4 minute read
Archie Todd-Leask (C1 L6
Aoife Guinness (IH Re)
The Covid lockdown has been really tough for mental health. Being isolated has resulted in people feeling bored, frustrated and sad because of the lack of freedom and physical contact. Despite the lockdown being hard for everyone, confinement is taxing in different ways for extroverts and introverts. The stereotypical idea is that an extrovert is as an outgoing, socially confident person and an introvert is a shy, reticent person. I will explain how the Covid lockdown is challenging extroverts and introverts by studying Woman A and Woman B and how they are managing through the isolation.
Woman A and Woman B have very similar, if not identical, living environments: both women live in small rural towns in pleasant houses, each with their partner, two children and dog. They both have an acre of lush garden surrounding their houses and many open fields nearby for walks. Both women are journalists who commute to London weekly for meetings and they each earn a good salary. The two women have normal day-today worries of a middle-aged working mother.
Despite leading parallel lives, for the sake of the argument, let’s say Woman A is an extrovert and Woman B is an introvert. Now let’s analyse how both women have coped with the Covid lockdown according to either their extrovert or introvert characters.
In pre-lockdown times, Woman A would see about 10 friends a day through the school run, gym, work, food shopping, book club, evening drinks etc. She is energised by social interaction, communicating and seeing friends face to face.
Nevertheless, the Covid lockdown has turned Woman A’s world upside down. No more socialising, drinks parties or holidays; she is housebound. How would Woman A recharge her batteries by social interaction when that was illegal?
At the beginning of the lockdown, Woman A became louder, to try to get input from her partner and children and to receive the contact she thrives on. Though Woman A has a close and loving relationship with her household, they were incapable of providing her with the external stimulus and energy she needed. The lack of attention caused Woman A to withdraw to an inner dark and dismal world. Woman A is no longer the happy-golucky extrovert but a rather low and depressed character due to this lockdown. Extroverts are being challenged to re-energise themselves without social interaction.
The majority of society would assume that introverts are finding it easier to cope in lockdown than extroverts. This is because introverts are typically re-energised by peace and quiet and they are happier than extroverts to spend time alone. Introverts often like having space to process information and to connect with their feelings. However, this doesn’t mean that lockdown is natural for introverts: lockdown just affects them in a different way.
In pre-lockdown times, Woman B would see a couple of friends a week for lunches or dog walks. Although Woman B is said to be an introvert, she is still a sociable person and appreciates time with her friends; she is not a hermit. What makes Woman B an introvert is that she re-energises through social withdrawal and solitude. When she has needed to energise herself, she would take herself off for an hour or so of ‘me-time’; she would do something for herself and by herself, like having a relaxing bath or watching some TV.
However, since the Covid lockdown, Woman B has had her partner and children working from home, so their house has not been as quiet as usual. It is hard for Woman B because with everyone at home, there is rarely a time when she is alone to re-charge her batteries. This has made Woman B into a rather hot-tempered and cranky character because she has not been able to have the space she usually has. Though she has a close and loving relationship with her partner and children, Woman B feels claustrophobic with them at home all of the time. These feelings have made her behaviour flip.
Woman B is exhausted from all of the introversion energy that the lockdown has created; she desperately wants to be seeing people. There is enough quiet and withdrawing in isolation that her normal feelings of needing solitude have disappeared. Lockdown has made Woman B desire human interaction so much more than she did before.
I have discussed how Covid lockdown is challenging extrovert and introvert characters in different ways: extroverts are feeling gloomy and dispirited because of the lack of human interaction and introverts are eager for a busier life of socialising because they are fed up with the lockdown. Extrovert and introvert characters have almost swapped places. In lockdown, both woman A and B seek external company and continue to dog walk with one friend as per the rules. In this way, two opposing characters are actually coping in quite a similar way. Hence, they are more alike than they perhaps would be in ‘normal life’. Isolation during lockdown has been tough for both extroverts and introverts in different ways but, to conclude, equally hard.
William Blake’s Ancient of Days (1795) and Newton (1795): extrovert and introvert? Both are playing with compasses, one of them across the cosmos, one at the bottom of the ocean
