Coping with the givens of adulthood: a Pandemic in my 20's

I traveled across five Indian states in the peak of summer for five days: on a bus, during a pandemic outbreak, and the strictest nation-wide lock down in history. I carried with me a bag stuffed with clothes I didn’t know I would need and the baggage of an uncertain future.

Part 1

During his second address to India on 24th March 2020, the Prime Minister gave a speech that changed, along with mine, all Indian lives in half an hour. That evening, I was watching the first episode of Freud, a German series on the life of psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud. I remember thinking to myself that this was probably the first time that someone from the field of Psychology was found to be so very mythical, possibly even revolting that an entire series was dedicated to him. The episode was filled with extraordinary phenomenon: clairvoyance, delusions, gore, and the subdued presence of someone stressing the strength of the ‘mind’ and the ‘unconscious’. At the end of first episode, I’d declared (but not entirely written off) that it was exactly how one would make a film on a fellow countryman: a fabled representation of an unusual man.

So when the PM began his speech at 8 pm, there were 519 COVID-19 cases in India and I was in a fantastical, dreamlike state of mind. And when he announced that the country was going on a full lock down for the next 21 days, the remnant emotion in me was confusion. I’d read about things like this in books, newspapers, and articles commemorating historical political dissent at the back of magazines. I had heard my grandparents talk about it; times when the whole world was affected by one factor that can no longer be controlled by singular human opposition- war, disaster and disease. In Psychology, there is a term called perceived invulnerability: a belief in one’s uniqueness, including the perception that one is immune to negative outcomes that might befall others. I would imagine, that this is how one feels in that split second before panic- a phone that slipped through your fingers, the first morning after a painful break up, finding out that a loved one is terminally ill, losing a loved one, or a terrifying accident. These experiences may differ in the degree of pain experienced. But that split second before life spirals out of control is always muted by the same question- Is this really happening to me?

That evening, I broke my phone trying to stock up on edibles. The Prime Minister had been unclear about the availability of essential items during the lock down in his speech. Going to the local market that evening, I saw people cramming every inch of the road, some wearing masks and some not. We were unsure as to how effective masks were, and the general awareness of asymptomatic carriers was not common by then. I arrived in Mumbai seven months ago and before that night, Mumbai had been a lot of things: larger than life, sleepless, fierce, and even pleasant after a point. But that night, Mumbai was frightened. A girl at the grocery store was pleading for a kilo of rice because she didn’t have money left, a woman at the vegetable cart was grabbing armfuls of tomatoes, eliciting snares and cries from others, an elderly couple were making a fortune selling bags and masks made of old cloth.

Most people I saw that night were ‘civilized’ and ‘educated’ members of the larger society. We had a house made of brick and mortar to come back to, access to resources and information, monetary security, or even the luxury to pause before action. Yet, we swarmed out of our houses, and were blind to the signboards ticking guidelines for movement. There was pushing, shoving, scrambling and struggle not because this was an assembly of ‘ignorant’, ‘illiterate’, or ‘unaware’ citizens but because no one had anticipated such a drastic departure from what we have known life to be. Now, don’t get me wrong. Human beings, by virtue of being human aren’t on their worst behavior when panic strikes. In fact, evidence suggests that in the presence of favorable systemic aid, planning and infrastructure, we may engage in behavior that benefits others. However, now place this in the context of the class disparity and foundational limitations and you’ll come to realize what a privilege ‘social’ or even ‘physical’ distancing can be in urban areas. Not to mention, the obvious economic implications for the working class.

Human behavior is largely created by patterns of regularity. We adapt, learn and create habits out of expected outcomes. So I hope that cognitive theorists (in any field) would forgive me this one time but Watson may have made a compelling argument. Human beings are not perpetually logical, but depend on their environment to behave a certain way. So what happens when an unfamiliar prospect is introduced? Because we’re hard wired to know the past, present and the future (As an aspiring researcher, I will agree), we try to make a quick inference and reach all possible deductions. Humor me for a minute and consider this example: my phone fell and I expected it to not break (because it hadn’t before even if it fell from a higher plane), but it did. The display was spoiled, and the screen started flickering. Please keep in mind that at this point, I did not have access to a laptop and had completed all my work on my phone. I felt my mouth drying up and my heart racing. I quickly opened the servicing portal for a repair, only to realize that it wasn’t operational. No delivery portal was functional for the next 21 days for electronic goods.

I consider myself a very practical woman. I believe in Ellis when he said that ‘we create an emotional problem out of a practical problem’. But that night when I realized that I had to tackle this without family, with limited resources, a thin possibility of returning home and the ghost of uncertainty, I sank into the bed and cried for a long time.

I am a 22 year old student of Psychology who did not know what hit her, this is my memoir of coping with the givens of adulthood, during a pandemic. To be continued…