“The trauma remains heavy”: two years later, confinement continues to mark the spirits in Toulouse
By Quentin Marais
Published on
Tuesday, March 17, 2020. Noon. 67.4 million French people have an obligation to stay at home, unless there is a compelling reason, to fight against an adversary, covid-19. More than 700 days have marched since. Lowered and then finally raised as the epidemic progressed, the restrictions are practically no longer on the agenda. Unlike a “trauma, which is still heavy”, according to a psychiatrist from Toulouse.
“Psychologically, a disaster”
A 75-year-old psychiatrist, Thierry Ginolhac works as a freelancer in several practices, in Toulouse and to Castres. He also officiates at the Lavaur hospital and at the Montberon clinic, and is finally an expert with the Toulouse Court of Appeal.
When asked to come back to the “sad” anniversary of this first confinement, he affirms it bluntly: “I am very clear: it was a psychological disaster.
“The problem with man, if we do a little anthropology, is that he is a social animal. Confinement, the fact of being isolated, is something that is counterproductive, contrary to what what can man do. He has always needed to have a social life. The fact of not being able to live, of not finding a social life, has been a disaster for people.”
Everything accelerated in the fall of 2020
Throughout France, psychologists and psychiatrists have been in high demand. But on the side of the Toulouse cabinet, this influx was slow to arrive. “During the first lockdown, people felt like they can no longer come for consultation. There was a decrease in consultations, even among people who were already followed, ”says Thierry Ginolhac.
The trend was turned upside down at the end of October 2020, when the second confinement arrived. “We were able to make patients understand that, on the contrary, they had to come for treatment. There, there was a significant increase in consultations. With hindsight, it is impossible to quantify with precision: “I work just in time,” he smiles.
The family as an X factor
Among the patients he has been able to consult since, the psychiatrist mentions a fracture which separates them in two. “People who have close families, reassuring, reassuring and available have, from the outset, ‘more chances’ of coping with difficulties than the others. »
“People who have an important, structuring and satisfactory family environment, why do they do better than those who are in very poor psychologically environments, or downright who have no one and who, themselves, will find themselves in a situation of greater suffering. There is no equality unfortunately, and that has been very clear in what we have seen in all these months.”
Thierry Ginolhac embraces while evoking young people. “The student who found herself alone in her small room in Cité U, who arrives in Toulouse without a boyfriend, it is a disaster… But the one who was ‘lucky’ to be able to live with the parents with the brothers and sisters, kept this structure around him, and will therefore be much less impacted. »
“People are still talking about it”
24 months later, the difficult psychiatrist remarks: “People have not solved the problem of this. They still talk about it So that proves it’s not over.”
After having spoken several times of disaster, he uses the term “trauma”, which he considers “still heavy in many people”.
“A few days ago, I went to one of the restaurants I usually go to. The boss told me that she was stopping her activity, because basically, the confinement and the restrictions have Difficulties in living psychologically for her. But beyond this example of the restaurateur, I have many people, still, who are psychologically impacted and in a suffering that remains difficult [à vivre].”
Thierry Ginolhac adds: “the more fragile personalities, of the neurotic or drug addict type, are those that we see the most, because they are weakened by the current environment”. But since February 24, it is another problem that must be apprehended: the war in Ukraine. ” We left for a ride. It’s dramatic what is happening, I already feel anxiety in my patients in relation to that. It’s one more element…”
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