In these difficult times, we look to the physical well-being of the everyday Australian, but it is equally important that we care for one another’s mental health during this crisis.
Simply a month ago, I woke up finally feeling a sense of security in my life. A strong sense of purpose, structure, and control that I hadn’t felt in a long time. Some of us find that feeling in spurts, the luckier ones, get to feel it every day. My partner and I had a schedule, a balance to things. It finally felt like we’d stilled the ever-precarious scales of exercise, work, study and social. And then, without warning, COVID-19 was hurled upon us, crashing down, smashing that scale to pieces. But while we dealt with a stone, others are dealing with a landslide.
Australian’s left and right are dealing with a hailstorm, experiencing their work hours being severely cut down, thousands upon thousands of jobs lost, mass line ups for Centrelink that wrap around blocks and street corners... University’s and banks are reaching out to people offering loans, the maddening stress of making sure our families have enough to eat, toilet paper and the necessities; all atop of the stress and panic of the threat of severe illness, social isolation and fear of spreading it to others.
In a survey commenced on Sunday 22nd of March to Wednesday 25th, eleven Australian’s answered a series of questions on the topic of their mental health and what the Corona Virus crisis impact will be. Seven of the participants chose to reveal their name and age, and thus 63% of the participants form an ageing pool ranging from ages 19-57. One of the questions asked participants how they would rate the effect of being in self-isolation, with 1 being ‘minimal’ and 5 being ‘this will greatly decay my mental health.’
There is an interesting contrast, one can note, between the age of the participant and how they determined self-isolation would affect their mental well-being. Older participants were more likely to select the lower end of the scale, reflective of how many of Australia’s older population are seemingly not treating the crisis with as much caution as the younger population, or that they do not put the same emphasis on mental health. It is well worth considering, however, youth’s propensity for being able to talk about their mental health issues, seek treatment and be more knowledgeable in regards to terminology and coping strategies in stark contrast to Australia’s older generations.
One of the greatest stressors during this time is money. The economy is under great duress, many people have had their hours cut or have lost their jobs entirely, which has led people to turn to government funding, therefor leaving the Centrelink website barely functioning due to the amount of traffic going through it every hour. In my survey, I asked participants about how they could be able to cope with the possibility of losing their job or a dramatic cut in their hours and what kind of impact it could have on their mental health. The loss of a job or any amount of income can have a significant impact on anyone’s life, no matter their age, but for some, it can mean going without necessities, or a roof over their head.
[How severely would the loss of hours/shifts or possibly your job, affect you and your mental health?]
“Quite severely. Due to the fires and now the virus, my work hasn’t had any hours for casual staff and I haven’t worked for a month. If I wasn’t lucky enough to still live at home, I would be homeless.” – Georgia, 20
[Are you personally doing anything to calm yourself and others during this time?]
“Try and continue to do my normal things. In some ways, it has helped me to start doing the things that should have been on my to-do list for forever. E.g. use the food in the fridge rather than waste it. Can’t wait to try my chilli oil.” – Annette 57
This fear follows us into even our supermarkets, with many Australian’s striving for control over their lives during this crisis. One participant works at a grocer and is experiencing the abuse many supermarket workers are facing.
[What is your opinion on the current hysteria that is pervading our supermarkets?]
“It is absolutely ridiculous! As an employee of IGA, I’ve been working 10-hour shifts and I recently did a 12-hour shift to deal with the number of people we are experiencing. We are busier than Christmas week and people are still hoarding. They are not listening to the advice given that Australia will not run out of food or that supermarkets will shut. They just keep coming. It’s a stressful place to work at the moment” – Rachel, 28
We are living in an unprecedented new world. A new world that none of us was given a heads-up for. To the every-day Australian, world disasters and horrors happened in far-away countries. Over thousands of kilometres of ocean and foreign land, so to us, they came in waves too gentle to even rock our cushy, sound-proof boat. Too long, we have seen the rest of the world through four walls of opaque glass, the sound muffled and uninteresting. But with a crisis now outside our doorstop, the problem is now real. With the dawning of this reality, we must step up for each other. Not just for the protection of our physical health, but for our mental well-being.
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