Mental health

I am no expert, and as I get older I start to understand some of the issues that can happen - but just touching the surface.

It is a strange subject in some ways - so many things in life we can try out and see for ourselves. I love that science and mathematics are things you can try and test and see and intuitively understand if you try. But mental health is not quite so easy.

You can't really experiment on others, or yourself, and see how it works. I wonder how people that do work with those with mental health issues cope themselves even. They may not be experimenting but they are experiencing the issues of others.

The lockdown, and isolation, we all face in the last few months has been unexpected, and is pretty much unprecedented for most people alive now. It is a change in the way we interact with other people, and that is new and different for most of us.

Interacting can be face to face, or via telephone, email, video call, irc, chat, etc. I am someone that does not interact a lot face to face - I spend my days in my "man cave". I do interact a lot by text means normally, but not a lot face to face. I am not a very social person, usually. Someone said I was asocial rather than anti-social.

So I expected that the degree of isolation would be no problem - I was not quite right on that. Just the little bit of social interaction almost every day (mainly cycling to Costa and having breakfast and a coffee) was enough, and now that is gone. Should that matter?

Video calling is a boon, it helps, but even that is more effort that it seems it should be, even just a few clicks on a portal. Going for a walk, even with no interaction with others, does help, but feels like hard work.

These are strange times, and I expect this is all something we can work to live with. I find some days I am fine, and some days I am not. I have my wife, and some of my family, here with me, but there are people that are really on their own. I wonder how they cope.

It is strange finding mental health is a thing I can observe and study in my self, but not an easy subject to study, and one that may mean drinking too much on occasion as well.

This must be a huge issue for those considering manned space missions in the future.