Mental Health and COVID-19 - How I'm (Maybe) Coping

Something that I really enjoy about how I've structured this website is that I have the creative freedom to write about nearly anything. Take the creative writing section of the site, for example. Creative writing, by its very definition, is a broad spectrum of things; Wikipedia says that "both fictional and non-fictional works fall into this category, including such forms as novels, biographies, short stories, and poems."

My point here is that while I never expected to be writing (in this format) about something like the coronavirus, I'm glad I am, and I'm glad I can make it fit with the structure of this site. In times like these, I think us creative types need ways to let things out.

Further to that though, I really do hope this helps someone.

If you're going to share any post of mine, share this one. It's by no means a fluff piece, but it also isn't as brutally real as most things I've read lately, and writing it helped clear my headspace a lot. I hope it might do the same to anyone else reading it.

I'm not going to sit here and say that everything is fine. The world isn't exactly a utopia right now.

I'm not going to sit here and say the world is ending, because it's not.

I'm also not going to sit here and spit out statistics to make you feel better, like how only X amount of people have died from the virus in comparison to world event Y, where Z amount of people died.

I won't lament about how the stock market crashed, or wonder how long it's going to take to develop a vaccine, or criticize people who aren't staying quarantined (but that doesn't mean you shouldn't isolate...seriously, do stay home, whoever you are).

I won't talk about how this is going to affect elections, events and programs.

I will point out that it's obvious that most of this stuff sucks.

However, I'm not going to do any of those things, because there's no point.

Seriously. There's no point talking about it. As much as I like words and putting them together into sentences, I'm not going to do that in those ways in this piece.

The fact of the matter is that I don't have all the answers. No one does. In fact, I myself have very few answers. I don't know how the stock market works, I'm not a scientist that can predict anything about vaccines or treatment, and I'm not old enough to have the experience of experiencing a historic event of this caliber, so I have no insight on how to live through a crisis. I'm not even old enough to remember 9/11.

If you're looking for answers, click off of this page now. You won't find them here. In fact, you probably won't find them anywhere.

This is something that I've been struggling with over these past few weeks. As someone who's lived a relatively comfy lifestyle in terms of living conditions and health, I went into full crisis mode seeing the world descend into madness and hysteria over COVID-19. I hated the uncertainty of everything. I wondered if people like my grandparents, who I am lucky enough to still have with me (all four of them), would come out of this alive.

I wondered how people that are less lucky in life than me must be coping, the people who don't have the means to support themselves, the people who have tested positive for the virus. But because humans tend to be selfish, I didn't worry about that part for long.

I worried about everything, and that's primarily because I didn't understand anything or have any solid answers.

Through all of this madness, there is one glaring truth: there are no answers to how this is going to pan out, exactly.

Telling myself that, as someone who suffers from multiple types of anxiety, has been extremely difficult. I say that as if I've suddenly figured out how to accept this, along with everything that's been going on.

Well, I haven't. However, it has been becoming more manageable.

I'm writing this piece as a reminder to myself and to others to do what is simple yet necessary: take care of yourself. I've seen a lot of advice on how to do this, but this is what has worked best for me as well as what I think the world needs more of.

Be creative. With so much time in quarantine, I've found it criminally easy to just lay on my bed, stare at the ceiling and be anxious about the world. However, I failed to realize how much free time being isolated gives me, even though I'm still doing schoolwork. Responsibilities aside, many of us now have at least a bit of extra free time, so I encourage anyone to seize that and put negative emotions into creative endeavours just as I'm doing now. Paint, draw, write, pick up an instrument. Make something.

If you're not the creative type, learn something. I know it might be difficult to do so if you aren't in school, but it's also so simple to pick up a book, read an old article unrelated to what's going on, or find a new skill to teach yourself. For ideas, I've linked some sources at the bottom of this post.

Be productive. I know a lot of folks might see those words and internally groan at the thought of having to do anything other than relax at home right now. Productivity, however, doesn't have to equal hard work. Go through an old drawer, redecorate your room, bake something, dance to music in your underwear for all I care. My point here is that distraction in general during this pandemic has been an absolute blessing to me, and it could be for you too.

While distraction has always helped me with my anxiety, this might not be the case for everyone. (Sometimes distraction can even become unhealthy, and I'll discuss that more below.) But as I insinuated above, although we have little power as individuals in the world right now, we should still choose to exercise it.

Be kind. A pattern I've noticed lately is that we're all spending a lot of time looking for someone to blame. It's okay to think that world leaders should be conducting themselves differently; it's okay to be frustrated with people who aren't practicing social distancing or people who are hoarding groceries. It's okay (and necessary!) to correct people who are putting others at risk. With all the negativity in the world, though, I think we should shift some of our focus to being nicer to one another rather than grumbling over what everyone is doing wrong. We are in a social and political climate where it's going to be very easy for hatred to breed, and we need to make a conscious effort to make sure that doesn't happen.

I'm a firm believer of taking responsibility for one's mental health and being proactive in recovery and wellness, however that doesn't mean that you should go through things on your own 100% of the time. Distraction and altruism helps, but sometimes more serious and personal help is needed. In times like these, it is still remarkably easy to receive things like mental health counselling from home. This brings me to my final and arguably most important point. If you are struggling to find high points in your day and your mental health is preventing you from doing anything during this pandemic, I strongly encourage you to get help. Even though people may be physically distant, the Internet is a fantastic tool that is being used to bring folks together in lots of interesting ways. No matter who you are, I encourage you to research some online counselling services that might help you out. I've included some sources below to help get people started.

So, all in all, this is a lot. As a pessimist, this was a hard piece to write. What I'm really hoping for with this post, though, is that we can all remember that it's not impossible to further ourselves as people while parts of the outside world have effectively stopped. I'm gonna reiterate my key points here: be creative, learn, be kind, get help if you need it, and take life as it comes. We should be open to the possibility of things getting worse, and if/when it does, we all know we'll fight like hell against it. Like myself, you might have at risk people in your life, so that might be hard to hear. In truth, though, we can all just do what we can. But we should also be open to the possibility of things getting better, and until then, all we can do is take care of ourselves and each other.

Things to do:

• Skillshare: a site with thousands of tutorials to help you learn a new skill such as drawing, photography and video editing. https://www.skillshare.com/

• Audible: a site that sells digital audiobooks, radio and TV programs, and audio versions of magazines and newspapers. https://stories.audible.com/start-listen

• TED: watch TED conferences that bring together the world’s most influential modern thinkers. https://www.ted.com/

• Luminosity: an online tool that allows you to practice fundamental skills and improve things like memory and focus. https://www.lumosity.com/en/

Online counselling/mental health services:

• Kids Help Phone: https://kidshelpphone.ca/

• Talkspace: https://www.talkspace.com/

• 7 Cups: https://www.7cups.com/member/

• Betterhelp: https://www.betterhelp.com/