We lived two years in the dark climate of the pandemic. And to a large extent we are still living in it, because the virus is mutating and finding soil again, but the feeling is not the same, and the fear of a possible quarantine is no longer as close as in past winters. We cannot say that we are completely out of danger. During these two years that we have lived, many things have invaded human life. Phenomena that have been accelerated, created, enhanced and even favored by the presence of the coronavirus. Because the pandemic has brought to the surface extraordinary suffering, but also positive in our lives.

Recently, there has been a massive loss of the elderly. Suddenly, not only famous people died, whose deaths became more visible, but also people living in the neighborhood. Of course, her advanced age justifies her death, but if we think about what preceded her, we can get a slightly different reading. During the pandemic, all people were burdened mentally and emotionally. Each age group experiences its own needs, and isolation brings to the surface the frustration of the desire for life, which is not very easy to put off or put off. But we rarely discussed how old age takes its toll. As old people, although their needs for rest and new adventures were not the same as those of teenagers, they experienced something extremely painful without necessarily realizing it.

Greek society, remaining largely secretive and hypocritical, came into greater contact with itself.

Firstly, people over 80 today are people whose life began traumatically – for some more, for some less – in the conditions of the Great Patriotic War, Civil War, poverty, social unrest and violent separations. This is a generation of people who were born in devastated Greece, lost their parents, lost brothers and sisters, probably starved, and some were forced to lose their home or even their homeland. These people, who managed to go through a significant life cycle, faced an extremely dangerous and terrifying virus at a point in their lives when primal fears were resurfacing, in any case due to age. In addition, they were locked in their homes, may have lost the face of their family or companionship, had difficulty with medical care, even with the ability to go outside for a bit to talk. Loneliness came in the form of an unprecedented and primitive threat. Their fantasy was associated with the feeling of helplessness they might experience in their first years of life. While those with families and small children found a cocoon in the pandemic to repopulate and live together, these people’s parents found themselves alone and isolated. And what the young and middle-aged people saw, looking forward to the future of science, the old people could no longer see at all. Because the only future they look forward to is their present, and it was caught out of fear of an airborne virus. No one wants to die no matter how old they are, and we sometimes tend to forget this as we pay more attention to other age groups that are more active, more consuming, more socially beneficial, or even strong voting rights. Thus, it is no coincidence that over the past few months, with the lifting of quarantine, we have seen many elderly people fade, lose mobility, their health deteriorates sharply and they experience more severe depression or even accelerated dementia as a phenomenon that is influenced by many factors – age , organic, but also intrapsychic. The previous two years had been precious to them, and the burden had been piling up, those two years had meant so much more to the situation they were in.

In addition to other phenomena that have been aggravated or exposed by the pandemic such as domestic violence, femicides, as well as other phenomena such as the last one that shocked Greek public opinion with a 12-year-old child. Here the pandemic has worked exponentially, like a force calming the perch to hear the deepest cries of that side of society that is sick, irreparably wounded and wounded. This sick part of society, which has existed for centuries, but covered by the noise of external mobility, has now become deafeningly demanding prevention and treatment.

The pandemic has been positive. Greek society, remaining largely secretive and hypocritical, came into greater contact with itself. Many members of this society have forcibly, unwittingly, or even constantly realized the need to face themselves and their traumas through psychotherapy. The taboo seems to have been broken. This does not mean that this alone is enough. But this is a start. We have begun to see something in our mirror, and this can only be beneficial as long as this continues.