Activities that young people used to rely on for stability and enjoyment. Extraordinary clubs and birthday parties are often canceled. Also Rite of passage Like prom and coming home. Students spend most of their weeks looking at zoom screens. Without school programs and customs, many say they are struggling to get out of bed in the morning.
“Everything is at a standstill now,” said Aiden Hufford, 15, of Sophomore High School in Rye, a suburb north of New York City. “There is nothing to wait for. On virtual days I sit on the computer for three hours, have lunch, walk around a bit, sit for three hours, and then end my day. It’s all just a cycle. ”
Ayenan is known as an avid “theater kid” and was looking forward to his school play and science olympiad. Now in response to those questions, he turned to a recent online meeting of the Student Leadership Council for inspiration. But it turned out to be frustrating because he found it difficult to engage in zoom conversations.
“I turned off my camera and waited for it to finish,” he said. “She is sad and somewhat lonely.” And he added that making new contacts with students in the classroom is almost impossible in a virtual setting: “Unless you try hard, there is no chance of making new friends this year.”
Loneliness has been particularly challenging for young adults who are struggling with severe anxiety or depression, and who generally rely on their social cycle for comfort. Nicole Dimio, who recently turned 19, has developed techniques to alleviate her anxiety over the years. She talks to friends, hugs her mom, practices and reads books – so much so that her family calls her Princess Belle, the protagonist of “Beauty and the Beast”. But during the months leading up to the epidemic, nothing worked.
Nicole’s mother became ill with covid in late March after caring for a coronavirus patient at Connie Island Hospital, where she works as a nurse. Nicole became the caretaker of her mother, and of her family. She would get up every morning at 5am to clean the house, take care of her little sister, and cook a meal full of protein, which she collected outside her mother’s bedroom door while squeezing into her school work. Her mother did not want to be ventilated if her lungs failed, so whenever she went to the emergency room for treatment, Nicole feared she would never return.
