Letters from Lockdown

I feel very blessed about the possibility of hearing your voices coming from all over the world.

This is connection, containment, intimate sharing, and deep support in a harsh and uncertain time.

Thank you all for being there, narrating your stories, your fears and fragilities, and for giving me the chance and the space to share my own.

I'm writing from the northmost part of Italy, locked down in my family town, a one-hour drive from the place where I usually live. My last weeks started with denial and a deep irritation about feeling bombarded with trivial, blown-up, and panic-inducing information.

I wasn't aware of the tsunami rising above us and ready to hit my beloved country with full impact.

I decided to prescribe myself a rigid social media and news diet in order to protect my psychological well-being, communicating my digital retirement even on Facebook. As a longtime world traveler and backpacker confronted with severe illnesses and critical hygienic conditions in minorly developed countries, I found myself shaking my head and glossing over what I felt was media-induced mass hysteria. In my grandiosity, I fiercely relied on the health of my immune system. I classified myself as not belonging to any of the risk groups, not yet informed about the intensity of the contagion risk and the chance that I could be a potential passive, asymptomatic transmitter. I shifted the responsibility to every single one of us, being responsible to guard his own health.

Now, I feel ashamed for this way of thinking, and I feel deeply betrayed by the local media and the government for not giving proper and crucial advice sooner.

From the beginning, I have been cautious, avoiding direct contact with anybody and switching to remote ways of meeting my patients.

A week ago, I developed flulike symptoms, starting with a sore throat, headache, and proceeding with a low rise of temperature, an enormous tiredness, and awkward muscular pain. For three days, I slept up to eighteen hours, waking up