De-escalation: How Will We Psychologically Live The First Reunions?

Abruptly separating ourselves from all the people around our lives has been one of the most traumatizing effects of the coronavirus crisis. Communications or whatsapps, although they have helped us to endure mandatory confinement, have not been able to replace the desire to physically contact family, teachers, colleagues and friends.

What will the reunion be like? Predictably, the physical reunion with loved ones will also shake our emotions.

It will be difficult for us to repress our feelings

If, in general, the absence makes us appreciate those close to us much more, with this pandemic that feeling has multiplied exponentially.

The possibility of losing some of our loved ones or friends; the official media classifying and establishing the most vulnerable groups; the message of dangerousness in the contacts; The uncertainty about how long this state of alarm would last have been creating a psychological substrate of restlessness and unease that we have also tried to hide during our contacts through the screens.

• Restrained emotions will surface. To protect those who did not see us, we have implied that everything was going well, that we were doing well and that it was best to continue like this. Not only have we been physically confined, but we have repressed much of our emotions.
• We will want to express ourselves. Deep down, what we wanted to express is that we missed them a lot. That we longed to share their gestures, their laughter, their advice or criticism, in short, those talks about the human and the divine that were muzzled by an exceptional situation.
• It will be time to be honest. Each of us has lived, in our most intimate solitude, that point of pain of seeing ourselves being the victim of a series of painful experiences, but which, being a general situation, it seems that there was no place to talk about them. Now perhaps we want to express it more.

Emotions contained by social distancing

We have spent many weeks needing physical contact. The expectations before the reunion are now very high and our emotional state is touched. All this is what will be staged or will have already been staged in the reunion with family, friends or colleagues.

However, we must not forget that we have already come from inhibition and that we are still with the conditioning of social distance, which will considerably decrease effusiveness. Smiles and tears will mix, but still in a contained way.

• Let’s give time to time and open the word. We will really want to share moments – predictably around a table – with other people, perhaps more than usual, like at Christmas. Let’s get back to these social encounters.
• Let’s adapt little by little. Let’s gradually enter into the usual rituals, but let’s not forget that the same has always been and will be different.
• Let’s get carried away. Each one will need to tell the details of their experiences in the different moments of isolation. At the beginning they may be anecdotes, funny or paradoxical, but as you progress, deeper feelings will emerge.
• Let go of fears. Both those that have occurred towards oneself, as well as fears for loved ones.
• Let’s give value to what is important. The losses that have occurred and, above all, having become aware of how much all these people matter, each with their gestures and in the day to day, which were almost invisible, give us a new perspective.

Let’s disconnect from the virtual to connect

Human beings are gregarious by nature. But not only as other species can be, which can be fooled with an image very easily.

We do not settle for holograms, despite the tendency to the virtual, but we need that emotional territory constituted by the flesh and blood people, of whom we surround ourselves. We are constituted from them and we need to recognize ourselves as subjects even if it is to differentiate ourselves.

The sense of loss has been growing since the beginning of the de-escalation. The images on the computer could no longer replace the desire to hug, albeit with great prudence, those who we felt were very far from us, even if they were a few minutes from our homes.

Perhaps life gives us few occasions like the one we are living to become aware of our affection and also that of those around us. That means being able to acquire a greater knowledge of our way of feeling and thinking and, of course, also discovering that of others. Intimacies are on the surface. Let’s not miss the opportunity to express and share them!