About midway through Melbourne’s extended COVID lockdown I found myself living alone for the first time in my adult life.
I had just turned 50 and suddenly — apart from my cat — my friends became the new centre of my support ecosystem. Even within the limits of COVID restrictions, they didn’t let me down.
In fact, as I became accustomed to meeting my single bubble friend for beach walks in my local area, and felt myself thrive in my own solitary work, cycling and yoga routine I almost enjoyed the extended lockdowns.
Yet with lockdowns now lifted, something unexpected has happened: many of us have felt reluctant to dive back into our previously crowded social lives.
Instead of embracing new-found post-COVID freedom, the thought of re-immersing ourselves in crowded social settings, and navigating old friendships that have been left dormant and disembodied during COVID, has become a source of anxiety.
Many have been left wondering: will our social worlds ever feel quite the same again?
“COVID is a natural social experiment and COVID lockdowns made people more acutely aware of how critical meaningful social connection actually is,” says Dr Michelle H Lim from Swinburne University of Technology’s Iverson Health Innovation Research Institute and Centre for Mental Health.
Yet Lim, who led a longitudinal study into how social restrictions impacted loneliness, social anxiety and depression, says the biggest surprise to emerge from her research was a significant rise in social anxiety.
“Perhaps unsurprisingly, loneliness reduced as the restrictions started to ease and levels of depression also marginally decreased. But our less expected finding was that … people had become used to not interacting with others in person during lockdowns and as the social restrictions reduced people reported feeling more socially anxious.”
COVID left us alone, then anxious to reconnect
Researchers isolated survey data from the UK, US and Australia to look at how COVID social restrictions affected people’s ability to feel meaningfully connected with others and the mental health symptoms this created.
The research involved comparing the levels of restrictions in each area through government mandated websites and tracked the impacts on people from the onset of the pandemic right through to when the restrictions were lifted.
The report found at least one in two Australians felt more lonely throughout the COVID pandemic, which may not be a big surprise to those who spent weeks isolating alone.
But the marked rise in feelings of social anxiety now that restrictions are gone is more unexpected, according to a new report, A Global Longitudinal Study Examining Social Restrictions Severity On Loneliness, Social Anxiety, and Depression.
“COVID lockdowns made people more acutely aware of how critical meaningful social connection actually is,” Lim says. “It was something many of us may have taken for granted until we were severely restricted in our social behaviours and routines.”
The research involved comparing the levels of restrictions in each area through government mandated websites and tracked the impacts on people throughout the onset of the pandemic right through to when the restrictions were lifted.
“Even though loneliness went down and lifting of the restrictions was supposed to be good for everyone, at the same time people’s social anxiety levels just went up,” says Lim.
Searching for connection again
Peta-Anne Louth, a 49-year-old mother of two and events consultant from Adelaide, says she coined her own phrase to describe the impacts of lockdowns on her life and friendship circles — she thinks of it as the “great clearing out”.
“This has been a time where we all sorted through big feelings of who we were as humans. Friendships became more important as our worlds became smaller and some friendships could withstand that intensity and some couldn’t,” she says.
“COVID was an intense time for everyone. A lot of us lost our jobs, lost income, so the need for connection was overwhelming.”
Louth says she lost one long-term friendship as she emerged from COVID with someone who had been an intense mutual support during the first lockdown.
“We had supported each other through the loss of a relationship and the failure of a business. The pandemic magnified these things and changed our friendship into something more akin to a co-dependent relationship,” she says.
“I think when we got to the other side of COVID we realised the relationship was no longer a healthy friendship. We made a decision that the friendship had run its course, which was incredibly heartbreaking, but we both feel we are on better paths now.”
Out of practice in being a friend
Perhaps it’s not surprising that friendships were lost during COVID. Those in Melbourne experienced two years of disembodied relationships and lost the rituals like coffee catch-ups, shared child minding or seeing live bands that normally characterise friendships.
Julie Sweet, a clinical psychotherapist in Sydney, says many of us are out of practice in conducting friendships post-COVID. We are now experiencing the anxiety of reconnecting.
“Lockdown, remote work and people having to redirect their attention and energy towards their families, children and even their own parents as opposed to friendships and connections, are all factors that I’ve recently found in my practice to have contributed to the breakdown of interpersonal relationships,” Sweet says.
Many of Sweet’s clients report exhaustion from trying to rebuild their old lives. Friendships are often the first thing to go as they de-clutter their lives.
Yet Sweet emphasises the importance of friendships for overall mental health.
“Friendships provide an essential protective layer to our lives,” she says. “They promote mental health and wellness and also cultivate a reciprocal lived experience that helps people to realise the anxiety they are experiencing is natural. I always tell my clients that those mental health benefits from friendships are well worth harnessing.”
Finding a post-COVID lifestyle
As we now emerge fully from COVID lockdowns around Australia, the Mayor of Latrobe City Council in Gippsland, Kellie O’Callaghan, says new anxieties are emerging in regional as well as urban areas.
Julie Sweet, a clinical psychotherapist in Sydney, says many of us are out of practice in conducting friendships post-COVID. We are now experiencing the anxiety of reconnecting.
“Lockdown, remote work and people having to redirect their attention and energy towards their families, children and even their own parents as opposed to friendships and connections, are all factors that I’ve recently found in my practice to have contributed to the breakdown of interpersonal relationships,” Sweet says.
Many of Sweet’s clients report exhaustion from trying to rebuild their old lives. Friendships are often the first thing to go as they de-clutter their lives.
Yet Sweet emphasises the importance of friendships for overall mental health.
“Friendships provide an essential protective layer to our lives,” she says. “They promote mental health and wellness and also cultivate a reciprocal lived experience that helps people to realise the anxiety they are experiencing is natural. I always tell my clients that those mental health benefits from friendships are well worth harnessing.”
Finding a post-COVID lifestyle
As we now emerge fully from COVID lockdowns around Australia, the Mayor of Latrobe City Council in Gippsland, Kellie O’Callaghan, says new anxieties are emerging in regional as well as urban areas.
james norman 