Adolescents in covid isolation: ‘I felt like I was suffering’


Activities on which young people previously relied for stability and enjoyment. Special clubs and birthday parties are mostly canceled. There are rituals of passage like prom and coming home. Students spend large parts of their week looking at the zoom screens. Without guessing school programs and traditions, many say they are struggling to get out of bed in the morning.

“Everything is stable now,” said Aiden Hufford, 15, of Soffmore, Ryan High School in a suburb north of New York City. “There is nothing to look forward to. On virtual days I sit at the computer for three hours, have lunch, walk a little, sit for three hours, and then finish my day. It’s all just a cycle. “

Aiden is known as an avid “theater kid” and he was looking forward to his school play and science olympiad. Now that the questions have come out, the recent meeting of the Student Leadership Committee turned to an online meeting for inspiration. But it turned out to be frustrating because he had trouble getting engaged in the zoom conversation.

“I turned off my camera and waited for it to finish.” “She’s sad and somewhat lonely.” And he added that making new connections with classmates is almost impossible in a virtual setting: “Unless you try very hard, there’s no chance of making new friends this year.”

Isolation is especially difficult for young adults who struggle with severe anxiety or depression, and generally rely on their social circles for comfort. Nicole DeMio, who recently turned 19, has been developing techniques to manage her discomfort for years. She talks to friends, hugs her mother, exercises and reads books – so much so that her family calls her “Princess Belle” like the “Beauty and the Beast” hero. But nothing seemed to work during the early months of the epidemic.

Nicole’s mother fell ill with covid in late March after caring for a Conid virus patient at Connie Island Hospital, where she worked as a nurse. Nicole became her mother’s caregiver and her family. She woke up at 1 a.m. every morning to clean the house, keep an eye on her younger sister, and cook a meal full of protein, which she deposited outside her mother’s bedroom door while she was pressing for school chores. Her mother did not want air circulation if her lungs failed, so, every time she went to the emergency room for treatment, Nicole feared she would never come back.