Further research and interviews that have been conducted have let me known that in Coronavirus and life everyone goes a little crazy sometimes.
We all go a little crazy sometimes
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Online Sources
Extra Information that was looked at for this story.
1. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 2020. Coping with Stress, 1 July 2020. [Online]. Available at: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/daily-life-coping/managing-stress-anxiety.html [Accessed 8 August 2020].
2. Orkin, M., Roberts, B., Bohler-Muller, N. and Alexander, K. 2015. The hidden struggle: The mental health effects of the Covid-19 lockdown in South Africa. Daily Maverick, 13 May 2020. [Online]. Available at: https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2020-05-13-the-hidden-struggle-the-mental-health-effects-of-the-covid-19-lockdown-in-south-africa/ [Accessed 8 August 2020].
3. Health 24. 2000-2020. Looking after your mental health during the coronavirus crisis, 1 April 2020. [Online]. Available at: https://www.health24.com/Medical/Infectious-diseases/Coronavirus/looking-after-your-mental-health-during-the-coronavirus-crisis-20200331-2 [Accessed 8 August 2020].
4. C/net. 2015. How to fight depression and anxiety during the coronavirus pandemic, 28 April 2020. [Online]. Available at: https://www.cnet.com/health/how-to-fight-depression-and-anxiety-during-the-coronavirus-pandemic/ [Accessed 8 August 2020].
5. SA Coronavirus. 2015. COVID-19, Lockdown and your mental health, 10 April 2020. [Online]. Available at: https://sacoronavirus.co.za/2020/04/10/covid-19-lockdown-and-your-mental-health/ [Accessed 8 August 2020].
6. Solomon, A. 2020. For those of us with depression, coronavirus is a double crisis. The Guardian, 13 April 2020. [Online]. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/13/depression-coronavirus-double-crisis-suffering-mood [Accessed 8 August 2020].
7. Medical press. 2020. Africa 'not ready' for COVID-19 mental health issues, 24 April 2020. [Online]. Available at: https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-04-africa-ready-covid-mental-health.html [Accessed 8 August 2020].
8. Dolgin, R. Psycom. 2020. The Impact of Covid-19 on Suicide Rates, n.d. [Online]. Available at: https://www.psycom.net/covid-19-suicide-rates [Accessed 8 August 2020].
A series of Questions
These were the 8 questions that were asked to the two interviewees to gain a further personal insight into what mental health was for peoples during COVID19.
1.) Do you have mental illness or disorders? If so, please name them.
2.) How has coronavirus impacted your mental state as a whole?
3.) Has coronavirus inconvenienced your disorder and treatment and therapy?
4.) Has your mental state worsened as a result of social isolation and social distancing? If yes, how?
5.) Do you think young adults (people our age) are getting better help and support for mental illnesses?
6.) Have you had a mental breakdown in coronavirus pandemic?
7.) What would you say is the worst and best thing about being in quarantine for your mental health?
8.) What do you think is the most important thing or aspect that needs to be done or implemented for people with mental illnesses in SA’s COVID19 situation?
Interview 1
Contact Details, Voice Recording and Interview Transcript: Saretha van der Pol
Contact Details: 081-447-7829 (cellphone)
Please use the following URL to listen to Saretha van der Pol's audio interview:
Interview Transcript:
The following shows an interview by van der Pol (2020):
Carla: Do you have mental illness or disorders? If so, please name them.
Saretha: I have temporal epilepsy, high functioning anxiety and clinical depression.
Carla: How has coronavirus impacted your mental state as a whole?
Saretha: As a whole it has affected me with my depression and anxiety since I do not have my stable sources of friends around me.
Carla: Has coronavirus inconvenienced your disorder and treatment and therapy?
Saretha: Coronavirus has inconvenienced my disorder since because of my epilepsy, some of my family members are my triggers, so it is hard staying in a house with them. My therapy has been inconvenienced because I am not able to go to my psychologist or psychiatrist anymore, I am only allowed to have phone calls with them or video conferences.
Carla: Has your mental illness worsened as a result of social isolation and social distancing? If yes, how?
Saretha: My mental illness has worsened as a result of social isolation because as previously mentioned, I do not have stability anymore that I used to have in friends or people that are close to me.
Carla: Do you think young adults (people our age) are getting better help and support for mental illnesses?
Saretha: I do not think young adults, people our age, are getting better treatment for mental illness since there are some families that still believe that mental illness is just a phase, that it will go over, since we are still in our developing years. They do just think it’s a phase that we are going to go over, so I don’t think they are getting better help.
Carla: Have you had a mental breakdown in coronavirus pandemic?
Saretha: Yes, I have had an anxiety attack in coronavirus pandemic because I was worried about how this was going to affect our family.
Carla: What would you say is the worst and best thing about being in quarantine for your mental health?
Saretha: I would say the worst thing about being in quarantine is, as previously mentioned I don’t have that stability that I got from friends and or being around people who are close to me, and I don’t have that kind of source of joy that I get from being around people, from being an extrovert, so that worsens my depression. The best thing I would say is I have been able to catch up on doing what I like to do, doing art and painting and things like that.
Carla: What do you think is the most important thing or aspect that needs to be done or implemented for people with mental illnesses in SA’s COVID19 situation?
Saretha: I think that the resources to be able to contact psychiatrists or psychologists should be more open and that these people suffering with these mental illnesses should be able to have a stable friend or family member to talk to during this situation (van der Pol, 2020).
Interview 2
Contact Details, Voice Recording and Interview Transcript: Keanu Vorster
Contact Details: 079-069-0007 (cellphone)
Please use the following URL to listen to Keanu Vorster's audio interview:
Interview Transcript:
The following shows an interview by Vorster (2020):
Carla: Do you have mental illness or disorders? If so, please name them.
Keanu: Honestly I don’t know if I have any mental illnesses or disorders, I might just be stupid?
Carla: How has coronavirus impacted your mental state as a whole?
Keanu: The situation of being stuck at home with a bit of a toxic environment has not been good on the mental state, you go kind of …dead on the inside, in a sense, if you can put it in that way, its dependent on the entire environment you are around and how that can influence your mental state. If it was a more positive environment, I think I would’ve been in a much better state than actually just done a whole lot of self-improvement. But I just have to say, the feeling of being abandoned, alone, is extremely progressive in this entire situation, you don’t really get out enough. It’s kind of difficult sitting there thinking you’re making some worthwhile friends being unable to see them, meet them, do anything with them, all you do is have this faceless communication on the computer, it helps, it helps, it’s just not fun not being able to go out with friends, being unable to do what you want, being restricted. The mental problems have increased by the fact that now it’s even more difficult, legally by the government as well.
Carla: Has coronavirus inconvenienced your disorder and treatment and therapy?
Keanu: Well yeah, if you consider depression, maybe, I don’t know, my depression in a sense has become worse.
Carla: Has your mental state worsened as a result of social isolation and social distancing? If yes, how?
Keanu: Well I have always felt lonely, so yes.
Carla: Do you think young adults (people our age) are getting better help and support for mental illnesses?
Keanu: Nah, I worked for a corporation. What kind of assistance do they think they are giving you, you don’t matter to them
Carla: Have you had a mental breakdown in coronavirus pandemic?
Keanu: Yes, of course. A few.
Carla: What would you say is the worst and best thing about being in quarantine for your mental health?
Keanu: A lot of self-reflection, that’s probably the best, you have a lot of time for self-reflection, a decent amount of time to progress yourself. Now, being able to work for a corporation and being self-isolated you get to have a lot more time to focus on your trade, you get more done, you actually feel like you are progressing, you tend to feel like you want to do more. That’s how I feel. Definitely the worst part is, you don’t have much support structure around you, especially if you’re coming from a toxic family situation already. You don’t have your friends around to support you and then in my case, working for a corporation that doesn’t give a damn about you further from being a number in that company and having them treating you that way is definitely not helping. So that’s probably the worst part, just having more pressure put onto you and less support structure.
Carla: What do you think is the most important thing or aspect that needs to be done or implemented for people with mental illnesses in SA’s COVID19 situation?
Keanu: I don’t think there’s much you can do. Maybe tell companies to start treating people better, especially for the people our age that are in a studying or working level, then you just stop treating me like…, just start treating us like people. I don’t know. I just think more support structures and definitely one of the biggest things I have been struggling with, to deal with in this entire COVID19 situation is the financial situation that has been making me feel extremely hopeless in my house; but I feel somewhat more hopeless, more depressed in a sense. So that can definitely be something that can be looked at, especially for the younger generation; just in general, its focused on the older generation of people who don’t have much time left on earth… and finances is given to them; whereas the younger generation is really just struggling to get by at university, sometimes they are first trying to consider what they are going to do with their lives, now they have to worry about finances and different means to get more money (Vorster, 2020)
Disclaimer: Both of these interviews were conducted during South Africa’s coronavirus pandemic and to ensure no risk of infection to the interviewee and their family, the interview questions were sent in and then answered by means of voice note on WhatsApp sent back to the interviewer.