ATTACK OF COVID ON MENTAL HEALTH

Fear of the unknown! We, humans, are very curious living creatures by nature and hence the UNKNOWN or the UNCERTAINTY OF THINGS brings out fear in us. The human mind finds peace in knowing complete facts and exact outcomes. Being in the most deadliest epidemics, we are often faced with the question of “what’s next” or “what’s going to happen and what will we do?” and having no answer to it adds to the stress. Waking up every morning and watching my sister jumpstarting her day from a sound sleep to Monday morning meetings without having breakfast has become the first task of my regular routine followed by me rushing to switch on my laptop panicking knowing that oh my god I’m late for class today. Attending online classes has also cut off my conversations with my family in the morning, saying goodbye to my father every morning when he leaves for work when he needs it the most.

It is almost scary to see him leaving home for work in the serious counts of increasing cases of COVID. The thought of “is he going to be okay” eats me sometimes I can’t even imagine what my mother goes through the whole day trapped in the house working all day worrying about everyone and not being able to get out of the house for some fresh air and peace of mind I’m sure she misses her evening walks. But still, after all, this though I have to clean my slate again saying “what can we even do?”. As the American psychological association reports, parental stress due to worrying about their families has become a “new normal”.

Parents in this survey state that the main source of stress is from taking care of their children in all online mode of education situation. But at the same time reports also mention a rise in the stress level of students who are acquiring online education. For example students in India being in the 12th grade for a long duration, college graduates missing their graduations and farewells, new college students missing their freshers, and so on and so forth. Apart from this, the shear stress of people losing jobs or being underpaid has also risen since the pandemic started and the people who have well-settled government jobs are forced to go to work every day in these severe conditions.

The pandemic has not only affected mental health but also reduced the levels of physical fitness and motivation in people all over the world. Another common trend that I have been noticing is people not being able to differentiate between true and false news about the COVID19 pandemic which can lead to potential revolts and clashing thoughts among people of the community. Social media has had a huge part in spreading false news among people not only due to the overuse of the social media platforms by the people themselves but also due to bulking of facts and news that is being offered to people which in turn is resulting in confusion and misunderstanding.

All in all, we have seen that mental health is a very important factor in what people call #survivingthepandemic and taking care of mental health of ourselves and other people can be the key to assuring safety during these tough times.