"Extreme fatigue and crippling anxiety are well known symptoms of profound psychological disturbance. Their physical manifestations may be labelled “psychosomatic” but that is not tantamount to saying that they are imaginary or that they can be consciously controlled. The word “psychosomatic” simply means that a condition of the mind is having an effect on the body – and the effect is perceptibly real. In fact, what we might be witnessing is an epidemic of neurosis – sometimes perhaps bordering on psychosis – whose symptoms may be diffuse but which all have the same effect: a reluctance to leave home that is so persistent and severe as to constitute a kind of agoraphobia. And further, is it possible that, as well as those who openly admit to such fear, there is a category of what we could call quiet phobics: people who have decided to work less or not at all – perhaps taking early retirement – even if that means being poorer, because they have discovered that they “prefer staying at home”? I can understand the arguments for this: the stress and expense of commuting, an escape from office politics and the demands of employers. And yet…isn’t there something a bit odd about this sudden overturning of what used to be the normal expectation of adult life, especially among the professional classes whose upbringing and education had been geared to providing a fulfilling career? How is it that – apparently in a spontaneous instant – such a large number of grown-up responsible people should have decided to chuck it all in and withdraw from the primary arena of social interaction that work represents?"
Lockdown turned Britain into a nation of neurotics who still cling to their homes (telegraph.co.uk)
