There is a lockdown and being in a toxic family of people with anger management issues and a lockdown of having to live in a complete isolation. Since the beginning of Covid there has been a spike in mental health issues and that includes domestic violence cases with anger management problems and suicide. This is a confession of an eligible bachelor with no history of past mental health issues and how his health gradually deteriorated since the onset of Covid.

Q. Could you first give us some background about what your life was like before the lockdown?

I am professionally qualified and I am working in Finance at the middle level in London and in office of over thousand people. I am single and before Covid I was active on the social and dating scene. I enjoyed Friday night drinks with my colleagues in the glamorous London bars and socialising with my friends. During weekends I would have friends visiting me or I visiting them and we would go out for dinner. I enjoyed frequent take-away food and my cleaner would come round my house and do the cleaning. Having been single and busy socialising, and having lived a fast-paced city life, I never felt the vacuum of having no one around. I know that you are specialising in anger management issues, I can confirm I consider myself overall healthy except the two odd anger management outbursts per year.

Q. A couple of weeks ago I noticed that you looked different. You had lost the spark in your eyes, you appeared depressed and you denied it. I told you that I was there for you if you needed to talk. A few days later you called me and admitted that you were not well and that you would like to talk me. You said you felt panicky and were noticing some negative changes that you have been going through, what are they?

Since the lockdown started I had to work from home and initially everything seemed fine. Later, I started experiencing some back and neck issues that resulted from working from home. That exacerbated as the weeks passed by which led to feelings of numbness in my body and a developing headache. The physical pain then led to irritability and it brought a lot of negativity in my mind and having anger management issues like the other day when I was short with you on the phone. The developing negative thoughts were aggravated because I am deprived of having social life and I have to be on my own and this makes me feel angry. Simply put, instead of enjoying a cocktail in one of the finest London bars, I am dealing with a toxic cocktail of number of Covid related issues. My life was reduced from working in an office of over thousand workers and being a social animal to sitting down at home alone and trying to work out how to clean my toilet bowl.

Q. You said that you developed negative thoughts, what are they and have you developed any anger management issues?

I am going into spiral of anything that comes into my mind, mainly in terms of the past. I have so much spare time on my hands, I am going into things a lot. The past opportunities that I missed, things I did or did not do. I am self-pitying because of not being able to find love and I can see I am developing anger management issues. I find myself being short-fused with my dates on face time. I am thinking over the ambitions I had and wasting lots of time in my youth. You don’t realise all of that when you are busy and free, you suddenly start reflecting. I felt also panicky. The NHS will see you after a week if you get ill and I was worrying how I would cope being here alone. Things could have been much better is what I am thinking. I feel flashes of depression, flashes of being depressed and if this continues, I am concerned this may develop into a full blown depression in the future.

‘When tragedy strikes you know who your real friends are and who are self-centred narcissists’

Q. How are you dealing with those flashes of depression?

I am trying to deal with it by sharing how I feel with my friends which I have shared with you now and that already makes me feel better. Also, I go out doing physical activities and I can see the difference and the days that I don’t go out, I can see I go into the spiral of negative thoughts. The only reason I am still able to manage the isolation is thanks to the social structure that I have. I speak to my family on face-time, had it not been for them I could have been a completely different person. When tragedy strikes you know who your real friends are. I have the privilege to have some kind friends in London and abroad. We have been speaking on regular basis and without this social structure it could have been much worse. At the beginning of Covid my friends and I committed to being helpful to each other and that gives us a lot of emotional comfort. Hence I want to emphasise how important it is to have genuine friends and not narcissists who are not there when you need them.

Q. You mentioned that you are single. Have you noticed any changes among general public outside when you go out shopping or when you are online dating?

Yes I have. I can see a spike in people using the dating applications, but people disengage and that is disheartening and it makes me see I am developing anger management issues. I will flare-up easily, lose interest in women easily when things don’t go my way, which is something I would not do in the past, I can see myself being ratty.

Q. What advice would you give to people who are single and don’t have the social support that you have?

If you have no family, you can still create a social structure by reaching out to people and see if people are responding, not everyone will respond but a few will. There are avenues through helplines, people should reach out to psychologists, they can reach out to people like you who can help them create a plan how to get out of this anger management Covid downward spiral before things get completely out of hand.

If you have been affected by this article or have been noticing developing mental health issues that includes a poor anger management please call Leona Sears to schedule a Skype session on 07 505 124 933.