Seven months in quarantine with an 8th month anniversary quickly coming along the corner. At first, the COVID-19 pandemic induced a lot of anxiety and stress, but for different things. In March, anxiety and stress would have revolved around not being able to have enough groceries or be able to have the basic necessities of a household. Now, anxiety and stress is not only caused by the events that are occurring, but by the burden of having to balance mental health and school.
I felt happy in the beginning of quarantine because I felt like I was able to finally take a break from school and the overload of assignments leading up to Spring break. Yes, constantly staying at home seemed so boring, but at least I was able to cope with it by talking to my friends. However, as social media began to rise in anger at the system for the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and many other countless victims who have died at the hands of the police, that anxiety quickly came back. I didn’t know if there would be another face on the news of a victim who has died yet again to police brutality, but most importantly, these stories made me realize how easily my friends and family could be taken away from me. For seven months, I have been praying for the safety of my friends and family and am fortunate enough to be able to see another day with them.
In regards to COVID-19, I felt really scared at first because I didn’t want to risk getting sick and spreading the virus to others. I took the necessary safety precautions to ensure that I wouldn’t be asymptomatic or risking myself to catch COVID, but now it just seems like it was a big waste of time. Of course, I’m grateful that I wasn’t putting the people around me in potential harm, but at the same time, I feel like my efforts are essentially wasted because of the lack of progress this pandemic has gone in this country. Up to now, people are still protesting about wearing a mask and at this point, I don’t envision a setting where COVID is nonexistent in the near future.
Mental health is something that is a very important aspect in my quarantine experience. I’ve spent a lot of time working on hobbies as a way to cope with the anxiety and stress that came with quarantine, and spent a lot of time talking it out with friends especially. In the pandemic, I’ve also taken it upon myself to really focus on growing as a person. An instance where I worked on this is being around the people who give me the best energy and really uplift me. Recently, I reflected on the people who were around me at my worst times, and after letting them go, I realized that our energies don’t complement each other and are not the best for either one of us.
Virtual learning is certainly an obstacle to my mental health though. I felt sad once school started and learned that we would be virtual, because I really looked forward to senior year and making memories that I will be able to laugh at in the future. It didn’t really help that I wasn’t great at learning on my own either, because virtual learning is essentially just learning on your own. In the first quarter of the year, most of my teachers were loading up assignment after assignment and it was just so overwhelming. There were assignments that were hidden under a separate page or document, and all in all, it just got too overwhelming to balance.
Quarantine has been a very overwhelming journey for not just me, but I imagine everyone else too. Though these past and long couple of months have been stressful, frustrating, and anxiety-inducing, this will be a time that we all get to reflect back on in our later years, and see how far each of us have grown as an individual. In some way or another, each of us have grown during this pandemic whether it be for the better or for a slight difference. Personally, I can say that even though I’ve gone through some unhappy times in quarantine, I’m glad that I’m able to see a difference in myself physically and mentally compared to 7-8 months ago.