Mental health under Covid-19 stress
As we find ourselves back together as a school community, Hivda Aydogan urges us to remember that the scars of lockdown may take some time to fade.
As a school I’d say we handle mental health quite well. There's always someone there to offer support if you need it. But our six months of absence from the school building have tried most of us in ways we have never been tested before.
The trouble really started for all of us in March. Everyone suffered in some degree when the national lockdown was imposed to control the pandemic.
We suffered in different amounts: some of us were tearing our hair out in stress; some of us only found it vaguely disruptive to the schedule that we would usually have followed had it not been for lockdown. But what everyone can probably agree on, is that we struggled. This isn’t a competition: a struggle should not be based on how hard it was to get through, or how long it took to overcome, or how difficult it was in comparison to another human being’s struggle – the point is, we suddenly found things were a lot harder than they were before. In some cases, immensely harder than they were before.
It’s easy to assume that once we had all been back at school for a few weeks and had gone back into the usual swing of things, the usual routine, and got used to life as it had been before the virus, that things – including our mental health – would have gone back to relatively normal. Or at least improved since the end of lockdown. For many of us though, this has not been the case.
We most certainly have got used to the sound of an alarm clock waking us up at the crack of dawn on a particularly bleak, grey, and extremely cold English morning. Teachers have got used to standing in front of large classes full of students again. We have got used to replying with a very tired, ‘Yes, Miss,’ or ‘Yes, Sir’ in the mornings whilst we are being registered. But for many of us quarantine has left a lasting print. A scar, you could say. So yes, we have been at school a good six or so weeks, but it does not seem that that scar will fade as quickly as some of us had hoped or assumed.
This issue doesn’t only affect students: it affects teachers and it affects our parents and grandparents too. Many of us have found ourselves feeling vulnerable in ways we have never been before.
Some of us have developed disorders over quarantine that have affected us mentally - disorders that we did not have before. Dealing with a disorder can take months, perhaps even years. Just because we have got back into the way of things physically, this is not to say that our brains have been keeping up with our body as this happens. Many of us in the school community may be struggling so much so that we do not know how to express ourselves – simply because we just haven’t dealt with these kinds of feeling before. Feelings of sadness – of loss even – for the ‘old normal’, are inescapable for most of us. Some of us struggle to talk about it. Being tired or depressed in a lesson does not always have to mean that we are being uncooperative. It can literally just mean that we’re having a hard time putting one foot in front of another. None of this is our fault. We did not ask for the virus. We did not ask to be isolated for many months. We did not ask for the harm that has been inflicted on our mental health.
Occasionally a student looks like they’re falling asleep in class. It isn’t as simple a problem as just needing to go to bed earlier. Going to bed earlier does not always make us tired. It does not always stop us from worrying. It does not stop us from staying awake and being anxious and upset over the sheer pressure of life right now. Some of us are still struggling with our homework. It can be hard to drag yourself up while you feel empty and sad for no reason and force yourself carry on and work just as you used to do.
We are trying. We are trying to juggle school and our wellbeing at the same time, but they merge together as one colour very often, and we cannot succeed all the time. It’s hard to recover from a mental illness; it’s hard to focus on school (or work) and yourself at the same time; it’s hard to walk under the weight of your own feelings that you can’t explain. Not all of us are as ready as we want to be. Not all of us are as well equipped for school as we want to be. Not all of us are thriving. But we are trying.
When you’re out and about around the school, try to understand if someone’s having a bad day or doesn’t smile at you, or doesn’t seem to be paying their full attention to you. It’s tricky, but we’re all working on it, we’re all trying to get there. There are so many stories you just cannot see. It can get a bit too much to handle – the stress, the pressure, all of it – for both students and adults in our community. We will get there in the end, but in the meantime, do your best to understand other people’s struggle too. After all, it’s no secret that you struggled as well.
By Hivda Aydogan
As a school I’d say we handle mental health quite well. There's always someone there to offer support if you need it. But our six months of absence from the school building have tried most of us in ways we have never been tested before.
The trouble really started for all of us in March. Everyone suffered in some degree when the national lockdown was imposed to control the pandemic.
We suffered in different amounts: some of us were tearing our hair out in stress; some of us only found it vaguely disruptive to the schedule that we would usually have followed had it not been for lockdown. But what everyone can probably agree on, is that we struggled. This isn’t a competition: a struggle should not be based on how hard it was to get through, or how long it took to overcome, or how difficult it was in comparison to another human being’s struggle – the point is, we suddenly found things were a lot harder than they were before. In some cases, immensely harder than they were before.
It’s easy to assume that once we had all been back at school for a few weeks and had gone back into the usual swing of things, the usual routine, and got used to life as it had been before the virus, that things – including our mental health – would have gone back to relatively normal. Or at least improved since the end of lockdown. For many of us though, this has not been the case.
We most certainly have got used to the sound of an alarm clock waking us up at the crack of dawn on a particularly bleak, grey, and extremely cold English morning. Teachers have got used to standing in front of large classes full of students again. We have got used to replying with a very tired, ‘Yes, Miss,’ or ‘Yes, Sir’ in the mornings whilst we are being registered. But for many of us quarantine has left a lasting print. A scar, you could say. So yes, we have been at school a good six or so weeks, but it does not seem that that scar will fade as quickly as some of us had hoped or assumed.
This issue doesn’t only affect students: it affects teachers and it affects our parents and grandparents too. Many of us have found ourselves feeling vulnerable in ways we have never been before.
Some of us have developed disorders over quarantine that have affected us mentally - disorders that we did not have before. Dealing with a disorder can take months, perhaps even years. Just because we have got back into the way of things physically, this is not to say that our brains have been keeping up with our body as this happens. Many of us in the school community may be struggling so much so that we do not know how to express ourselves – simply because we just haven’t dealt with these kinds of feeling before. Feelings of sadness – of loss even – for the ‘old normal’, are inescapable for most of us. Some of us struggle to talk about it. Being tired or depressed in a lesson does not always have to mean that we are being uncooperative. It can literally just mean that we’re having a hard time putting one foot in front of another. None of this is our fault. We did not ask for the virus. We did not ask to be isolated for many months. We did not ask for the harm that has been inflicted on our mental health.
Occasionally a student looks like they’re falling asleep in class. It isn’t as simple a problem as just needing to go to bed earlier. Going to bed earlier does not always make us tired. It does not always stop us from worrying. It does not stop us from staying awake and being anxious and upset over the sheer pressure of life right now. Some of us are still struggling with our homework. It can be hard to drag yourself up while you feel empty and sad for no reason and force yourself carry on and work just as you used to do.
We are trying. We are trying to juggle school and our wellbeing at the same time, but they merge together as one colour very often, and we cannot succeed all the time. It’s hard to recover from a mental illness; it’s hard to focus on school (or work) and yourself at the same time; it’s hard to walk under the weight of your own feelings that you can’t explain. Not all of us are as ready as we want to be. Not all of us are as well equipped for school as we want to be. Not all of us are thriving. But we are trying.
When you’re out and about around the school, try to understand if someone’s having a bad day or doesn’t smile at you, or doesn’t seem to be paying their full attention to you. It’s tricky, but we’re all working on it, we’re all trying to get there. There are so many stories you just cannot see. It can get a bit too much to handle – the stress, the pressure, all of it – for both students and adults in our community. We will get there in the end, but in the meantime, do your best to understand other people’s struggle too. After all, it’s no secret that you struggled as well.
By Hivda Aydogan