“It’s up to you today to start making healthy choices. Not choices that are just healthy for your body, but healthy for your mind.”-anonymous
Coronavirus has affected all aspects of our lives and the constant news about the pandemic can leave us all really overwhelmed. Not only is it impacting our physical health but it is taking its toll on our mental health too. Even as it cuts across all age groups, the vulnerabilities of young people, without parental care, at such a time, becomes more acute.
As we all are currently in a nationwide lockdown to combat the spread of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), many people are experiencing heightened feelings of uncertainty, unrest, and loneliness. “While these feelings are completely understandable, given the unprecedented nature of the situation, it is important for everybody – especially those who are predisposed to mental health conditions – to learn how to cope and manage any added stress being experienced,” said Paul Miller, CEO of CiplaMedpro.
“Adolescence is a phase of change in interpersonal, and emotional challenges, and exploring new territories using their talents, and experimenting with social identities. On one hand, it is a phase of tremendous growth in preparation of adults’ roles and skills to sustain pressures and challenges, whereas, on the other, it is a transition phase that can increase risk of various psychological disorders, adjustment problems, and suicide.” (Nebhinani and Jain, 2019) With such levels of vulnerabilities, this particular group is prone to higher levels of mental health issues in such triggering times. This is further aggravated in the case of the young people, who have grown up and exited Alternative Care setting like Institutional Care or Foster Care, or as they are popularly called, Care Leavers. This is so because they have experienced a traumatic past, during their early childhood years, and also while growing up in an institution, and left there with unresolved issues; such difficult circumstances can easily trigger them into experiencing re-traumatisation. The lived experience of being Care Leavers ourselves and also because of engaging with other Care Leavers has helped us understand that people who have had traumatised lives and had experienced vulnerabilities are having an even more difficult time now, trying to not fall back in that spiral again.
Care leavers can find these times extremely challenging and being in self-isolation can trigger deeply rooted issues. Staying at home all by yourself, social distancing, and self-isolating are crucial in stopping the spread of COVID-19, but they can affect young people psychologically. So what can be done to support our mental well-being during this time? Here are some tips from a Care leavers’ lived experience.
Having a schedule-
Now that everyone has plenty of time at hand due to the lockdown as many of us are working from home, it definitely is suggested to stay active and continue with the schedule that we had before the lockdown. Waking up early, having proper meals, physical exercises, etc. to maintain your body clock are essentials. Where people on social media are constantly posting how they are positively utilizing their time by picking up new hobbies, it could also feel overwhelming. If you are someone who has or is suffering from mental health issues, you need to constantly practice accepting and acknowledging your own feelings. The peer pressure from digital or non-digital platforms to be productive can be overwhelming and with times being as challenging as they are, maintaining your own mental health should remain the utmost priority. Another major issue, which leads to acute mental pressure is losing jobs or salary cuts; at this time especially, if you don’t have reserves, it is really daunting.
Express yourself
Not all of us are lucky enough to be with our loved ones in this pandemic. We all are different so is our reaction to any situation we are served with. For many people, it is difficult to cope up with the stress. People who are living by themselves during this lockdown, the situations can be somewhat worse mentally. Please reach out for help. Have a few people that you know you can talk to. Try to be honest about expressing your feelings. If you do not wish to speak to a friend, you can express it in writing and different forms of art. You do not need to be a sketch artist to start sketching. You do not need to be great at poetry to start writing.
If you currently live with people that you do not get along well with or if the household is troubled, please reach out for help. Talk to someone. There are various helplines that are offering free online or on-call counseling. One such helpline is ICall. If you find yourself in need of professional help, please reach out to them.
1) ICall helpline
Description – Counselors of Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai provide free counseling sessions for people in distress.
Languages; Hindi and English
Contact: 9372048501, 9920241248, 8369799513; icall@tiss.edu
Timings: Mon to Sat – 10:00am to 8:0pm
2) Headspace app
Available on Google Play, The Headspace app teaches you how to breathe, meditate, and live mindfully. It’s even been proven to improve focus. There are exercises on everything from managing anxiety and stress relief to breathing, happiness, calm, and focus. Plus, they have specially-designed sleep meditations to guide you to a place of rest.
3) Wysa app: stress, sleep & mindfulness therapy chatbot
Available on Google play.
If you are dealing with stress, anxiety, and depression or coping with low self-esteem, then talking to Wysa can help you relax, strengthen your aura, and get unstuck – it’s empathetic, helpful, and will never judge. So, pour your heart out to your happiness buddy, Wysa as your identity will remain anonymous and your conversations are privacy protected. Wysa is packed with daily spiritual meditation that improves mental health and is also a perfect way to bond over family meditation. Wysa suggests meditation and mindfulness audios made easy based on your chats, so you feel better and stay relaxed. Wysa builds you your own personalized toolkit with tools for better coping with depression, anxiety, sleep issues, and grief.
4) Samaritans helpline
Description – a helpline providing emotional support for those who are stressed, distressed, depressed, or suicidal.
Languages; Hindi and English
Contact: +91 84229 84528 / +91 84229 84529 / +91 84229 84530/ talk2samaritans@gmail.com
Timings: All days – 05:00pm to 8:00pm
5) Calm Harm – manages self-harm
Available on Google play.
Calm Harm has been developed for stem4 by Dr. Krause, Consultant Clinical Psychologist using the basic principles of an evidence based treatment called Dialectic Behaviour Therapy (DBT). Calm Harm provides tasks to help you resist or manage the urge to self-harm. The app then provides you with four categories of tasks to help you surf the urge. ‘Distract’ helps in learning self-control; ‘Comfort’ helps you care rather than harm; ‘Express yourself’ gets those feelings out in a different way and ‘Release’ provides safe alternatives to self-injury. There is also a ‘Breathe’ category to help calm and get back in control.
If you are someone who needs help, reach out. There are various organisations and individuals on every scale who are trying to help. If you are someone who is growing up in a care institution or is a Care Leaver and want to reach out for support then you may connect with the Care Leavers Association and Network (CLAN) at clandelhi2018@gmail.com or message on +918587803104 to connect with the group on WhatsApp. CLAN is a collective of Care Leavers which works to not only provide peer to peer support but also advocate for the rights of children and youth from Alternate Care settings.
Lend a Helping Hand or ask for one
The entire world understands that to meet the basic needs of each other this time, we all need to work together. Reading and watching people suffer and struggle for basic needs can be overwhelming for everyone. The situation of children and youth in care can be no different as now the social workers cannot visit them, there is no interaction with the outside world and no opportunities to engage oneself in extracurricular activities outside. However, physical distancing should not stop you from exploring options of extending support virtually. You can volunteer to teach, organize origami classes, dance classes, yoga classes, etc. on Zoom, or any other media, the Chidlren’s Home staff will be comfortable with.
You can also explore options of being a peer mentor to a younger child or fellow Care Leaver. There are many that are coming forward. There are many institutions that have opened their hearts to the poor, homeless, destitute people to help. You can volunteer with them, and engage, while maintaining all safety norms, in the packing and distribution of rations, that these organisations are helping out with. Robinhood Army is one such example where young people are going out of their way to support those who need help. A sure way to erase your mental health blues.
Stay away from rumours
Ignore or unfollow people who are spreading fake or unverified news of the pandemic. There are globally approved portals and a national portal to know the correct facts. Keep yourself updated so as to know the reality of the situation but do not let yourself go down the spiral of the news that comes through social media. It can lead to panic attacks and anxiety. We are in the times where the knowledge is our fingertips. Also, we must not forget that everything we get on the internet is not authentic. We must not share things on which we don’t have clarity. It might panic people and put them under stress. We don’t want that, right?
For any information refer to the WHO website or Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India, website. Better still is to download the Aarogya Setu app, which will alert you if you are passing by anyone, who could have symptoms, and also advise you what to do.
Be responsible and aware
Understanding the reality of the situation and being responsible is very important. In the current scenario, we only have two medicines: physical distancing (we don’t like the word social distancing) and staying indoors, we must be responsible for our actions. We don’t want to put others in danger, do we?
For any reason at all, going out in groups and not maintaining a safe distance will not just result badly for you as an individual but can create a chain effect for many people.
Self-Care
Staying healthy, both physically and mentally is crucial. A few things that you can possibly indulge in are:
- Doing at least 60 minutes of physical exercise which could be aerobics, yoga, dancing, or any other form that you prefer.
- Reducing screen time.
- Ensuring that you get 8-10 hours of sleep every night.
- Consume foods rich in omega-3 fatty acids, folate, iron, zinc, vitamin B6, and vitamin B12.
- Cooking for yourself and the people you are living with can be very helpful to release stress, distract yourself, and spend quality time. While cooking, you might want to consider the following:
- Make a balanced by combining – cereal, pulses, vegetable
- Protein should essentially be a part of every meal – Pulses, milk, milk product, egg, meat, fish, poultry
- Variety is fun – You can experiment with colorful food by adding various vegetables.
- Convert junk into healthy by the different way for example whole wheat veg burgers/pasta, paneer/soya and vegetable cutlets, upma with soya/chana/sprouts and vegetables.
Let yourself off the hook
Prioritize your mental sanity in the current times. Do not beat yourself up if work or the household does not function in the proper manner as expected. On top of everything else, being upset with yourself is totally counterproductive.
Though we have tried to focus on how Care Leavers can get through this time, these suggestions can be taken up by all of us. Mental health is currently a crisis that we all are dealing with and is extremely important to be addressed. Not everything will stay in control. Things are going to be hairy for a while, and if you can’t stick to your schedule or can’t fit in your at-home workout every day, it’s really okay. It’s much more valuable to everyone to cut yourself some slack, use the time to reflect on the important things, and try to keep a sense of “we’re all in this together” at the forefront.
References
Nebhinani, N., & Jain, S. (2019). Adolescent mental health: Issues, challenges, and solutions. Annals of Indian Psychiatry, 3(1), 4.
Rahman, P. A. (2020, April 04). Isolation and mental health: the psychological impact of lockdown. The Hindu, Retrieved from https://www.thehindu.com
*This article has been written by Mr. Imran Khan and Ms. Karishma Singh, who are both members of the Care Leavers Association and Network, New Delhi.