The Effect of a Country in Lockdown on Mental Health

By Alana Kent

As someone who has always struggled with turbulent mental health at the best of times, the lockdown greatly impacted me. Being completely ripped out of my usual routine, not seeing family, friends, and my boyfriend for months, the rising pressure of upcoming exams, UCAS grades, and personal statements. This has possibly been the worst I have ever felt, and I don’t say that lightly. My usual distractions weren’t working. I think that losing my usual routine had a major effect on the way I was feeling. I was in bed day after day after day. Self-care was out of the window. I looked in the mirror and I didn’t see myself. I lost weight in my face and I had bags under my eyes that I couldn’t look away from. It was the first time that I’ve looked in the mirror and seen evidence of my mental health in my face. I was so scared.

It was like waking up in one of those cliche movies where the character lives the same day over and over and over but throw in some mental health issues.

A month into lockdown, I was signed off work by my doctor, I work in a supermarket one day a week. I felt awful, I felt like I was letting the side down by letting my poor mental health get the best of me. I was signed off for two weeks, still doing college work at home. I felt awful. Over time, I have adapted slightly, I’m used to doing college work at home and I’m now in a routine, though I still feel so alone.

I knew I wanted to write an article about the effect of lockdown on mental health, I just didn’t know how I was going to go about it. I just knew I wanted people to know that they aren’t alone. So, I did a survey (well, two, I will just say that we don’t like SurveyMonkey in this house, paying £90 a month to see more than 40 answers for a survey? And advertising yourself as student-friendly??? Google forms are where it’s at, this is beside the point so, back I go to the serious stuff.) I did 7 questions, asking about mental health before lockdown, mental health during, activities that help with distraction, and if people feel supported. Only 33.5% of the 206 people that filled out the survey said that their mental health was good before lockdown. 14.6% said that their mental health was bad, 47.6% said that their mental health was fluctuating. The other 4.3% of people said other, which was a mixture of having okay mental health but having awareness of feeling fragile and being constantly up and down. 67.5% of people said that their mental health had worsened since lockdown started, and people gave many understandable reasons for this, lack of social contact, such as not seeing friends and family, some people expressed concerns about having their future taken away from them which is heartbreaking to read. These statistics really help with showing myself, and hopefully you, that no one is alone in the way they are feeling at the moment, everyone is in the same boat.

The next question asked if people felt they had activities which help take their mind off the way they are feeling, 25.7% of people said that they don’t have any activities, whereas the other 74.3% said they did, so I asked them what they were. There were so many answers, I was tempted to put all of them but, I’ve selected a few so there’s no unnecessary repetition!

A lot of people enjoy things that could be seen as escapism, such as video games, reading, and watching Netflix. People facetime with their friends, scrapbook, bullet journal, go for walks and runs, bake, playing instruments, and changing up their hair. It was amazing to see that so many people had so many healthy outlets. Personally, I love to read on my kindle (I’m reading the noughts and crosses series by Malorie Blackman, currently on “Checkmate”) and playing The Sims 4! I definitely love a bit of escapism.

I also asked if people felt like they had a stable support system around them, if they felt like they had people to talk to at home or in their life. Only 58.3% of people said that they feel like they have someone they feel safe talking to, which I think is just heartbreaking. So I’ll use this moment to say that my Instagram direct messages are always open to anyone who needs to talk (@alanasnotcool). A lot of people said that their family doesn’t try to understand, or they feel they can’t even phone helplines. The people who do feel supported said that they felt they could reach out to friends and family about anything.

Something I wanted to touch on to round off was that I’ve noticed that mental health charities in the UK have been overwhelmingly silent over the past few months. Something that I think is quite shocking considering they are normally so vocal about advocating for mental health - why stop now? In the middle of a worldwide pandemic where seemingly most people are in other their heads and struggling to stay afloat?

As I said, it is extremely comforting to know that we’re all in the same boat and that everyone, all over, is struggling.

To wrap up, it is completely okay to be feeling rocky at the moment, this situation with COVID19 is genuinely awful and it is so, so understandable to not be in the best place. It’s okay to be a little selfish and take some time for yourself, you don’t owe anyone anything, just make sure you’re okay.