Habif in the World of COVID-19

I set my Monday morning alarm for 10 A.M. It goes off, and I decide I want a few more minutes. Slowly, a few minutes turn into a few more hours. To wake myself up, I go on Facebook, and then Snapchat, and then watch a few YouTube videos. I skip my first class because after all I learn nothing from virtual classes. Looking at my phone, I see the time: 1:30 P.M. But for some reason, I cannot convince myself to get out of bed, and find myself absorbed on my own thoughts, focused on the gray sky outside, unable to escape the cold, hard, reality of isolation in my home. 

I begin to feel guilty—not everybody has the luxury of quarantining themselves in a home where they can feel safe, with their family, and with the resources to engage with their education. Not everybody has a family where both parents still have their jobs, and nobody has Coronavirus. And yet, no matter how much I remind myself of my privilege, my lingering inability to concentrate or stay focused never subsides. 

Privileged or not, mental health affects every student now isolated in their homes after Coronavirus stole our semester, our economy, and in some cases our loved ones. While Wash U’s campus offered accessible—albeit imperfect—mental health resources, some students not only lost access to their main source of counseling and medication, but returned home to loneliness, greater stress, and uncertainty. While all of us learn from home, however, COVID-19 has exposed Wash U’s mental health resources for their shortcomings and inadequacies. 

For example, Habif has a page about mental health and coping with isolation during COVID-19. Its page contains several links to different websites helping students cope, and warns students about anxiety, uncertainty, depression, and even PTSD. Habif’s page contains helpful information—it warns students about risks and even offers guidance for supporting themselves and others. Yet upon examining some of their advice, the website, rather than being helpful and informative, feels unhelpful and inaccessible.

[pullquote]While all of us learn from home, however, COVID-19 has exposed Wash U’s mental health resources for its shortcomings and inadequacies. [/pullquote]

It ignores, first and foremost, stressors unique to underprivileged students—students who disproportionately need greater access to mental health resources. Zoom and virtual coursework expose the different stresses that students face in COVID-19. One political science course at Haverford College demonstrates the staggering inequalities the different challenges present in less-privileged areas. According to the New York Times, while “one student sat at a vacation home on the coast of Maine,” and “one young woman’s father, a private equity executive, urged the family to decamp to a country where infections where falling,” other students faced steeper challenges. “Another [student] struggled to keep her mother’s Puerto Rican food truck running” and “another student’s mother in Russia couldn’t afford the plane ticket to bring her daughter home.” Crowded homes, failing businesses, financial insecurity, and limited access to healthcare all contribute to intensifying stress and deteriorating mental health in low-income areas. 

During COVID-19, such struggles result in a greater need for care. Crisis Text Line and Empower Work, two text hotline services for people in crises, reported increased usage by low-income people due to coronavirus. Before the pandemic, 20% of Crisis Text Line’s users were below the poverty line, a number that rose to 32% by April 15. Simultaneously, 40% of Empower Work’s users are low-wage workers. Meanwhile, Habif’s mental health resources fail to address stressors unique to certain populations, and its advice hardly seems applicable to certain situations. Telling someone to “stay positive” in self-isolation, for example—actual advice from Habif’s website—seems insulting to say to someone who might have lost their job or who lacks proper health insurance. 

Moreover, nothing on Habif’s COVID-19 page indicates any emphasis on helping low-income students receive treatment or offering students remote counseling services. Students face much larger obstacles to mental health treatment at home than on campus, and not simply financial ones. According to the National Center for Biotechnology Information and the National Institute of Health, most United States citizens hold stigmas against mental illness that lead to embarrassment, shame, and disgrace upon acknowledging one’s own mental illness. The National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities says that existing stigmas particularly prevent populations of color from seeking proper treatment. When students face isolation and depression at home, sociocultural and financial barriers stop them from attaining the resources they need. Since schoolwork adds to the already large stress of returning home, Habif should actively offer online counseling sessions and help students acquire proper treatment. 

Hard-working, committed psychologists and counselors work in the Habif Health and Wellness Center. Their COVID-19 mental health page contains useful advice and helpful warnings. But the loneliness, exhaustion, and depression from the Coronavirus demand more than just advice and warnings—they demand action and treatment.