Mental health vs the virus
I've started and deleted more than a dozen posts like this. Since March I've endeavoured to write about mental health in correspondence to coronavirus and every time, I've come up empty. Maybe this time it'll stick.
So, in March I lost my job due to the virus. I was still living in Bath, in the last few months of my degree trying to complete it online. Lockdown from March to June was a strange time, my main focusses were university, decorating a flat and counting down the days to move back home in June. I don't think I had much time back then to be thinking about my mental health, it definitely wasn't great but unfortunately, it wasn't my priority. Then when I moved back to my family home in June, once I had settled in I found myself more still than I had ever been. I had gone from a frantic busyness, from time slipping out of my hands and not feeling like I could get everything done to suddenly having more time than I had ever needed. The summer was a blur, no real responsibilities, no tasks or to-do lists and no semblance of a schedule to adhere to. Whilst this sounds like the perfect summer for a 22-year-old graduate, it played tricks on my mind and it lured me into a deep, fuzzy depression. I never realised before how much I rely on things and plans to keep my mental health ticking over. But suddenly I was in my childhood bedroom, disconnected from seeing friends and making plans, not living in a bustling city anymore but in a tiny village with no job, no plan and nothing to anchor me down.
So I floated.
Maybe, I'm still floating now who knows. But from June to now has been a very strange time, clawing my way through another global financial crisis (the second in my lifetime) to apply to hundreds of jobs I would be rejected from. Coming out of the backend of a global pandemic, being told by the government to start going out again, eating out and drinking but still feeling the anxiety of the virus hovering. I was waiting each day for the moments I was able to leave the house, when my mum would plan activities to do on the weekend together. Waiting for friends to reach out or pestering my brother to hang out before he moved away. It was a time of waiting and a time of hours dragging by. By September, my brother was gone but my Master's degree started. You lose one, you win one. So I've been studying. Still, naively searching for a job as the second lockdown looms and cases are getting worse. It's still quiet now, still very still.
And the thing with depression and anxiety is, they fester in the dark and in the quiet. They grow and mutate in moments just like this. So, it feels sadly inevitable to report that I've been depressed. I suppose who hasn't? But it's hard. It's hard at the moment because I'm doing a degree that relies on creativity and productivity, it's hard to force a depressed brain to create when all it wants to do is sleep. It's hard to rely on plans to regulate your mental health, when you don't know if those plans will go ahead, even a week in advance. It's like I'm trying so hard to fight my depression head-on and at every turn, the universe is saying 'how about..no?'
There's been a lot of discourse over lockdown about mental health, about what it does to a persons brain to be stuck inside for months on end. Not knowing when they'll see family, friends, go to work. It's hard to know exactly and scientifically, what it does to the brain, but I know for sure it magnifies depression in a very unique and upsetting way. Coming out of this we can all say lockdown has had an effect on our mental health, it's changed everything. At least for me, this year has taken everything I thought I knew about depression and turned it upside down. This year, depression feels a lot more heavy and sticky. And it's often hard to admit when you're finding life difficult, especially when I'm so aware that there are so many people worse off than me right now. I'm living in my family home with my amazing parents, I have a roof over my head, hot meals, and an endless supply of cups of tea. I'm very lucky. But life is still hard right now, we sung in the new year with laughter and hope and never expected it to surmount to this. So we're all forgiven for feeling a bit strange. For years I was told I would feel lost and confused after I graduated uni, but little did anyone know that the class of 2020 would have to double the level of existential dread they feel.
I've written a lot over the years about mental health, normally I end these posts with a happy twist and some kind of positive message. But that was then, before the C-word. Now I honestly have no idea, I'm not going to put pressure on myself to end this in any particular way as nothing about this year has been predictable and nothing about mental health is either. I still cling to those moments of hope, friends, and family and good news and birthdays and Christmas. Those are all things we can still enjoy this year. But beyond that, I don't think we can plan ahead. I just hope that this year has taught us the power of looking after each other, the importance of talking and staying connected. And the resilience and adaptability of humans, how we are able to keep pushing on regardless of the storms we have found ourselves swimming in. Although I can't wave a magic wand and cure everyone's mental illnesses, I wish for my family and friends to find a peace and a solace during all of this. I hope you find a reason to smile today and I hope your brain gives you a well-deserved break!
Molly
xx
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