By Claire-louise Shaw
“Every morning brings with it a dark cloud of unknowing. The unexpected and terrifying is now what I expect from each day.
“As soon as I realise I am awake in the morning my heart starts pounding and dread for the day ahead falls over me.” Beth Hawley, 17 years old, London
The lockdown has been and gone and life has moved on from Covid-19 to such a degree that even the restrictions are a thing of the past.
But some people are still suffering from the effects of the pandemic, whether it’s a loss of friends or family, missed school, or the extreme isolation that lockdown brought. Add anxiety over recent events in Russia and Ukraine, and you have a recipe for a lost generation.
“The school was always calling the police and my mum. I was never offered help by the school despite my mum’s constant requests. I was just punished and categorised as a naughty pupil. I was eventually diagnosed with social anxiety and autism at 15, four years after my anxiety began,” said Nicky’s twin Charlie.
“I have always suffered from social anxiety since I started secondary school. Some days the thought of just walking into the school building was enough to make me run as far away as I could. I never considered the dangers, I just had to get away. I would hide in forests or walk for miles and miles, far away from home,” said Nicky Pentek, 17, a secondary school student from London.
Photo by cottonbro from Pexels
How has the pandemic affected his anxiety? “I hated being locked down as I had just been placed in a specialist provision for teens with social and emotional anxiety for my last year of schooling. It took years to get to that point and it was great there,” said Nicky.
“Then the lockdown came and I had to study for my GCSE’s at home with my mum. I was gutted as for the first time I had found a school that wanted to help me. I never got to go back. Once the lockdown ended I was completely lost, school was over and I found when I thought of college my anxiety was even worse than before. I was now terrified to leave my home.”
Turning their world upside-down
The impact of Covid-19, lockdowns, restrictions and a global pandemic has turned the world of teenagers upside down. Everything they have come to recognise as normal throughout their short years here on earth has been turned on its head.
As they are no longer children but not yet adults they are already often misunderstood by our communities. Teenagers can be stereotyped and perhaps unfairly judged a lot of the time. Their needs are often dismissed and their behaviours judged harshly as troublesome.
For teens it can be a confusing time where society expects them to behave as adults but yet often their needs are not taken seriously and their concerns can be treated as childish.
Nicky’s girlfriend Beth Hawley, also 17, said the pandemic made her feel anxious too. “I never had anxiety before the pandemic. I was popular and confident at school. The lockdown changed all of that,” she said.
“My friends gradually stopped texting, I had nothing to do other than obsess on my appearance. Slowly I became depressed. By the time we were able to return to school my final year had been and gone. I found myself unable to leave the house.”
Beth continued: “Now I find myself worrying about the war. I have been following Ukrainian girls just like me on TikTok and I wonder if they will survive the bombs and fighting. I am constantly watching the news to see if Putin is going to bomb us here in England.
“I dream about World War 3 beginning. I now worry that if Covid doesn’t kill me and my family the war will.”
Not getting the help they need
Beth tried to return to mainstream college in London in September of last year. Sadly, she quit the course in January as she was unable to attend many of her classes due to her anxiety.
“My attendance had fallen to 32%. I had asked the college so many times if they could help with my anxiety but the help never came. I’m now out of education and at a loss as to how to get my life back on track.”
Charlie had a similar experience: “It took two years for me to get help from CAMHS (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service), then my face-to-face appointments were cancelled due to the lockdown. The more anxious I got the less I wanted to have the telephone appointments.
“There was no privacy from my family as we all live in a small flat, we had to shield and so I couldn’t go out. In the end the calls stopped because I wasn’t participating. Despite my mum trying to get me back into face to face appointments with CAMHS and various other agencies I still have no support in place.”
Unpredictable transition from teen to adult
The teen years are the confusing and unpredictable transition from a child to an adult.
Many teens feel that society continues to underestimate the difficulty of that transition period. Now with a global pandemic and a vicious war raging at the hands of a dictator that threatens peace throughout the world, the teen has no idea what their adult life will hold and it seems there is very little support for them at this time.
Young Minds have carried out four surveys throughout the pandemic addressing the short term and long term effects on young people’s mental health. The results have continued to be alarming and highlights a real lack of support in our communities.
The first survey was carried out in March of 2020 with young people with a history of mental health needs between 20th march (the day that schools closed) and the 25th March (when there was a tightening of restrictions).
Its aim was to establish the impact of the pandemic on their mental health and on their ability to access support. The report reads: “This is a snapshot of young people’s views and experiences, in a rapidly changing situation.”
Here are some of their findings:
32% agreed that it had made their mental health much worse.
51% agreed it had made their mental health a bit worse
9% agreed it made no difference to their mental health
6% said that their mental health had become a bit better
1% said that their mental health had become much better
According to the fourth Young Minds survey carried out in January of 2021 the figures showed:
75% of respondents agreed they were finding the current lockdown harder to cope with than the previous ones, including 44% who said it was much harder.14% said it was easier to cope with. 11% said it was the same.
67% agreed that they believe the pandemic will have a long term effect on their mental health. 19% neither agreed or disagreed. 9% disagreed.
To read the full reports click here:
Chance to heal
“As teens we are always judged as being trouble, attention seeking and up to no good. If I wear a hood I am treated like a thug, If I stand up for myself I am told I am rude. If I pick up a chocolate bar in a shop I’m accused of stealing. If I go to Sainsbury shopping for my mum I am followed around the shop by the security guard,” said Charlie.
“Teenagers are prematurely judged every day, our needs are not taken seriously and our mental health often dismissed. Society needs to change its attitude towards teenagers and stop giving us such a hard time.
“We are not all bad, some of us just want the chance to heal and become balanced healthy adults in body and mind.”
Claire-louise Shaw
15th March 2022
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