Very little surprises me anymore with regard to human behavior. I have studied human behavior from an individual and a social level. Individual behavior does not occur in a vacuum. Working in the prison system, as I did for many years, also acquaints you with the variety of ways that people respond under threat.
Nothing was more challenging than what would be called by most, solitary confinement. The condition of being alone in a cell for 23 hours, but generally 24 hours a day, because after being in confinement for a while, people often don’t want to come out.
You see, people deprived of normal socialization and stimulation often develop a special sort of agoraphobia, one that is created by circumstance. People sometimes completely lose touch with reality.
But this is only one part of the scenario. Trying to help some people want to come out of solitary required developing a complex set of skills to overcome the behavioral and cognitive ramifications of isolation.
Now, many of us who are or have been in long-term self-isolation have certain advantages. We have television. We have the internet. We have phones, and the ability to videochat. We can go outside. If we are fortunate, we did not have a mental illness or some other pre-existing factor weighing us down. There are many who are itching for life to “go back to normal,” which is a fallacy in and of itself.
There are many in our country who have a longstanding mental illness that acted as a prison before, and as it is now with social distancing, it has became a solitary confinement. While self-isolation has ben necessary to protect us all, how can we help those who have lost reality to the self-isolation? I’d suggest that we start by contacting, contacting, and contacting people. Even if they don’t respond, they did receive your message. It is not about your getting a response, it is about the fact that you keep trying.
