{"id":3711,"date":"2021-04-19T17:16:27","date_gmt":"2021-04-19T21:16:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/?p=3711"},"modified":"2021-04-23T11:10:00","modified_gmt":"2021-04-23T15:10:00","slug":"one-year-in-isolation-students-share-their-loneliest-moments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/2021\/04\/one-year-in-isolation-students-share-their-loneliest-moments\/","title":{"rendered":"One Year in Isolation, Students Share their Loneliest Moments"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
“Sitting Alone” by naraekim0801 is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

The first couple months of virtual learning were the hardest for economics Major Yanga Same. Her mother barred her from going outside and she couldn\u2019t see her friends.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI was cooped up inside every day and the only social interaction aside from family was my classmates on Zoom,\u201d said Same. \u201cIt made me appreciate class a lot more during the first virtual semester.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

During the second semester of virtual learning, when Same began procrastinating, she tried to fend off pandemic ennui with a night shift job at Amazon.<\/span><\/p>\n

By the third semester, isolation took its toll.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cRight now, I\u2019m only taking one class and even that is like hard to get to class even in the afternoon,\u201d said Same. \u201cI still go so the professor doesn\u2019t feel bad. It\u2019s so silent in class you can feel the other student\u2019s lack of motivation to even type on their keyboards.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

For some students, t<\/span>he pandemic exacerbated already existing mental health concerns. For others, pandemic-related stressors led to changes in mood, motivation, and functioning.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t want to associate with any other school people outside of class,\u201d said Same.\u201d I was mentally out of it and usually spent my free time sleeping, watching YouTube and at my job.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Same\u2019s pandemic experience is a common one. Roughly 60% of students, age 18 to 25, felt high levels of loneliness since the pandemic began, according to research from <\/span>Making Caring Common<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cStudents have reported an increase in overall levels of anxiety, depression, and isolation,\u201d said Martin Pino, director of Counseling & Wellness Services at Hunter. \u201cparticularly attributable to COVID-related factors, such as remote learning, financial stress, grief, and feelings of isolation and loneliness.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

When Hunter College first announced plans to switch to virtual learning, Q’Shaa Pollock, a Journalism and English double major, was relieved. Pollock lives with two immunocompromised housemates.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI did go through a period where I was isolated, where I felt by myself and like I had nobody,\u201d said Pollock. \u201cI had to disconnect from my family that lived outside my house.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

When Pollock\u2019s workplace failed to uphold COVID safety regulations by ignoring maximum capacity and banning employees from wearing masks, she left so she would not be exposed to the coronavirus.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMy interactions with people were really limited,\u201d said Pollock, who has struggled with mental health issues since she was 5.\u00a0 \u201cI just had to figure out how to get by.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

She says her pandemic loneliness came in waves. Wave one was depression. Wave two was staying in bed and isolating herself from others. Wave three was a loss of motivation to attend class.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI personally thought it would be easier for me to get to class because, hello, it\u2019s online all you have to do is roll over and get on,\u201d said Pollock. \u201cBut it was actually really, really hard for me to get to class during that time. Being lonely led me to be in a deep depression. I just didn\u2019t want to do anything.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Although Pollock managed to make some friends through Hunter forums, she expects them to be short-lived, spurred only by temporary pandemic loneliness.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like a lot of people, especially college students. We are alone and we are dealing with a lot and so we just kind of leaned on each other,\u201d said Pollock. \u201cWe still are leaning on each other to cope and help each other out and give each other advice about situations.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

For Pollock, the challenge is not in sustaining relationships, but maintaining them.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI think the loneliest I felt was the two months I went without seeing my family,\u201d said Pollock. Though her family lived only thirty minutes away, Pollock was unable to be with them.<\/span><\/p>\n

Last year, Pollock\u2019s mother caught COVID and was hospitalized on the week of Easter. She had to step up and take care of the family.<\/span><\/p>\n

She relied on skills learned in therapy to cope.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI actually got out of therapy during the pandemic because I felt like I was able to handle my issues properly. I feel like I was very strong-minded, and I could cope well with the things that were going on,\u201d said Pollock. \u201cMy therapist prepared me for what\u2019s to come.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Sam Bodamer, age 32, transferred to Hunter College last Spring hoping she would finally have the university experience she always wanted.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cFor me it’s been a really big deal to get into university,\u201d said Bodamer. \u201cI heard that Hunter was switching online, and I knew it was going to be my first semester, I was obviously really bummed. I was like \u2018Oh, I don’t get to have this experience that I always wanted it and dreamt of.\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Bodamer lives with her spouse, and although she is never physically lonely, Bodamer felt isolation in other ways.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>\u201cBefore I got out of my comfort zone, I was feeling really disconnected from everything,\u201d said Bodamer. \u201cI was new to Hunter but had no way to put myself out there at first.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Bodamer pushed herself to pursue friendships with classmates and become involved in a literature club outside of CUNY. Soon, her loneliness faded.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m the introverted extrovert. Being able to be with somebody but not really with you is kind of perfect for me,\u201d said Bodamer.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Students looking for help can also reach out to NYC-Well or the CUNY Crisis Text Line (Text “CUNY” to 741741) for support. <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Spending prolonged amounts of time alone worsened existing mental health concerns in some students, and led to changes in mood, motivation and functioning in others.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":96,"featured_media":3714,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,324],"tags":[303,279,388,280,14,410,409],"class_list":["post-3711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-student-life","tag-covid19","tag-huntercollege-hunterstudents","tag-studentmentalhealth","tag-anxiety","tag-hunter-college","tag-loneliness","tag-lonely"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/96"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3711"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3711\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3717,"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3711\/revisions\/3717"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3714"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}