Blessed 2021, friends!
One of the largest adjustments I had to make in 2020 was in terms of student life. Switching from in-person education to hours of zoom instruction was, needless to say, super tough. I was struggling with a deep sense of disappointment with the whole situation when fall term started as well, so I suppose that made going for zoom classes even harder. Couple that with bouts of anxiety during and after zoom classes… being a student during the COVID-19 pandemic sure wasn’t easy at all.
This post goes out to all new and returning students. Many of us are still continuing with online or zoom education this year (hopefully not for long, though!). Wherever you are, if you experience anxiety or fear as you show up for zoom classes every day, I pray that this piece (originally written for my college’s student publication) will encourage you and remind you that you aren’t alone in this <3 Press on!
xx,
iz
Photo: Cookie the Pom/Unsplash
Thoughts that run amok in my mind every single time I attend a Zoom class:
“Ugh, my fringe looks weird.”
“Great. What I just said out loud sounds really… lame.”
“Please don’t call on me to answer anything.”
Before the fall term started, one word that a couple of fellow students mentioned when I asked them how they were doing was “overwhelmed.” We’re now seven weeks in, and it doesn’t seem like anything has changed. Of course, this isn’t a universal, shared experience; some of you might be enjoying online classes a lot more than other folks! And while I love taking less-than-five paces from bedroom to (virtual) classroom—as opposed to trudging over to college with icy snowflakes bombarding my face—I’ve noticed a rather sharp spike in my anxiety this term.
I first realized this when my subconscious rudely startled me awake in the middle of the night during the first week of term. I started fretting over what a poor answer I had given to a prof’s question in class, and it took me a long time to fall asleep again. And as term progressed, I began feeling a tightness in my chest every time I thought of all the deadlines and commitments I was juggling.
I’m more than acquainted with stress and the strain it can have on my body, so it doesn’t surprise me that I’ve been experiencing some physical tension. What does surprise me, though, is how much anxiety attending Zoom classes causes me. “It feels like I have to “perform” and be my “best self” in front of the camera, the prof, and all my other classmates,” I commented recently to my husband and fellow grad student, Victor (who, to my chagrin, replied that he does not experience any of that; someone tell me I’m not alone in feeling this!).
At in-person classes, I’m the kind of student who’s perfectly content to sit quietly at the back of the classroom, head buried in my note-taking and reading. But when I speak in Zoom classes, it feels like a billion pairs of eyes are on me, scrutinizing my every word and facial expression, and hearing my voice in their ears (isn’t that such an intimate thing to experience, too?!). I’m also pretty attuned to body language and behavioural cues, and since Zoom cannot quite communicate these across, I find myself bereft of little ways I can connect with my classmates, like admiring their rain boots or valiantly striving to parse Hebrew words together.
My work at Sanctuary Mental Health Ministries, a Christian mental health non-profit in Vancouver, has given me some handles and helpful tools to process and understand anxiety. I’ve learned that it’s much easier and healthier to allow myself to experience it, rather than suppressing it or trying to crowd it out. Therapist and researcher Hillary McBride dubs this “birdwatching” our emotions, which I think is absolutely spot-on. I’ve also learned to give myself time to probe why I’m feeling anxious, instead of criticizing myself for feeling it.
In a sense, there is something powerfully freeing in allowing these anxious cogitations to come and go. It’s cathartic, really, to relax and breathe into—and yes, write about—this experience of Zoomiticus Anxietus, rather than finding ways to resolve it. Even now, an image comes to me as I wrap this reflection up: I am reaching out to scoop and drink from His deep well of love; it is cool and sweet and (to my great relief) endlessly available.
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a singaporean-canadian couple on serving God faithfully