Annika Stephens, a pre-nursing sophomore, is working three to four 12-hour shifts a week at St. Anthony Shawnee Hospital, caring for patients with non-coronavirus ailments and taking class quizzes in the break room instead of at school.
James Elias, a biomedical engineering senior, is losing the moment of receiving his diploma in May in front of his friends, family and the student body.
Others are losing the ability to go about their days normally, attending or teaching classes and interacting with others.
“All of us will experience some type of loss,” said Dr. Britta Ostermeyer, professor and chair of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences in the OU College of Medicine. “Some more, some less, but all of us are having to give up on our daily pursuits.”
As of April 10, Cleveland County has confirmed 236 cases of COVID-19, the new coronavirus that has killed 14 people in the county and caused OU to move to online classes for the rest of the spring semester and summer session in an attempt to slow the virus’ spread.
Concerns over the coronavirus have left businesses closed, events canceled and individuals advised to isolate in their homes.
All of these consequences will and have resulted in a large mental health impact, Ostermeyer said, particularly affecting populations without much social connection to begin, such as the elderly.
Ample amounts of daylight and social interaction, even through phone calls, can help stimulate the brain and continue healthy behavior, she said.
“Having a daily structure and having items on one’s schedule is very important and helpful,” Ostermeyer said. “Having to do errands and chores and tasks, that is a mentally stimulating activity for the brain and keeps us engaged. Having a structure also helps in terms of having some meaningful engagement that is experienced (positively) in a sense … that we’re having a purpose in life.”
Stephens has developed a new daily routine in her life. On days when she is not at the hospital, she attends her online lectures first thing in the morning, then walks her dog Aria, a 5-month-old Pembroke Welsh corgi, for some fresh air.
She usually tries to cook a meal at least once a day to eat something fresh, and said she gets some social interaction through living with her roommate and her fiance.
“It's definitely been tough because I'm an extrovert. I thrive on human interaction,” Stephens said. “At the hospital we’re a pretty tight-knit group, so it is good to be able to see them. But it's definitely tough, I never thought … I'd miss my classes ... It’s honestly a bummer, but between work and home, I'm getting at least some interaction for sure.”
Elias said he too is extroverted, and although he has been with his family in Tulsa, the change from having people over all the time has been tough to deal with. He also lives with his 84-year-old grandfather, so his family has been particularly worried.
“It’s been pretty overwhelming,” Elias said. “I kind of realized I wasn't processing everything going on well once I talked to some friends on Zoom. It's been a lot because as a senior ... you don't get to have any of those ‘lasts,’ which, I wasn't as upset about those as I was about potentially seeing some people for the last time without knowing it.”
Dr. Scott Miller, director of the University Counseling Center, said the loss of experiences can affect people mentally when they don’t discuss it in healthy ways. When processing these feelings, he said it is important for individuals to acknowledge that these may be significant losses, and to talk about the sadness that may come with that acknowledgement.
It is also healthy to put these losses into perspective and focus on what individuals may be thankful for, Miller said, since a balance of talking through these feelings and finding gratitude is crucial to moving forward.
“I think there are a number of ages that have lost things that they're never going to get back again. And that's sad and hard,” Miller said. “But I think we're all learning about what's most important through this, which is getting through this with our health and our family's health and our friends’ health. And I think that helps us put those losses in a bit of perspective.”
Miller said although most campus operations may be paused, those at the counseling center always saw themselves as an essential service, so appointments have continued through phone calls and through Zoom.
Prior to the coronavirus, telehealth services could not be provided to those out of state, but the government moved to allow health care workers to use virtual platforms to provide those services. Once this was allowed, Miller said they moved quickly to get Zoom set up in a way that would conform with HIPAA protections.
The center has continued regularly scheduled sessions and group programs through Zoom, including the introduction of an international student group and an open COVID-19 group that focuses on anxieties around the virus, Miller said. To get involved in these groups, individuals may call the university counseling center’s front desk at 405-325-2911, which involves a brief screening and confidentiality discussion.
Although Stephens does not use university counseling services, she said she immediately contacted her personal therapist when she found out OU would be moving online for the rest of the semester. She said she has been diagnosed with depression, generalized anxiety disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder, so she wanted to be proactive in making a plan to prevent any exacerbated symptoms she may have faced without a daily routine.
“I have actually been seeing the same therapist for about four years now,” Stephens said. “We've been doing the telehealth meetings with her once a week just to have someone to vent to, and validate my feelings and my stress.”
Ostermeyer said in a press release that those who already have mental health diagnoses may be particularly susceptible during the pandemic and isolation, so it is crucial for those individuals to stay on top of taking any prescribed medications and continue to keep in touch with their physicians.
Elias struggles with anxiety in particular, he said, and limits his interaction with the news to once a day to control those feelings. He also takes a walk outside occasionally when being stuck inside gets to be too much.
These feelings of anxiety can be frequent during this time, especially with all the unknowns of the pandemic, because when people try to think ahead — particularly in terms of months or years — they can feel overwhelmed and hopeless, Ostermeyer said. It is important for people to think in terms of the day to day, or week to week when these feelings come up, she said.
“What makes this isolation different than other isolations that we had an opportunity in studying in the past, such as astronauts, such as incarcerated people, is that there's a big unknown here,” Ostermeyer said. “Reality is, and we have to acknowledge, nobody knows how long we're in for this. Therefore, when it is with no defined end at this point, it does help to take time and divide it up in chunks.”
Giving too much focus to the news can also be overwhelming. Both Elias and Stephens try to stay informed but limit their news consumption, protecting themselves from spiraling with too much exposure.
The background noise of the pandemic can harm individuals’ attention spans, Miller said, since “we've always got the coronavirus in the back of our mind” while at the same time trying to work and continue daily life from home.
He recommends that when focusing on something like schoolwork is necessary, individuals should move to another location in their homes away from social media to try to stay concentrated. Miller believes the added weight of living through a pandemic for students may be a part of why OU moved to the pass/fail grading system announced March 20.
“I think all of us have to wake up every day with a little bit more patience for ourselves, and expect that we may not be quite as productive as we normally are,” Miller said. “As long as we get up and have some structure and get some exercise and get some work done, that's probably a win for the day, even if it's not as much as we wanted to get done, with the idea that we can then wake up the next day and try again.”
Stephens said the first week of balancing online classes and working at the hospital was a struggle — frustration bringing her to tears at one point when trying to figure out new COVID-19 policies at work and how to navigate new online components of coursework.
But she said her professors have been really understanding with her, working around her shifts at the hospital, so things have improved.
“It's been getting better since, just because I'm getting into the groove of what my classes expect from me, like how much I need to divide my time between each class,” Stephens said, “and then things that the hospital, while they're still way, way different than usual, are starting to become more routine. … But there still is that stress of, ‘What's going to happen if I am exposed or I do get sick? How is that going to affect my schoolwork?’”
As face masks, Zoom meetings and dry hands from repeated washing become more and more routine, conversations between the administration and university counseling services have continued as well.
Miller said they have talked with the provost’s office, department chairs and deans across the university, and were a part of conversations about what challenges students would face when OU moved forward with online learning.
Moving forward, Miller said they are looking at expansion of staff to get people in quicker, something they were also discussing prior to the pandemic. They are also looking at new technology products to help individuals when they return to campus, since once school eventually does resume, “students are going to get back needing to talk about this.”
“I can tell you, the administration is very open to it,” Miller said. “We just don't know what the financial picture is going to look like going forward. But that is a priority of the administration as well.”
