reorganization of life. We’re on the threshold of a time when there will be lots of existential issues that will directly affect mental health. We’ll talk about how this affects us and what will come of it after a year,” she says. The pandemic has completely changed us as people. It’s changed our lifestyles and it’s turned us into more cautious and caring people. If we were careless in our daily lives in the past, now we live in a world in which we must be mindful and careful of our health and the health of our loved ones. Let’s not forget that mental health is one of the main tools for a person to live a normal life. Marking World Mental Health Day is immensely important worldwide, organizations raise awareness, and people are becoming aware that help is out there. Living in a time of unpredictability and changes we can’t affect causes us to have to adapt very quickly and live life by that tempo. Mirjana Jovanovska Stojanovska says that it’s necessary for us to estimate what we can affect, and what’s out of our control. That’s the only way we’ll know where we can act and make changes we can control. “The only thing we can fully control is our response to information and things happening in our environment. We need to learn skills that will help us do this as best as we can, starting from our diets, physical activities, daily activities, setting up priorities, using our free time, improving ourselves personally and professionally, participating in social relations, caring for our physical health, hygiene, and many other things that depend solely on us,” she concludes. Radmila Zhivanovikj says that it’s about time for us to understand that we can’t control our living conditions, but we should take control over ourselves, and the things that make us happy and fulfill us. Kristina Ivanovska Translated by Dragana Knezhevikj