“Free­dom is like health, it is tak­en for grant­ed while one has it. One be­comes aware of it when it has gone.”—Hen­ry Wal­lich (Ger­man-Amer­i­can econ­o­mist and cen­tral banker)

This quote is prob­a­bly the best way to de­scribe, in hind­sight, the view and feel­ing of many whose lives have been up­heaved by the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

From phys­i­cal dis­tanc­ing, the wear­ing of masks, the shut­down of recre­ation­al spaces to lock­down and the stay-at-home or­der—free­dom and so­cial life as we once knew it has dras­ti­cal­ly changed, stolen by a mi­crobe, whose end, no one re­al­ly knows or can pre­dict just yet.

Glob­al­ly peo­ple have been tak­ing to so­cial me­dia, seem­ing­ly the on­ly fo­rum for some sort of sense of so­cial gath­er­ing, shar­ing their sto­ries of how the so­cial re­stric­tions caused by the virus have im­pact­ed them. Mul­ti­ple videos are post­ed dai­ly of ac­tiv­i­ties which fam­i­lies, cou­ples and oth­ers are do­ing in their homes to make life lighter and less frus­trat­ing at this time.

Guardian Me­dia did a so­cial me­dia poll ask­ing peo­ple what they missed and what they thought they might have tak­en for grant­ed pre-COVID-19. The re­sults re­vealed, quite com­mon­ly, they sore­ly missed the sim­pler things in life that made their free­dom worth­while, but al­so what they might have un­der­ap­pre­ci­at­ed.

These ef­fort­less things in­clud­ed hugs, hang­ing out with friends, go­ing for dri­ves, vis­it­ing fam­i­ly, din­ing, tak­ing a walk, go­ing to church, stand­ing in few­er lines at the gro­cer’s cashier rather than the long lines now re­quired just to get in, and many longed for the op­por­tu­ni­ty to spend a day at the beach again—an el­e­ment not many can recre­ate at home.

What peo­ple miss

Archie El Dami­an: "Go­ing for walks, when­ev­er I feel like it."

Melis­sa Ochoa wrote, "I nev­er took much for grant­ed but I miss the beach and restau­rants. I was miss­ing go­ing to church but not any more. I'm dis­ap­point­ed in most re­ac­tions to crises in some church­es. Not all. I am the church. Where I am we fel­low­ship."

Rober­ta Rose-Collins miss­es go­ing to the beach. "For me, that’s more of a self-care ac­tiv­i­ty than any­thing else. I rarely go in­to the wa­ter, but love walk­ing on the sand and soak­ing up the en­er­gy of the ocean.

"I am not sure I took it for grant­ed, be­cause I was al­ways grate­ful that I live on an is­land where qual­i­ty beach­es with true blue wa­ter and clean white sand, is just a few min­utes from my home in any di­rec­tion. But I def­i­nite­ly miss it.

"If I were in An­guil­la now, I would have at least had the op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­plen­ish my soul with a beach walk, de­spite COVID-19.

Riyadh Mo­hammed: "Free­dom to take that dri­ve to any­where."

Lisa Beck­les said: "Vis­its to my dad in the home where he is, my hair­dress­er, and go­ing to church."

Ru­by Williams, "I miss hug­ging my grand­chil­dren.

Ali­cia Coop­er: "I ac­tu­al­ly miss work."

Giselle Nico­la Jones: "Vis­its with fam­i­ly, we are a close-knit fam­i­ly so we spend a lot of time to­geth­er, so it's been rough."

Choc Di­a­mond: "I miss the feel­ing of free­dom! I miss go­ing to the gym, tak­ing a walk around the sa­van­nah, and not hav­ing to wear a face cov­er­ing."

Kay Greenidge: "I miss my stu­dents not be­ing able to be in touch with those who don't have phones, not know­ing if they have food or if they're safe..."

De­siree Di­az: "I’m miss­ing go­ing to run in the morn­ings and gym in the evenings. So I have to be look­ing for ac­tiv­i­ties at home just to keep mov­ing."

Anes­sa Si­mone Hamil­ton Leg­en: "I'm a hug­ger. So­cial dis­tanc­ing has been tough. I miss run­ning by my par­ents and big fam­i­ly gath­er­ings."

Abi­o­la Samp­son: "Miss go­ing out for cock­tails and hav­ing the op­tion of not cook­ing."

Krys­tal Jack: "Sports! This is the sea­son for crick­et. I miss my team, the sus­pense of each game, the joy, the ca­ma­raderie, and the en­ter­tain­ment..."

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Tracey Michelle Gomez: "I miss trav­el­ling. The op­por­tu­ni­ty to be out­doors and en­joy na­ture, par­tic­u­lar­ly the poui at this time of the year."

Aiesha Oliv­er: "I miss out­ings with my kids, beach, restau­rants, pools, malls. I feel trapped."

Salma Moh: "I miss us be­ing able to go to the beach, fly a kite, the pool, etc. We are an out­doors fam­i­ly...this has lim­it­ed us great­ly...kind of de­press­ing hon­est­ly..."

De­bra Gra­ham: "Miss be­ing with fam­i­ly and friends. What I took for grant­ed as I live pay cheque to pay cheque, not fight­ing hard to save."

Ali­cia Thomas: "I miss not be­ing able to go out as I want. It's just work and home, the gro­cery if I need to stock up. I miss not hav­ing all the stores open to shop. Oth­er than that, I'm good by God’s grace."

Sarah L Romero: "I miss my fi­nan­cial in­de­pen­dence be­cause I can’t work."

Joyce John: "I miss go­ing out with my son. Din­ner, beach, movies and just go­ing fur­ther than work."

Sil­vern No­ra: "Peace of mind, I took sim­ple things for grant­ed. Be­ing able to see some­one sneeze and not pan­ic, tak­ing a walk, and oth­er sim­ple af­fec­tion. You nev­er miss the wa­ter till the well runs dry in­deed."

An­na-Maria Seemu­n­gal: "I miss Na­ture. I miss hik­ing to beach­es, rivers, and wa­ter­falls. I miss my hik­ing crew. I miss see­ing new places and I miss tak­ing out pic­tures of those places and things on the treks."

Shelly-Ann Seer­am: "I have to ap­pre­ci­ate my health and well­ness es­pe­cial­ly. I miss my peace of mind, where I don't have to wor­ry or be para­noid about a fa­tal dis­ease. I miss mak­ing a stress-free, trau­ma-free trip to the phar­ma­cy and su­per­mar­ket. I am para­noid since the night be­fore. I have sleep­less nights. I miss go­ing to these places with­out suit­ing up for a bat­tle with an in­vis­i­ble op­po­nent...Too much stress and trau­ma."

Rea Eva John­son: "I miss go­ing to the mall, beach, cin­e­ma, restau­rants, and trav­el­ling out of the coun­try, and I miss my stu­dents. I miss my moth­er, sis­ter, niece, and all my fam­i­ly. We went from see­ing each oth­er every oth­er week in re­al life to just see­ing each oth­er in video calls. I miss Ed­die Hart sa­van­nah."

Ang­ie Sookdeo: "I'm a front-line work­er ... I miss not be­ing able to be up close and per­son­al with my clients in their most vul­ner­a­ble time. Labour and child­birth are hands-on, now there are so many re­stric­tions im­ple­ment­ed."

Be­hav­iour­al ther­a­pist speaks

We en­gaged be­hav­iour­al ther­a­pist Judy Joseph-Mc Sween to as­sess the re­spons­es by poll par­tic­i­pants for com­mon­al­i­ties and oth­er specifics. She al­so looked at how this ex­pe­ri­ence would cause be­hav­iour­al changes post-COVID-19, at an in­di­vid­ual and so­cial lev­el.

Joseph-Mc Sween re­ferred to the Amer­i­can psy­chol­o­gist Abra­ham Maslow’s hi­er­ar­chy of needs the­o­ry, which com­prised a five-tier mod­el of hu­man needs—phys­i­o­log­i­cal, safe­ty, love and be­long­ing, es­teem, and self-ac­tu­al­i­sa­tion. (SEE SIDE BAR).

Speak­ing on par­tic­i­pant’s over­all need to en­joy the sim­pler things in life again, Joseph-Mc Sween ex­plained that in Maslow’s the­o­ry of hu­man mo­ti­va­tion, he iden­ti­fies that hu­man be­ings are mo­ti­vat­ed by un­sat­is­fied needs and that cer­tain low­er needs need to be sat­is­fied be­fore high­er needs can be sat­is­fied. "Sat­is­fy­ing needs is healthy, while pre­vent­ing grat­i­fi­ca­tion makes us sick or act evil­ly," she said.

"If we look at these needs in the con­text of the cur­rent COVID-19, for each of us, some com­bi­na­tion of these needs is not be­ing ad­e­quate­ly met. More sig­nif­i­cant­ly, for all of us, our de­sire for safe­ty (the sec­ond need) is not be­ing ful­ly met. A re­minder that cer­tain low­er needs need to be sat­is­fied be­fore high­er needs can be sat­is­fied."

She said peo­ple’s re­sponse to this un­known and un­cer­tain pan­dem­ic was an amal­ga­ma­tion of anx­i­ety and fear, as a por­tion of the brain known as the amyg­dala se­cretes in­creas­ing lev­els of cor­ti­sol caus­ing peo­ple to en­ter in­to what is com­mon­ly termed the "fight, flight or freeze mode.”

She ex­plained this anx­i­ety was fur­ther ag­gra­vat­ed by the ab­sence of fa­mil­iar rou­tines.

"The pres­ence of a lock­down and phys­i­cal dis­tanc­ing means the fa­mil­iar are ab­sent—no hug, no gym, no bar, no beach or no mall, no love and be­long­ing (third need)," Joseph-Mc Sween said.

"We have each de­vel­oped rhythms that as­sist us in ma­noeu­vring our dai­ly bouts of anx­i­ety and fear. This rhythm of ac­tiv­i­ties stim­u­lates an­oth­er part of the brain—the pre­frontal cor­tex, that se­cretes oxy­tocin, there­by coun­ter­ing the im­pact of the cor­ti­sol, restor­ing a sense of fo­cus, clar­i­ty, peace, and pres­ence. Be­ing ful­ly present to na­ture’s rhythms height­ens the pro­duc­tion of oxy­tocin—the ebb and flow of the tide, sun­rise and sun­set, the birds at dawn, the in­sects at night."

She said cur­rent­ly, the ul­ti­mate crav­ing by every­one af­fect­ed by the so­cial com­pli­ca­tions as­so­ci­at­ed with and caused by COVID-19, was for the restora­tion of that sense of peace, that ac­com­pa­nies the knowl­edge that needs have been met.

"I en­cour­age all, rather than wait­ing for post-COVID-19, we be­gin to seek new rhythms, form new re­la­tion­ships and em­brace the wis­dom that aris­es in si­lence," Joseph-Mc Sween rec­om­mend­ed.

BOX in fine print

Hu­man needs

1. Phys­i­o­log­i­cal--ba­sic phys­i­cal needs like drink­ing when thirsty or eat­ing when hun­gry.

2. Safe­ty--a need for safe and pre­dictable en­vi­ron­ments and typ­i­cal­ly re­act with fear or anx­i­ety when these are not met. Safe­ty needs are more ap­par­ent in emer­gency sit­u­a­tions

3.Love and be­long­ing--feel­ing loved and ac­cept­ed. This need in­cludes both ro­man­tic re­la­tion­ships as well as ties to friends and fam­i­ly mem­bers. It al­so in­cludes our need to feel that we be­long to a so­cial group.

4.Es­teem--de­sire to feel good about our­selves. Ac­cord­ing to Maslow, es­teem needs in­clude two com­po­nents. The first in­volves feel­ing self-con­fi­dence and feel­ing good about one­self. The sec­ond com­po­nent in­volves feel­ing val­ued by oth­ers; that is, feel­ing that our achieve­ments and con­tri­bu­tions have been recog­nised by oth­er peo­ple.

5.Self-Ac­tu­al­i­sa­tion--feel­ing ful­filled, or feel­ing that we are liv­ing up to our po­ten­tial.