with the “nostalgic” of confinement | EUROtoday

ILya 5 years, March 17, 2020. France was fighting an unknown virus and has a (first) flight of instances. The nation is stopped, its inhabitants, pressured to isolation. And a time period, hitherto confined to navy and scientific circles, abruptly between the vocabulary of the French: “confinement”. Five weeks of digicam, outings restricted to a radius of 1 kilometer, and restricted journeys to “essential” actions. An unprecedented scenario.

Beginning for a lot of, it’s nonetheless, for others, the distinctive alternative of a salutary break. Where the prohibition provides approach to pure membership, and confinement, to the chance to reconnect with themselves, to get nearer to theirs, if to not break with a every day life with out respite. To the purpose that 13 % of French then confined specific feeling “psychologically better” than they had been earlier than this imposed withdrawal (Yougov for SocietyMarch 2020).

“It was so sweet …”, remembers Mathilde, 44 years outdated. Single and mom of two boys (on the time aged 6 and 9), the 40’s remembers with nostalgia these weeks of confinement of their Parisian house. Their small weekly “boys”, the conversations in visio stretching, the unprecedented calm of their lodging giving on the boulevard. “I think what I preferred was still this life in slow motion,” she says. “I stopped, finally, to run after the watch. »»

Finished the mornings on the wire, to prepare his two boys, put them at school, jump in the metro in time, find a place there for the next forty-five minutes, and worry that “line 13 falls further out”. “This confinement was a lot of less mental load,” recalls this employee in the media, however on deck. “It was an easier daily life,” she sums up with regret. Aside for my children, I would not be bothered that there are new ones … “

“This other relationship to time has relieved many of us,” waves Vincent Cocquebert, journalist and author of Cocoon civilization (Arkhê, 2021). This “suspension”, for what we no longer had to plan or plan, “allowed us to adopt personalized management of our days”. And their “languor”, new, to decelerate the rhythm. A beneficial situation for all those, who overwhelmed by a daily life led by “do not manage to articulate their daily life”.

“It was almost shameful to say that we loved confinement”

“It was a welcome break,” says Christopher Lesage, 35, who observed containment from his apartment in Seine-et-Marne. As a childless couple, the young man, manager in perfumery, then sees his activity, considered “non -essential”, stopped. “It allowed me to take stock of what I wanted and didn’t want it anymore,” he says. A fruitful moment: “Today, I created my business, became my own chef. And everything started from this moment, this assessment … “

The 30 -year -old also takes advantage of it to learn meditation, yoga, and dive into the novels that sleep on his bedside table. But also get in the kitchen, and adopt new, healthier habits: “I was finally able to worry about my mental and physical well-being. A beneficial withdrawal. “I had a little trouble admitting it, because it was difficult to bear for many, but I lived this confinement very very well!” “Confides the young man with a smile.

Christine Barois, psychiatrist and author of No need to be Danish to be happy at home (Leduc, 2024), observed the same benefits in several of his patients. The same feeling contained, too: “Because it was a deprivation of our freedoms and that it generated a lot of suffering (illness, death, tension in hospitals, economic crisis), it was almost shameful to say that you liked confinement. But that was the case for a number of us… ”she confirms.

“It was a bubble of happiness,” says Thomas, 29. So a pupil, the younger man flees his Parisian studio and takes refuge together with his sister within the Norman countryside. There, he discovers the enjoyment of walks within the forest, the satisfaction of cooking for others than him, and the pleasure of Pouponner. “The parents of my little nephew continued to go to work, so I played nannies, and I loved it!” A closed life, held removed from data and their epidemic curves. “I did not follow the news, too anxiety -provoking …”

An affidavit that hardly surprises Vincent Cocquebert. “Riding the world, bringing it back to our own measure allows (a fortiori in a hostile, scary and indecipherable period) to find a certain feeling of control. And creating, around you, a “bubble”, of which we become “the big orders”, amounts to “identifying a little better the contours of its existence”. Paradoxically, being confined returned for some “to regain control of their daily lives”.

“I wonder if it is not a fantasized nostalgia …”

Thus Thomas, usually “very sociable”, he further accentuated his withdrawal. “I almost cut any social relationship, I put my laptop aside, and nothing attached me to the outside world,” he says. A period of which he says he keeps a relationship with others more “balanced”: “I was in a form of social” bulimia “. Since containment, I no longer feel obliged to answer “yes” to everybody and everybody. »»

“Our way of life requires robust social and particular person strain. And having been, by means of confinement, launched from a number of of those injunctions has confirmed to be a aid for a lot of, “confirms Christine Barois, whose cupboard additionally echoed this momentary respite. “Not having to respond to external solicitations, or not feed regrets because they cannot be honored has been very relaxing,” abounds Mathilde.

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“I sometimes wonder if it is not a fantasized nostalgia …” resumes the mom, nonetheless. “Sometimes it is enough that I am talking about loved ones so that they would remind me of how much it was happening to me to complain. »A largely shared duplicity, to hear Christine Barois. Many show, with confinement, a “selective reminiscence”, notes the psychiatrist. “They are likely to preserve solely good recollections, however fairly often,” she recalls, “this era was lived in a way more ambivalent method. »»

Whether he has fantasized or not fantasized, Thomas retains essentially the most “happy” reminiscence of this “suspended moment”: “I may never again live at this point the present moment, simply, with the people around me. “If there was the potential of being confined once more,” says the twenty -year -old, I would answer that I sign immediately! ” »»