Two friends went from hanging out 2-3 days a week, to not being able to see each other for days, weeks, months. None of this was by choice. Going from seeing each other so often to not being able to see each other is such a hard adjustment, mentally, physically and emotionally. But in reality everyone across the globe is going through this same exact struggle. There is no one to blame for any nonsense happening, just a sickness called corona virus.
These two friends Benjamin and Elizabeth prior to this pandemic would only see each other a couple times a week due to their job conflicts. Elizabeth is a hair stylist and works primarily morning/afternoon hours Where Benjamin works for a transportation company and works over nights. They have polar opposite time schedules, so they take full advantage of their off time to spend time together. They are both how ever in there 20’s and both live at home with their parents. They are very upset that they have to social distance without each other because who only knows how long it’ll be before they get to see one another again. Meanwhile they are both still keeping busy seeing that they are considered essential workers and are able to continue working, Elizabeth is working part time at Oberweis.
Elizabeth is struggling a little bit more than Benjamin is. Elizabeth’s parents are not allowing her to go other to Benjamin’s house or for him to come to her house. Her mother just keeps telling her
“You have facetime, you’ll be okay, if this happened when I was in my 20’s there was no such thing as facetime or skype to video chat with someone.”
Elizabeth rolled her eyes and said “Whatever mom, if only you knew it wasn’t the same thing. You at least get to see your husband in person everyday.”
Where on the other hand, Benjamin’s parents are not as strict, they are okay with him going to see Elizabeth and hangout, which only frustrates Elizabeth more because her mom is the reason they cannot hangout.
Elizabeth understands everything that is going on that it really is a serious matter going on, they shut down so many businesses including her hair salon she works at because it is ‘not essential”. However she finds it most frustrating that she just can’t go out and see just one person and it is really starting to take a toll on her mentally. Day by day she gets more and more sad.
Before the stay at home order came around Elizabeth was very much a homebody, she would chose to stay home over going to the bars or a party any day. However now that she is told she should not leave the house she is going insane staying inside, in fact she only wants to go and hangout with Benjamin because he helps her stay sane.
Benjamin notices that something seems to be wrong with his friend by the sound of her voice over the phone, she tends to have an attitude more often or she just starts to cry for no reason sometime. A lot of the times he’s afraid to ask what is wrong because he doesn’t want to make her sadder, but he feels it is part of his job to make sure she is okay. Most of the time she just says that she is fine, he knows that is a lie, or that she simply doesn’t feel like talking about which he can respect.
Elizabeth knows that this is mentally hurting her and has been exercising once a day and eating better. For the most part she can go to sleep at a reasonable time but there are other nights that she is up till three or four o’clock in the morning. Elizabeth and Benjamin find time to facetime on a Thursday night, one of his nights off from work.
“How are you doing Liz? How was your day?” he asks trying not to come off as too overly concerned but is definitely concerned.
“Oh you know my day was okay, wake up, eat, work out, watch TV, shower, nap, eat watch TV, go to sleep, and repeat.” Liz says with no emotion.
“How was your work out?”
“It was pretty okay, can’t complain!”
“Good I’m glad! You seem a little better today.”
Liz usually always gets quiet and doesn’t have much to say when Ben talks about stuff like that. She likes to just handle her problems herself and not put them onto others. More than likely she changes the subject or she just stays quiet until Ben changes the subject.
Due to Ben working nights and the work truck he has doesn’t allow for them to play their own music and most times there is no good music playing late at night he really has no choice but to listen to the news stations, which Liz hates. Even before all of this Corona virus stuff started she never liked watching or listening to the news, it gets into her head and cause anxiety so she just stays away from it and if its something important she is suppose to know (like our current pandemic) most of it ends up all over social media anyways.
Ben tries to reassure Liz of things going on in the world, he feels a lot of the time they only broadcast a lot of the bad stuff in the world and never any of the good stuff that is still happening. Liz is definitely more stressed out at the fact that she cannot see Benjamin than he is, but at the same time she understands. Her mom has an autoimmune disease which puts her at higher risk and more susceptible to catching the virus. As much as Liz wants to just leave the house she knows she is putting her mother at risk.
Liz is super freaked out about this entire situation, when the corona virus was first talked about she wasn’t really stressed out until they started closing down the country, there is a lot at stake in our country with this pandemic going on. The corona virus is literally a matter of life or death; millions of people have died all across the globe. The worst part is that because this is all so new, we have no medicine or vaccines to help people. The economy is also at stake, schools are closed, restaurant are closed, the boarders of states are closed so they cant count on tourists coming the visit, bars and clubs are closed, so many people are out of jobs and relying on unemployment.
Liz decides to open up to Ben about what is going on in her head about her concerns.
“I’m just really upset because I miss my life, I miss my daily routine and imp afraid ill never get that back.”
Ben’s daily routine really hasn’t changed all that much aside from being able to see Liz every week. Where as Liz seems like her world flipped.
“I understand that you’re upset, you depend greatly on your day to day routine but now is the time to get a new routine until things go back to normal.”
“What if they don’t go back to normal? I’m really scared for my mom and my grandma she is older and is not in remission from breast cancer just yet, if she were to get exposed it would all be over and then what?” Liz asks a rhetorical question because she knows what would happen next. She knows several people who have lost family members over the last month or so and the funeral services are so small and sad there is just no way to celebrate any life without all the family and loved ones.
Benjamin knows first hand just how badly mental health can affect one person so he always tries so hard to keep Liz from falling into a bad place by getting her to talk about what is going on in her head and try to work through things.
“Liz just take a deep breathe and calm down for a second. Your mind starts to wander so fast.”
Ben and Liz have such a strong connection he always feels like he can feel exactly what she’s feeling. He knows that she really hasn’t been sleeping well either, constantly waking up in the middle of the night or just staying up all night. Her favorite TV show is Greys Anatomy, so Ben says
“Why don’t you turn your show on, try to distract your mind and I’ll sit on facetime with you until you fall asleep?”
Liz says “Do you think you can stay on the phone all night just incase I cant sleep then I can talk to you or just not feel so alone?”
“Of course.” Ben says with a big smile on his face, he’s really hoping she gets to clear her mind and calm down watching her show and gets a good night sleep.
Works Cited:
Freking, Kevin. “Trump Says 'Life and Death' at Stake in Following COVID-19 Guidelines.” Timesfreepress.com, 1 Apr. 2020, www.timesfreepress.com/news/national/political/story/2020/apr/01/trump-says-life-and-death-stake-following-covid-19-guidelines/519604/.
Tanner, Aleisa. “How COVID-19 Is Affecting Funerals.” Content, www.kfyrtv.com/content/news/How-COVID-19-is-affecting-funerals-569235011.html.
“Poll: COVID-19 Affecting Mental Health of Many Americans.” Psychiatry & Behavioral Health Learning Network, 30 Mar. 2020, www.psychcongress.com/article/poll-covid-19-affecting-mental-health-many-americans.
“Mental Health and Coping During COVID-19.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 16 Apr. 2020, www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/daily-life-coping/managing-stress-anxiety.html.
Cohen, Elliot D. “How to Be Empathetic.” Psychology Today, Sussex Publishers, 17 May 2015, www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/what-would-aristotle-do/201505/how-be-empathetic.
Artists Statement:
A lot of the research I looked at going into this assignment was one about empathy and two about the virus itself. Before I guess I did think that empathy and sympathy were basically the same thing which I guess is a common assumption, I researched a lot about the different ways to have empathy but also to have empathy without others necessarily knowing, just so that it comes off as a comfort thing rather than trying to be like someone’s therapist. Truly myself sometimes I tend to lack empathy with some people in certain situations so I thought this was a good learning experience. When it came to researching the Corona Virus, obviously I have some prior knowledge going into I’m not blind going in. However I don’t know enough and I think others could agree. I know for myself I do get major anxiety from watching and listening to the news so I really do my best to not watch/listen. The most important stuff ends up on social media or talked about by family and friends so I become informed from that. With that being said this project caused me a lot of anxiety thinking about having to research the facts of the pandemic going on. As far as what I researched I kind of categorized it into mental health, funerals and just some general facts floating about the Internet. I felt that categorizing it would make it easier one to research but two to apply it to my story. Going into this I was too scared for myself to find out serious information and facts about the situation and peoples predictions on what was going to happen next. So many people today do n not know how to deal with their emotions and feelings let alone throw someone else’s feelings into the mix. Mental health is always super important regardless if we are dealing with COVID 19 or not, we should always be looking out for ourselves, our loved ones or anyone struggling. I felt it was very important to add in stress and coping with it within my piece, just because I know due to COVID 19, I am starting to struggling so seeing different ways to cope started to help me. The funerals I keep seeing popping up from friends and family that it doesn’t even seem the same to have the celebrations with 10 people or less they might as well hold off and wait for a better time. This really triggered my interest but also made me upset, especially if people lost their lives to COVID 19, these people have now lost their battle and now they can’t even have all the people who love and care about them come say goodbye? I completely understand the logic behind 10 people or less but I also understand the complete frustration. As I said before I tried not to focus strictly on COVID 19, but I did do some (minimal) research on that and a couple pieces of information but once I read too much I started to panic and had to walk away for a little bit.