Pandemic Anxiety
I interviewed Eleia Cruz about how the pandemic has affected her mental health. We discussed the major factors in teen anxiety today, and why it has been increasing.
Have you noticed that teens have been experiencing higher levels of anxiety lately? Are resources hard to access or not available? The Covid pandemic has affected more than just businesses. Others as well as I have noticed a dramatic increase in our anxiety throughout the days. I interviewed my friend Eleia Cruz and asked her questions regarding her mental health when the Covid pandemic was announced.
I asked Eleia about her anxiety levels before and after the pandemic: “Before Covid, I don’t remember being constantly anxious. Simple things like communicating with other people or eating in front of others make me anxious now.” Anxieties can be random and have no definite backstory to them. I get anxious near moving cars but have never experienced anything bad about them. It is, however, a common occurrence for traumatic events to cause anxiety. I believe the pandemic and Covid are traumatic enough to alter an individual’s mind.
Multiple studies have evidence to prove a decrease in mental stability. An analysis stated, “The prevalence of depression and anxiety symptoms during COVID-19 have doubled, compared with prepandemic estimates, and moderator analyses revealed that prevalence rates were higher when collected later in the pandemic, in older adolescents, and in girls,” (JAMA Network, Global). Many of my friends have talked to me about their depression and anxiety since the pandemic started. The majority of them feel as though their levels have increased drastically. I, personally, have been one of the people to experience very high levels of anxiety. I have no recollection of being an anxious individual until now.
I started attending therapy sessions in order to get my mental health under control. Thankfully, resources were not hard for me to obtain because of my doctors referring me to a specific place. But others don’t have the money or time to wait for a call back from a clinic. As the number of affected teens grows, fewer resources are available for others that need help the most. An article took a look at why psychological help is hard to find, “As the coronavirus crisis continues to wreak havoc on communities, the need for accessible, culturally affirming mental health support services has never been more acute,” (American Progress, Mental).
When I asked Eleia about this she said, “I do not believe there is enough psychological help around here. My family has members who have mental illnesses and we have to go out of the area to get help. My siblings and I are not able to get therapy because there is no place around here to take us in.” She mentioned how living in Eureka is a big contributing factor to there not being enough help for everyone. Living in a small city isn’t ideal for most people that require medical help. Many of the doctors around here leave to a bigger city for better pay. When the North American Mental Health Society (NAMHS) first opened here, it filled up immediately.
Another thing Eleia mentioned was, “I think social media is a big factor of this anxiety as well. For however long, we had no communication with the outside world unless we went online. So, I don’t think the pandemic was the only factor that contributed to anxiety increasing, but I do believe it plays a big part in it.” Social media has been known to have negative effects on mental health in teens, and the majority of us went online a lot when we were bored at home. I did notice that ever since the pandemic hit, I’ve grown accustomed to going on my phone whenever I can. My phone is almost always next to me, even when I’m doing work at home.
Since there are multiple variants of Covid to worry about, and right now the most contagious one is spreading, it’s not surprising that people are fearful of contracting Omicron. It is not a variant that is not as dangerous as the Delta variant but it is still more lethal than the common cold. Schools are a hotspot for spreading Omicron right now. A little less than half of my school is absent. My friends and I have become even more anxious about doing regular things, like going to school, which is not an exciting thing to experience.
Levels of anxiety in adolescents have increased due to multiple reasons since the pandemic started. A couple of reasons include social media and Covid. While these levels increase, psychological help is becoming harder to obtain, especially in smaller cities and towns. If you know someone who is struggling with their mental health, please try to help in any way you can.
Works Cited
American Progress, Azza Altiraifi & Nicole Rapfogel, “Mental Health Care Was Severely Inequitable, Then Came the Coronavirus Crisis” 10 September, 2020, www.americanprogress.org/artic...
JAMA Network, Nicole Racine & Brae Anne McArthur & Jessica E. Cooke, “Global Prevalence of Depressive and Anxiety Symptoms in Children and Adolescents During COVID-19” 9 August, 2021,
