For a while I wondered if I'm the outlier since I feel substantially better now than I did before going into isolation. Then some of my close friends who were on anti-depression or anti-anxiety medication told me the same. They actually stopped taking the medication for months with no signs that the symptoms are coming back.

It's anecdotal and I have no idea how widespread this is or why it happens, at least to people for whom self-isolation didn't work in the past. I can only imagine that the isolation may relieve some of the social pressure without leaving you with the feeling that you have to go to extraordinary measures to achieve it, it doesn't feel so self inflicted like self-isolation does under regular conditions. Now it's an external cause and applies to everybody.

My worktime shifted more towards evening / night which is good for me because I’m a night owl and seemingly can only think very deeply at night. Having to work 9-5 with all its distractions can make me depressed as I start to make more mistakes or don’t really „get into“ things and produce shallow work. After being unsatisfied with my work for some time I tend to lose trust in my abilities. Did you observe something similar for you? Some colleagues also shifted towards evenings (many more evening chats right now).

I don't know how widely this applies, but sometimes undirected anxiety is harder to deal with than being worried about a specific thing. And if you're going to be anxious no matter what, then external circumstances might not affect the intensity of the anxiety as much as would seem logical. So it's possible that some people have benefited from having a very concrete threat to focus on, and relatively clear steps to minimise the risk.

(I'm not trying to push this too far: I assume it mostly applies to people who have enough control over their lives to take the necessary precautions, and who are fortunate enough that the threat to them and their loved ones remains a possibility rather than a tragic reality. And I know that the exact opposite can happen: sometimes external threats just multiply the pre-existing anxiety and make it even harder to cope.)

This article from late April addresses this phenomenon: https://www.thedailybeast.com/coronavirus-is-making-a-lot-of...

I think it’s even deeper than that. Human society has changed a lot really quickly, it would be unreasonable to expect a seamless transition. Similar to how wild animals in captivity suffer from tremendous stress due to their environment, the pressures from living in our society are massive.

Compared to say living in 1000 AD. Family units are smaller, life is more fast paced and it’s way more complicated with all the credit cards, the often difficult legal system, and ever present “connection” to one another through messaging and social media. During this pandemic I’ve deleted all my social media accounts and even though I’m less “connected” now, I feel much better than before and the world even feels more real to me.