From 705Blackfly: How the pandemic has upped the pressure on our kids
Writer: Emma McIsaac
“Oh yeah I’m fine, just tired.”
Being in my first year of university this is a sentence I hear daily. It’s often a sentence I say myself. I hear it from students who get 10-12 hours of sleep, from students who get 3-4; the responses don’t seem to change. With exams approaching, it’s something I hear more and more of. I see students who are awake, but not quite present. It’s been something surrounding me since I entered high school, and it’s a lot more complex than “just tired.”
Students who are now in high school, college or university have had an extremely unconventional education over the last three years. On top of classes moving online, students lost their sports teams, arts programs, and extra curricular activities. Everything went on standstill, and it’s something we’re still recovering from. Although it was a necessary precaution for global health and safety, the pandemic has left a lasting impact on the young adults of this generation.
Personally, I was heavily involved in musical theatre in high school, often participating in 2-3 shows at the same time. Whenever things were challenging at school or I was having problems with my friends, I always had the support of the theatre community to help me through it. It helped me express my emotions, work through my problems, and develop a community of likeminded people. In a society where good networking is becoming increasingly critical, this helped connect me to new people. When COVID hit, I lost all of that. I remained in contact with many individuals, but we couldn’t connect the way we used to, and I found myself drifting away from many of them.
Read more: https://705blackfly.com/student-depression/
