Remzie Boisrond, the picture of perfect physical health.
Remzie, like many persons born in the later 1990’s, looks like your average Joe. Healthy, social media active and like many Millennials and Generation Z youths, he doesn’t deal with stress very well. Before there was even the Corona Virus, Remzie was an anxious person. He often likens himself to ‘being mentally older’ than he actually is because he has had to grow up rather quickly because of the living situations he’s been brought up in. Remzie, who is a final year Pre-Med university student, controlled his anxiety somewhat by sticking to his very structured plans. Since the Corona Virus hit, those plans have been shot to hell. He now knows nothing but the feeling of uncertainty during this time. The quarantine had forced him to be alone more often with his thoughts which aren’t always so positive. He had time to “stress over stress that didn’t even start to stress him yet.”
Regardless of his typical anxious state, Remzie thrived in school before the global pandemic as he felt that he could better grasp the information because he could talk with his lecturers and ask them as many questions as he would like in person and everything was more hands on. While attending school during the quarantine, he felt that he didn’t have such a
good grasp on his materials as well as he on occasion had internet trouble which affected his classes and he also had trouble getting information on his own which wasn’t working for him. Because of this, Remzie became anxious about having to redo classes, extending courses and failing the semester.
While attending school, Remzie also worked part-time at a hotel. However, since school has paused and he is considered an essential worker he was able to continue working. Unfortunately, because of the pandemic, he was the only one working for about 3 months into the quarantine. This he said caused him to stress about being the sole bread-winner for his family of 5 as his parents both had to stop working and his sisters were also attending school. He became worried about the bills and providing food. He also took on extra work hours to ensure his family was taken care of. Luckily, his mother recently resumed working which greatly alleviated his worries and took some of the pressure of responsibility off his shoulders.
Remzie is aware that this overly active state of mind is unhealthy and so he tries to cope in various ways. He often talks with his church counselors as they are able to respond and so he doesn’t feel like he is drowning in his own thoughts. He feels that they are able to answer all his challenging questions knowledgeably and biblically sound, thus making him feel relieved, safe, calm and comforted because they care about him and want him to have a better head-space. He especially likes to do this because he feels that he is too smart for his own good and will talk himself out of being calm by overthinking everything. Remzie also journals his thought and writes some of them down as poetry to help him cope. Most recently, Remzie has picked up kickboxing which he says helps him a great deal. Though he considers himself a pacifist, he likes to take out his frustration on the punching bag which helps him to feel more at peace and tires him out too much to overthink anything.
As it relates to his school stress, he admitted that his ways of coping did help him a lot. He stated that through his coping mechanisms he feels less pressure and he is reminded that nobody is perfect and that even if he doesn’t pass a course, it’s not the end of the world and failure just teaches him that sometimes he’s just not ready for whatever challenge life threw a him in that moment, but not that he won’t ever be ready. “Failing means that I’m really learning lessons; it’s just a kind of reality check sometimes.” Being able to recognize failure that way has really calmed him down.
Coping mechanisms are not hard to come by. Remzie didn’t have to look too hard to find ways to help with his mental stability. He got recommendations by his church counsellors and friends on how to positively cope with his anxiety. He was even inspired to start using kickboxing as a stress reliever just from watching T.V and from further researching, he found it was in fact recommended to persons who needed an outlet from stress. He also found some breathing techniques online which help activate parasympathetic nervous systems which force him to stay calm. Though you would think Remzie would also be concerned about the actual virus, he is not because he is certain he and his family adhere to the government rules and regulations as well as they take the necessary precautions to stay safe.
To other persons like himself, Remzie advises that they find help first and foremost. “No one is asking you to do this on your own. It’s not an embarrassment to admit that there are just somethings that you don’t know how to do especially when it comes to mental health.” He also advises that persons speak up about the struggles that they may face because they can’t be helped if no one knows about it. “Don’t assume that you can do it all by yourself or see it as some kind of weakness if you ask for help; it’s not.” He states that he wishes that he had come forward sooner about his own issues and removed himself from the fear and judgement he feels that comes with asking for help. “It would have saved me so much time from stressing out and feeling overwhelmed or that the weight of the world was on my shoulders to where I am now; where I have those people I can go to when I feel over-burdened and I’m not judged or misunderstood.”
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