The Lumberjack



Students Serving The Cal Poly Humboldt Campus and Community Since 1929

Tag: isolation

  • The mental toll of COVID-19 isolation

    The mental toll of COVID-19 isolation

    Increased periods of isolation can lead to depression, and how to combat it

    March signaled the beginning of quarantine in the United States, with various states asking residents to refrain from unnecessary social contact with shelter-in-place orders.

    For those staying with family and friends, the burden of staying at home for the last nine months was reduced by the ability to talk to and interact with others.

    According to Paula Nedelcoff, a psychotherapist and community outreach coordinator for Humboldt State University’s Counseling and Psychological Services department, the task is significantly more taxing. Changes in living organization, such as online instruction, brings unwanted physical and mental changes.

    “Long term social isolation for most people is very difficult,” Nedelcoff said in an email interview.

    COVID-19 restricts face-to-face interaction, prohibiting the ability for people to physically and socially interact with each other. This prolonged isolation intensifies with time.

    “Humans are social animals and we count on interactions with others. When we do not have someone to bounce off ideas and feelings with we can move within and isolate even more,” Nedelcoff said. “While during this virus we have a virtual world, we humans need contact with each other, we need and thrive with touch.”

    A 2016 study published in the European Journal of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases suggested that isolation precautions may lead to anxiety. A group of doctors and professors looked at the ways social isolation affected patients who were recovering from various bacterial infections. These infections (like scabies, measles or tuberculosis) often required patients to reside in single rooms to minimize the exposure to other patients.

    A separate 2016 twin study the journal of Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology suggested that social isolation could trigger an increase in mental stress. The data found that depression was significantly correlated with both social isolation and loneliness.

    For those living alone, combined with a lack of available social interactions, the association with depression is even greater.

    A 2011 research article in the International of Geriatric Psychiatry found that social connections were factors in determining depression.

    “Living alone and living with at least one child (no spouse), and weak social networks were associated with higher depressive symptom scores in both genders,” the study stated. “Men living alone with weak social networks outside the household had higher depressive symptom scores than those with strong networks.”

    In order to combat these feeling, Nedelcoff recommended finding ways to reach out to others within your social circle, in addition to seeking professional help.

    “I encourage all folks to stay engaged with life via on line groups and virtual happenings,” Nedelcoff said. “This can be a great time to try therapy or a therapy group. Going to counseling does not mean there is something wrong with you. Think of it like having a copilot while looking more deeply into your life and the meaning of it.”

    She suggested finding ways to properly vent emotions and feelings so that individuals may not feel like they are cooped up physically and mentally.

    “Learn and become aware of what works for you,” Nedelcoff said. “What might work for me may not work for my friend. Some people meditate, some people use music to calm them or ease their soul, while others may journal or get into a book. Often times we are not sure or don’t know what works for us.”

    Most of all, Nedelcoff encouraged students to continue trying to find ways of expression in any positive way.

    “COVID-19 and sheltering in place has taught us how little control we have over so many things,” Nedelcoff said. “This can be scary but we do have control of how we respond.”

  • HSU student celebrates life post quarantine

    HSU student celebrates life post quarantine

    Elise Fero recounts her experiences after 10 days of isolating in her dorm

    Isolation felt like home, not the home you want to be in, the home you’re stuck with until life gives you an opportunity for change. I spent days journaling and staring out the screen door at a single pinecone stuck between the boards of the porch I wasn’t allowed to step foot on.

    After ten days, I finally received the call informing me it could be my last day in isolation. My first thought, ‘well shucks I just ordered groceries.’

    As excited as I was, something inside me was terrified to leave. Most of my anxiety surrounding COVID-19 had disappeared. I was recovering fast and my parents, friends and boyfriend all tested negative, but I was experiencing a new kind of anxiety. Life after COVID-19.

    My life had suddenly become full of consequences I had no control of. I watched friends lose opportunities because they were required to quarantine after spending time with me. I feared the current science could be wrong, that my release could be lethal. I was consumed by an overwhelming fear that someone could’ve died because of me. Yet selfishly, all I wanted was to be set free.

    When I was cleared for release, I let out a sigh of relief and broke out into tears and uncontrollable laughter. The second the call was over, I opened the door and felt the cool air rush past me without the filter of a screen standing between us for the first time in over a week. The simple act of stepping outside was an indescribable joy I’ve never felt before. I was finally able to pick up the pinecone that had stared at me for so long.

    During those ten days in isolation, I’d planned exactly what I’d do when I was released. My list consisted of finding a dog to pet, reuniting with an army of banana slugs and going to the beach.

    I was determined to return to the coffee shop where I had received the bad news that I tested positive for COVID-19. That first sip of coffee tasted like the conclusion to my horror.

    I’ve never felt closer to nature than that day, on the beach and in the forest. The same day, I was reunited with my best friends the banana slugs.

    For the next week, I spent as much time as possible outside. I abandoned my introverted tendencies and greeted everyone I saw. It was an awakening. For the first time, I experienced the world without taking it for granted.

    Coronavirus was not just unpleasant, it was living out the nightmare the world warned us to fear and facing the possibility of dying alone. The experience robbed me of all my comforts and left me deserted. Watching others claim that my illness was a lie and that they would never catch it. To be honest, I never thought I would either.

    This virus is not prejudiced. It will try to kill anyone given the chance. Doctors pour their lives into patients who may not live to see tomorrow. Family members are forced to say goodbye, praying it’s not for the last time. Survivors are absorbed in guilt after watching others die from the virus they passed on. It never leaves your mind, the fact that you could’ve been a statistic on the list of those who passed.

    For those who experience this virus, I share my story to provide you comfort. I was lucky to have survived. Not everyone is. I always had it in the back of my mind that others in isolation spend their final days alone.

    I thank the universe this wasn’t my fate and for giving me more time to share my story and grow from it.

  • From Colorado to COVID-19 self-isolation

    From Colorado to COVID-19 self-isolation

    HSU Freshman’s experience catching coronavirus.

    After losing the second half of my senior year to the pandemic and missing out on new friendships at a new school, I begin my college journey isolated in a campus apartment, where my only access to the outside world is through a screen door I’m not allowed to open.

    Coming from dusty and deserted Western-Colorado, all I’ve wanted to do since I was accepted to Humboldt State University is explore. An area surrounded by redwood forests and ocean was a dream alone, but it’s also home to the majestic, wild banana slug – I had to see one! But first, there were a few things to do.

    On Aug. 17, I took my mandatory COVID-19 test and excitedly began moving things into my dorm, arranging a plethora of houseplants and a cozy corner for my pet tree frog, Terra. Very quickly, this became my new home. Aug. 18 was orientation day – I’d quickly adjusted and felt ready to conquer the world at HSU. That afternoon, I explored campus and the forest, making not just one, but an entire slimy armful of banana slug friends. My dream had come true, at the cost of only a few tiny slug-bites.

    Before my parents returned home on Aug. 19, we met at a local coffee shop to say goodbye; that’s when I received the call informing me my COVID-19 test had come back positive. It was as if suddenly the world started spinning; I was speechless. I never imagined it would be me who caught COVID-19; afterall I’m young and otherwise healthy. But this pandemic has taught us what we think we know to be true is often not the case.

    I wish I could say we rushed to my dorm, but instead, we stepped out of line and just stood together in shock. It occurred to me, I’d experienced possible symptoms of the virus earlier in the week – shortness of breath, nausea, low appetite, fatigue and headaches – however, each is also a symptom of my anxiety-disorder and it’s unclear which was the cause. My parents asked questions, but all I could think was of myself and every person I’d seen, connected by a piece in my contaminated puzzle. Suddenly, guilt and anxiety filled my entire being. I began to suffer a panic attack.

    It took a moment to start my car as I fought to catch my breath; my whole body felt as if it were collapsing. I called my boyfriend in Colorado but all he could understand was how afraid I was.

    This fear was never for myself; this fear was for others. Fear for my parents, for my friends, for my boyfriend and his family – fear for people I passed in the grocery store and for those I worked with. I never worried about myself. I worry about the damage I caused, unaware I carried the virus. It all felt like my fault. It felt like I’d let down the entire world.

    I was moved to a new room where I said goodbye to my parents and the company of others for at least a week. Over a thousand miles from home and yet it doesn’t seem nearly as far as the four walls separating me from beginning this new chapter of my life.

    In a state of constant fatigue and boredom, I sleep most of the day, only waking when my phone rings. Doctors, health centers and housing, all call several times each day asking similar questions and often I can’t tell them apart. When you’re only allowed in one place, you don’t have much aside from your thoughts. Is this my fault? Did I do something wrong? Should I stay quiet about it? When will they let me leave this room?

    My new room has a kitchen and a bathroom, a beautiful view through my screen door and plenty of food. HSU staff checks in consistently, doing everything they can to help me through this. I feel like I have a whole team of friends working to guarantee my health and safety.

    Despite everyone’s help, I’m still on my own. My main source of optimism is knowing my isolation is protecting others. Recognizing how our decisions affect others is the first step in preventing the spread. Sure, a mask is uncomfortable, but so is being locked in a room for seven days and so is losing someone you love because precautions weren’t taken.

    For those who don’t believe in COVID-19, it is real. It is harmful. It is possible for anyone to contract. We all believe we’re invincible until we’re not. My battle with COVID-19 continues, but I know someday I‘ll be able to step outside again and I will find another banana slug.

  • Reading “Big Sur” in Shelter-in-Place While Going to Big Sur

    Reading “Big Sur” in Shelter-in-Place While Going to Big Sur

    A reflection from a former Lumberjack news editor

    When the entire world is going mad and cities are in disarray and the economy is through the tubes and the government is ordering the people to stay indoors and keep distant from human contact and all the unknowns and uncertainties and precariousness are causing anxieties and confusion and insane isolated thinking, then the only logical solution is to search for the magnificent eternal golden light in Big Sur where Jack Kerouac lost his illumination and was succumbed to mad mad maddening disillusion and deterioration of mind.

    Amidst a global pandemic and forced isolation (both for curving the spread of the disease and government say-so) Kerouac’s “Big Sur” may seem like an unlikely companion during cabin fever tendencies but he nails the coffin of loneliness surrounded by madness…and we are swimming in madness in 2020 and social distancing is causing us loneliness…he may be known for traveling on the road but the majority of his writing deals with the personal struggle of the unrevealed and intangible and intrapersonal relationships with exile and aloneness.

    It was time to go back to find some sanity while the whole world was ravaging in chaos.

    Last week I received a card from my obaasan written in shaky cursive:

    “I’m not myself now/can’t think much things now…” Her youngest son died in the middle of all this virus business and the experience of losing her youngest before her own passing into the next existence and not being able to perform a proper Japanese funeral has weighed a heavy heart on my nearly 90-year-old reincarnation of the bodhisattva Quan Yin. The letter is marked from Monterey, my hometown, just a couple dozen miles from Big Sur, which I am currently in the thick of. Whereas Kerouac fell into his madness, I was born into mine…and it was time to go back to find some sanity while the whole world was ravaging in chaos.

    Passing San Jose on the 280 at rush hour, or what normally is, and we stop not one time and I am convinced there is a God in heaven and miracles exist and coincidences mean something more than just what they don’t.

    A pitter patter of rain began to fall as my partner and I sped away from our Arcata apartment and headed down the curvy empty roads of the 101 en route to console an ailing mother from 6 feet away. My paint-scratched and hood-dented Volkswagen happily ate the white lines through redwood country, wineries, extending bridges and golden rolling hills full of deer and foxes and chirping birds. With everyone staying in doors, the urbanized are becoming again what Gary Snyder calls “wild.” Only 10 cars on the Golden Gate Bridge and all of the city, void of the Tenderloin, which sidewalks are unseen due to the amount of popup tents and stretched out tarps and rucksacks rolling in the gutters. Passing San Jose on the 280 at rush hour, or what normally is, and we stop not one time and I am convinced there is a God in heaven and miracles exist and coincidences mean something more than just what they don’t. Seven hours and not a minute more since we left Humboldt County the magnificent sand dunes of my childhood explode into view as the sun sinks behind cannery row, the fisherman’s wharf and into the pacific.

    We knock on the windowpane glass without warning. My obaasan, 4-foot-5 in frame in blue uwabaki and nearly all white thick Hokkaido curls reminiscent of the ancient Ainu people of our ancestors opens the door white as a ghost. We appear as road warriors traveling to find oil but she is happy nonetheless to see her most handsomest grandson and granddaughter in law (I know this because she tells us so in a faint whisper of grief). She is nearly silent and full of half smiles and sad lonely eyes staring off into a point in space I am unable to see. There is nothing more difficult than to deny a Japanese grandmother’s invitation of hot food and conversation… but these are harrowing times and one must put down their foot for the betterment of others… especially kindhearted compassionate grandmothers who want nothing more than to fill bellies and tell stories.

    Without being able to hug her or get close enough for her to hear me hurt my soul but the space we shared amidst all the craziness going on filled my heart with such joy that I could feel the sanity I had lost while sheltering in place replenish.

    We part for the night with three bows and head to Big Sur first thing in the morning. We were supposed to spread the ashes of my uncle but bureaucracies have slowed down (who would have thought possible they could move even slower) and checks clearing takes longer and so we had no urn and only mandatory intention of flying down the beautifully rugged pacific coast cliffs hugging the Santa Lucia Mountains to the east and infinite deep neon blue waters crashing west. All parks are closed and scattered hikers from who-knows-where park along the highway to hike in. We stop at Bixby Creek of Kerouac’s “Big Sur” but it is not the same for all the turnoffs are filled with parked cars and tourists and selfies… or maybe it is the same because on his last hitchhiking adventure up from Big Sur to Monterey 1,000-2,000 cars passed him by and he was no longer able to relate. We ate lunch beneath the shade of an oak tree 100 feet above the water and 15 miles from the hot springs. We were by ourselves with the lonely wails of the sea and the roaring of the waves and the ghostly spirits of Kerouac and my uncle.

    On our way out of town we said goodbye to my grandmother. She stood behind the screen door as we stood in the sun with bandanas and masks wrapped around our faces. She was in a cheerier mood and her energy level was heightened. She wore full smiles behind her grief and talked about the chaos of the world being unbalanced. Without being able to hug her or get close enough for her to hear me hurt my soul but the space we shared amidst all the craziness going on filled my heart with such joy that I could feel the sanity I had lost while sheltering in place replenish. Kerouac pronounces, “The more ups and downs, the more joy I feel. The greater the fear, the greater the happiness I feel,” and I believe it to be important we share the same intimacies while we are submerged in the unknown dangers of threats and hazards.

  • Photos Show Life Around Arcata in the Time of COVID-19

    Photos Show Life Around Arcata in the Time of COVID-19

    A photo series from the end of spring break

    Photographer and Sports Editor Thomas Lal captured these scenes from around Arcata on March 21 at the end of spring break at the beginning of Humboldt County’s shelter in place order.

    The storefronts on the Arcata Plaza look out on mostly empty streets.
    An employee sits at a computer while a sign advertises that the business is still open during the first week of a shelter in place order.
    The shelves in the Arcata Safeway.
    The Humboldt State Library.
    A lone person walks through the mostly empty parking lots at Humboldt State University.
    The Humboldt State Library.
    The Humboldt State Library.
    A single person works at the Humboldt State Library.
    A carton of eggs sits on the shelves at the Arcata Safeway.
    A lone person stands just off of the Arcata Plaza.
    An employee puts up a sign in the door of the Jitter Bean on the Arcata Plaza.

  • Students Stressed and Frustrated Going into Somber Spring Break

    Students Stressed and Frustrated Going into Somber Spring Break

    Students react to in-person class cancellations due to global pandemic

    As spring break arrived and the COVID-19 pandemic continued its tear across the globe, many Humboldt State University students wondered what to do as HSU canceled face-to-face instruction until at least April 17. Some students stuck around while others went home. The pandemic, directly or not, has affected all students.

    “I feel like it’s a very serious outbreak and people need to take it seriously. I do think it’s getting blown out of proportion in some ways and people are panicking before they need to, but it’s just something I’m kind of trying to roll with, essentially.”

    Ashley Bailey, molecular biology major

    Ashley Bailey, a junior molecular biology major, planned to travel home. She admitted feeling stressed.

    “I feel like it’s a very serious outbreak and people need to take it seriously,” Bailey said. “I do think it’s getting blown out of proportion in some ways and people are panicking before they need to, but it’s just something I’m kind of trying to roll with, essentially.”

    Kiera Price, a junior journalism major, also said she would travel home. She thought both academic and national leaders should be more vigilant.

    “I feel like instead of limiting social interaction, they should do more to prepare for it,” Price said. “Like, for example, the fact that there isn’t more of a stricter way to limit survivors from coming in.”

    Price recognized there isn’t a lot to be done, but still expressed a longing for something more.

    Tim Arceneaux, a senior English major, looked forward to staying in Humboldt. With a sigh, Arceneaux said he understood the measures taken by HSU.

    “I think the precautions that the University is taking here and all around the country make sense, but at the same time, I find them to be really frustrating,” Arceneaux said. “I hope that this issue will bring the global community together and allow people to realize the importance of universal healthcare.”

    • Journalism major Kiera Price on March 13. | Photo by Gabe Kim
    • Film major Norbert Rodriguez on March 13. | Photo by Gabe Kim
    • English major Tim Arceneaux on March 13. | Photo by Gabe Kim

    Arceneaux said there was one key thing HSU could do to mitigate the spread of the novel coronavirus.

    “They could try to alert students more about the health resources on campus,” Arceneaux said. “Because I feel like at this point, it’s almost an inevitability that someone is going to contract the coronavirus, and I’m not sure exactly what health resources are going to be available to students that contract the disease.”

    Norbert Rodriguez, a junior film major, had planned to travel to Southern California to visit family, but decided to stick around once the coronavirus broke out. He said he thought HSU took too long to respond to the pandemic compared to other universities.

    “At the moment, there aren’t any test kits [in Humboldt], so there’s really no way of knowing that there are any confirmed cases,” Rodriguez said. “I feel like it should’ve been a bit more proactive.”

    Editor’s note: St. Joseph and Redwood Memorial Hospitals have set up screening tents for patients with COVID-19 symptoms.