Coronavirus: 'Depression feels

like my cat is sitting on my

chest'
The coronavirus pandemic and the resulting lockdown have
created difficulties for many people with mental health problems.
Here two young people, Lizzie Knott from Watford and Bertie
Campbell, a student in Aberdeen, describe how it has affected
them.
Lizzie Knott is a 22-year-old illustrator who lives with
depression:

For me, depression feels like my cat Rodney is sitting on my chest.

He sits there for a few days and doesn't move. He is noticeably
heavy but not in a way that actively stops me from carrying on
doing things - a bit like a baby in a sling. That's because I have
what's known as high-functioning depression. But during those
days something small can make me cry and feel really hopeless.

I have been waiting for my depression to spring up on me during

this weird and turbulent time and this week it finally has.

The feeling of things being out of my control and being unable to

escape a situation can make me feel quite anxious and depressed
anyway, and I think the weight of this pandemic and how much my
life has changed in just three weeks has suddenly hit.

Like a lot of people I have just been riding the waves of what's
happening in the world without really processing how I'm feeling
about it, until now. I can't apply for jobs or think about my future,
or progressing my life, and that's what scares me sometimes. I
think "what is the point in anything I'm doing?".

My university days are suddenly over and I've had to move out of
the house I rented with my three best friends - my support system.
I was the only one who didn't cry when we said goodbye to one
another. I just felt a tingly numbness - fine, but artificially fine.
Of course, I felt extremely sad, deep deep down, but it was like my
brain went into defence mode. Now I'm back at home with my
parents, brother and sister. Home is a weird place for me because
it reminds me of when my mental health was really bad a few
years ago.

My depression stems from PTSD and will probably affect me for

the rest of my life. But it is something I have learnt to fuel into
positive artwork.

I hope when this pandemic passes my negative feelings about

home will be replaced with positive, warm ones because we have
all been supporting each other. I will look back on the board-game
nights we had to help pass the time and the meals we ate together
in the garden. My family are amazing and I'm lucky to be in a safe
environment with them.

Since being in lockdown I've been drawing lots of flowers and light
because it's a reminder that spring is still blooming and the world
is still going round. I see beauty in things I used to take for
granted. I really look forward to the sunset now, when before I'd
never have looked out for it because I'd be so busy with uni or
work.

I look outside at the eerily quiet canal paths that normally teem
with families and take in the emptiness, the calm.

This lockdown has given me lots of time for self-reflection - my

pace of life is slower now. But I know not everyone is as lucky.
Most of my mind is taken up with thinking about the pandemic -
only the important things are important now and the small things
aren't any more.

Of course I wish I didn't have depression at all. But I'm learning to

greet it as a familiar face, like my cat. And when this bout of
depression passes, the light around me will shine much brighter
than it did before.
Bertie Campbell, 23 is in his second year of a chemistry degree
at the University of Aberdeen. He has a history of self-harm and
depression and is spending lockdown in his university rooms.
It has been hard to see all of my friends go home to their families
while I am stuck here in my university accommodation. All the
communal areas have been locked. I feel lucky that my boyfriend
has stayed here with me and we are self-isolating together.

I haven't lived with my parents since I was 17 and don't have a

relationship with either of them where going back would be an
option.

My university shut very abruptly a couple of weeks before the

lockdown started and since then I've had no motivation to keep
studying because we don't have exams any more and I feel like all
the hard work I've done this term is pointless.