Teens Facing Emotional Stress of COVID-19

Today we find ourselves in a place we have never been before. Your wish to stay at home, play video games in your pajamas and FaceTiming friends all day long has become reality. Except this wasn’t quite what you dreamed it would be. Stuck at home. All your classes are online. You are realizing that school wasn’t such a bad place after all. Your teachers were actually good human beings and you realize that even with all the school drama you kind of miss the face to face life you had taken for granted. Can we just go back to normal?

The COVID19 took over our world not even a month ago and life dramatically changed. We are currently all at home under the stay-at-home order and many of us have had the emotional ups and downs of this stressful time. Your anxiety and worry have only increased and not being able to hang out with friends, go to school, and hang out at your favorite places has made you feel depressed. It sucks. You really just want space from your family and to be able to get out and have your freedom back. Maybe you feel afraid that you or your family members will get coronavirus and this cloud of worry hangs over your head on a consistent basis. Whatever you’re feeling, know that you are not alone and here are a few things to know and ways to deal with your current reality.

The first thing you need to realize is that all of this change due to COVID19 has caused an abrupt change to your life. This change was uninvited. Not welcome. When life changes like this, it is normal to feel like you’ve been turned upside down on your head. You feel disoriented. Your routine is gone. The familiar is gone. Our brain will cope with this by trying to find a similar past experience to make sense of it. “This reminds me of when we got stuck in our house from a week long blizzard…” In time, your brain will accommodate this event as its own “box” for you to make sense of this experience. That simply takes some time. Feeling better about a new normal takes time. Breathe. Look around. Practice some progressive muscle relaxation. Get the Calm app on your phone. Go outside and point out to yourself the tree on your right. The color of the house on your left. The shade of the sky above you. When we feel disoriented it helps to ground yourself back to the ground, back to the present moment.

The second piece to this puzzle is to realize that the disruption to life as you knew it, is something to grieve over. It’s okay to feel sad. Feel frustrated. You have lost something right now. Who wouldn’t? We often think we only grieve over losing people. You can grieve not only people and pets but you can grieve places, routines, freedoms and any sense of the familiar. Those are real losses. They are temporary and can be found again but they are still part of the reason you may be feeling depressed. Emotions are like a wave. They ebb and flow. The worst thing you can do is to try to stuff your emotions deep down. Try to name the emotion or emotions you are feeling and like a wave, they will rise and fall. When they rise it is especially important to find your anchors.

Third, it is important to grieve knowing you have anchors to keep you afloat in the storm you may be in. Anchors are truths or realities that remind you that you will be ok. Sources of anchors are: your faith, your family, a friend, a pet, a safe place in your house, a routine, your favorite music, etc. They will hold your feet steady. Name them. Draw them. Lean on them.

As you get through this stressful time, self-care has never been more important than ever. You won’t always feel like doing them, but being intentional about taking care of yourself is the best thing you can do for yourself right now. Here are 8 good things to do that applies best to our social distancing life right now:

1. Get your Vitamin D! Go for a walk, bike ride, skate board, run, or just be outside. Your cooped up self with thank you as it psychologically feels more freeing to feel the fresh air and sun on your face this way. Even if we are 6 feet apart.

2. Make a new schedule or routine for yourself AND write it down.

3. Come up with helpful distractions when you feel overwhelmed but don’t distract yourself so much that you stuff your feelings. Neither extreme works out very well. It’s a balancing act. Having both helps you stay within your window of what you can tolerate.

4. Create a list of your top 3 people you can FaceTime, Zoom, Skype, or call when you find yourself  feeling anxious or depressed. Get it off your chest. Ask them to just listen. Ask for what you need. Lean on others. That is allowed right now.

5. Give yourself permission to be a “mixed bag”. You will feel fine at times, sad at times, frustrated at times, and whatever else you’ll feel. Journal about it. Talk aloud to yourself in a quiet space.

6.  Eat healthy foods. Put down the Flaming Hot Cheetos. Add some healthy foods to the mix.

7. Aim for 8 to 9 hours a night of sleep. Set an alarm. Ask someone in your family to help you get up at a certain time so you don’t oversleep.

8. Don’t stay in your pjs all day. Make your bed. Studies show doing those things alone help you stick to a schedule and routine.

Please know that if you find yourself needing a safe space to process this more or are needing someone outside of your family and friends to figure this out, our counselors at Front Range Counseling Center are here to come alongside you. We are meeting via Zoom or a phone call. When we can safely meet in person again, we will do so.”