My Resilience During the COVID-19 Pandemic

            As I reflect back to March 2020, I’m in awe at how much life as we used to know, and love changed in an instant. What we once knew as our daily normalcy has changed forever. The simplicity of sitting in a movie theatre, grabbing a coffee with a friend, or even traveling to see the ones we love is now not so simple. I never thought the world we knew could undergo these changes. As this has been a difficult transition for everyone, I feel like some of us needed a pause and to reflect on all the simple things in life. I realized how I took the simplest things in life for granted: quality time with family, travels, entertainment, and more. During this transition, my sophomore year of nursing school went completely online. Now I’m in my junior year of in person classes and I use my inner strength to keep me on track.

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Community/global sphere considerations

            The pandemic has not only affected the communities and global physical health but also their mental health. The limitations the community and worldwide have faced from not seeing loved ones and not seeing strangers takes a toll, but also not having access to testing, or the care they need because they can’t go to a hospital or doctor’s office. From isolation, having to quarantine, states locking down, CDC guidelines, daily news, to not being able to see family or seeing family through a thick window; I can’t begin to imagine the desperation to push through the glass but also the fear inside. Due to all of this, I see nurses providing more mental health awareness, resources, and care in the future. Even though the help is there and will be there I believe that fear and isolation will have the most impact on the community and lead patients to not want to get help or fix their health. Fear not only due to the virus but also the stigma associated with mental health and receiving help. I believe many community members will face depression, loneliness, and they’ll also have physical effects from covid. I hope future outreach, change, and breaking the stigma will help people seek the help they need. A pandemic does just as much mentally as it does physically.

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