Aug the 9th marked my 5th month into my new job, 5 months since I moved to Kent and 5 months of a global pandemic. I didn’t want to write this article because it seems like I have been repeating the same things for the last 5 months. 5 months ago, I was the happiest person in the world. After so many sacrifices, hard work and dedication, I had finished my PhD and was about to start my new job.
I thought that this was going to be a fresh start, a new opportunity to move on with life and do things differently. After such a stressful and unsettling time in grad school, I was craving stability and tranquillity. Little did I know, that 2 weeks after I moved here, global pandemic started and all my plans for the future, expectations and dreams fucked up. The list of bullshit that happened since the day lockdown was put in place is endless. It started with struggling to buy food, professional clothing, a bike, no activities to do outside work to decompress.
I made an incredible afford to stay positive, to keep doing the things I was doing before like exercising, reading, writing, but nothing feels the same anymore. Exercising in my living room in front of a TV screen is no longer exciting. Going out with your friends and being put 2 m apart kills all the joy of gathering. Queueing outside shops to buy stuff is boring. The lack of motivation and excitement to do things is a clear sign that my depression is back.
I sacrificied my mental health for the communal wellbeing!
Anything I try to do doesn’t feel the same. All these positive talks about mindfulness, gratitude, journalling, living in the moment sound bullshit to me. How can someone be grateful to live a life like this? Then, I think that I should be grateful because I have a job, a beautiful house, friends and family and I feel bad because I don’t appreciate what I have. The cycle goes on and on and I end up crying for feeling bad and then I feel bad because I felt bad. Are you getting confused? This is the jungle I constantly have in my mind. Doesn’t look pretty, right?
People keep repeating that this isn’t going to be forever, it was 8 weeks in March, then 3 months In June, now it’s been more than 5 months and it’s pretty clear that nothing will change until March 2021. I mean, we pretty much established that 2020 isn’t going to be anyone’s year really!
Even if it sounds BS to me, I got to terms with the fact that this is the year of leaving day by day, no planning for the future, no projections because I am not even sure if we will still find food at the grocery store tomorrow night. I feel stuck like living in a trap with no way out and I have no idea of what to do to change this. I actually do, I can do nothing at all!
Sorry for the depressive outlook! This will be my last article, at least for the time being, because I have nothing to say anymore. My life stopped 5 months ago and I decided not to talk about work or PhD stuff here!
Ciaone
Teresa Ambrosio Consulting 