94 No More Normal: A COVID-19 Story

Anonymous

Many remember March 13, 2020 as the day the world stopped spinning. “Two extra weeks off of school,” they announced as lockdown measures came into place, isolating me and my family in our house in Markham, Ontario. As a grade 9 student (aged 14), I was happy they introduced two extra weeks off school, as it meant more time to relax with no more schoolwork. However, what I wasn’t aware of was that these two weeks would extend into the next couple of years, during which everything, or what I deemed my “normal life,” would change forever.

During the initial lockdown, my family was in full lockdown, especially for the first few months. My parents both had to stop going to their jobs in-person and had to stay at home. In the first weeks, there was a lot of uncertainty and fear of what might happen. I remember checking COVID updates and watching a chart outlining total cases and deaths almost daily. A couple of days after announcing the lockdown, we went grocery shopping, and most of the shelves were empty, with people stocking and loading up as uncertainty grew.

From March to May, my family and I were in strict isolation, only leaving to go grocery shopping or for essentials. This proved at first to be a fun experience. With the whole family at home, we spent most of our days doing just about anything we could to pass the time. Some activities included binge-watching TV shows, especially The Office, watching movies, making puzzles, and playing board games. During this time, I also started rebuilding my passion for piano and music and began learning the guitar. My friends and I maintained almost daily interactions online, mainly playing video games or attempting to do homework.

During the summer months of July and August, the lockdown protocols my family followed eased off. We were interacting with more families, however, doing so with caution and ensuring they were not sick. I also started interacting more with friends, going for bike rides once a week. A staple during the summer months for my family was going for walks and hikes in the neighbourhood. What was interesting was that many people in the neighbourhood were also going for walks, and distance was maintained or people switched directions to avoid contact with others.

During grade ten, in September of 2020, school returned with a new “quadmester” method, where students studied two courses in each of four quadmester, rather than four courses in each semester. Both the school and the students had to adapt to these changes quickly. During subsequent COVID waves after the first one, my family followed the lockdown protocols less strictly than before. However, we still wore masks when in contact with other people until the mandate was lifted. A lot of the day-to-day changes made during the lockdown included remaining more at home, refraining from going outside unless necessary, and being more cautious and alert to news about the virus.

I think that the lockdown and COVID negatively impacted the mental health of people my age. I feel the age I was during COVID (14-17) were critical years in the development of my brain. Especially since I had just started high school, being in isolation only allowed for minimal in-person social interaction. Most social interaction I had was online, and even that was only with a couple of close friends. I feel that the lockdown brought down social interaction and social skills. When I returned to school in grade 11, it was completely different than when I left in grade 9. Desks were placed apart, and masks were always worn. When I went back to school in person, I had to rebuild my “lost” social skills. Especially in grade 11, I found it difficult to make new friends and interact with more people.

Being in lockdown and isolation contributed to greater social anxiety development. Furthermore, being in lockdown restricted our access to the outside world and placed us in the confines of our homes. In the beginning, this was fun, but as the months turned into years, this started impacting my mental health negatively. It contributed to an increase in sadness and depression for a lot of people my age. It also led to feelings of loneliness and increased anxiety in fear of what might happen, since everything was new. The COVID-19 lockdown made my teenage years a completely different experience than I had originally imagined. Although time has passed since the initial lockdown, I sometimes feel that today, being 20 (five years later), the effects on my mental health from the lockdown continue to linger. I believe it also has lasting impacts on my generation, as experiencing a pandemic is something that none of us would have expected.

A course theme I can connect my experience to is stigma and misinformation, which came about especially when the vaccine rolled out. There were many people who were skeptical of the vaccine, especially because of how quickly it was made. Some people believed it was the government placing a microchip in you, and others believed it could lead to health problems. This misinformation was brought by some news outlets, by many uncredible videos circulating on social media, and through personal experiences. For example, my uncle experienced a minor heart attack in January of 2022. Because of this, a lot of my family members started blaming his heart attack on the COVID vaccine. They were saying that the vaccine led to the heart attack since my uncle received a booster shot a few weeks before the attack. Other family members and friends also had similar experiences. A lot of misinformation was being spread, especially towards the vaccine and regarding getting additional booster shots. Seeing this happening around me at that time, it prevented me from getting additional booster doses, in fear of getting other possible health problems. However, my perspective changed once I learned about the technology behind the vaccine and about the virus in university.

The COVID-19 experience lasted more than three years, including isolation, lockdown, online school, masks, social distancing, and excessive hand washing. In my opinion, the COVID experience has lasting effects to this day. For example, today I see more people wearing masks, me included, when sick in general. COVID was something a lot of us did not see coming, and we had to quickly adapt to a complete change in our normal life. That life, I feel, still hasn’t gone back to “normal” but has adapted to a new norm of life that is more cautious of disease spread. This is important as it keeps us better prepared for future epidemics.