Counselor Napoleon Harrington and psychology professor Amie Gordon discussed how one year of social distancing and isolation can impact health. “Social belonging is one of our deepest needs, and when we can t get that met, that can pose real problems for how we feel, both mentally and physically,” Gordon said.
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Today on
Stateside, we revisit how one year of pandemic life has changed our relationships from close connections, to pod problems, to loved ones lost. A funeral director discusses how the COVID-19 pandemic impacted mourning in 2020. Then, a counselor and psychologist talk us through how pod life, solitude, and mental health challenges during the pandemic have affected the ways we interact with other people.
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Most of us have had some sort of bubble throughout the pandemic: a small group of people we limited ourselves to seeing while a novel virus spread among the masses. For some of us, that’s been the family members we already live with. For others it was a few, select friends we gathered with many of us call them our “pods.”
So what happened over a year of being cut off from a larger, more interactive group of humans?
Did families draw nearer? Did romantic relationships fall apart? Did pods or bubbles of friends become stale and show signs of fatigue?