Pandemic testimonials

Hello everyone, welcome back! 

In the previous post, I touched on the pandemic, and how it relates to mental health, so in this blog post, we are going to explain why and get to know our testimonials. 

How it has been affected the mental health of the people in a pandemic? 

The pandemic not only affects health physically but also mental health. Billions of people around the world saw their lives change dramatically overnight. Many of them also felt the repercussions of this situation on their mental health. It was important for people living with mental health conditions to know that they are not alone. 

For that reason, we want to share helplines in case you need to talk about your feelings or; you only can't take it anymore.

If you need help you can contact line 1322, it will maintain this service 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, in which a Professional in Psychology will assist you, this service is provided by the College of Professionals in Psychology of Costa Rica, You can also contact:

-CAP (Center for Psychological Attention) Its purpose is to provide psychological care to people with different psychosocial needs. 2511-5776.
-Priced (Drug Prevention, Counseling and Research Program) of the University of Costa Rica Prevention, counseling and research in addictions to tobacco, alcohol and other drugs 2511-2101 precid.ee@ucr.ac.cr
-Fundarevi (Fundación Rescatando Vidas) Attention to children, adolescents, and young people at risk of suicide and self-destructive behaviors. Create preventive awareness with a defined line of action, both in the individual care and in activities with workgroups in the training area, as well as in support. Jacky Solano / Julia Woodbridge 2268-1098 / 2273-0381 / 8715-0551 / 2273-7974 jackysolano@gmail.com / Fundarevi@racsa.co.cr / fundarevi199@gmail.com / juliawoodbridge@yahoo.es
-Accepts (Costa Rican Association for the Study and Prevention of Suicide) Promote suicide prevention and self-destructive behaviors and encourage research, as well as train and raise awareness on the subject. Isabel Villalobos / Mauricio Campos 4081-9326 / 2250-1508 isabelvillalobar@yahoo.es / campomauricio@gmail.com

Testimonies 

In this part of the blog we have the testimonies of the two of us (Iahly and Mela) the creators of this blog, we studied in Cotepecos, in the best specialty "Executive for Service Centers" where we all form a big family. We both believe that by telling our testimonies, focusing on how our mental health was affected by the pandemic, we will be able to see another angle, perhaps one more focused on what is mental health: 

Melanie Carrasco, 16 years

During the pandemic I consider that in a certain way if the pandemic has affected me both negatively and positively, during the past year I lost school experiences, coexistence, the typical graduation that is customary to do and it was sad, I lost the experience of being my last year at school with my friends, in addition, the stress of spending a whole year without having a relationship with my grandparents, with my family, was frustrating, seeing so many news of deaths, of cases, it is really depressing and yes It affects you a lot since one is aware that one is the one who may be in that situation; I consider that it was also positive in the aspect that I grew as a person, I changed a lot during a year, I learned to love myself more, evolved as a person, I established goals, objectives and I have thought that despite all the tragedy that we all went through during such a year heavy that change in me was a ray of light in all that darkness or at least it helped me not to feel sadder and more frustrated with this situacion.

Iahly Rugama, 16 years old

The pandemic for me has been a process, at the beginning of last year I was mentally prepared that it was going to be my best year in school, I was very excited and with very high expectations about last year, but it was not like that and 90% of the things I could not accomplish. I had to spend more than half of the year locked up in my house, I couldn't see many friends and family, my education process was not so good, my family had a hard time, my dad was the one who had the worst time because he spent two weeks in the hospital, he was on the verge of death, it was really a very hard process, I spent too many hours in tik tok, because I had nothing else to do. Mentally it was a very hard process, I neglected myself a lot physically as well as mentally, I cried a lot, although I spent time with my family, on many occasions, I felt very lonely. In spite of all that I always tried to look for the positive side of this process, many times things are not easy but I fought to get out of that bubble and I made it, I matured a lot mentally, I learned to have patience, I improved many parts of me, I can say that it was not easy, but I made it.

These testimonials summarize that although it was difficult mentally, we overcame it by looking at the positive side of the situation.

Thank you for joining us in this blog, we hope you liked it and we hope you found it useful!