Young people across the UK reflect on how the pandemic affected them – and continues to shape their futures
n the next phase of the Guardian’s Covid Generation series, young people from across the UK continue to analyse how the pandemic is still affecting their lives and their plans for the future, 18 months after the end of the third national lockdown.with his parents and sister.
Also, in the time since lockdown ended, I’ve looked back at my time isolated at home and realised that I really enjoyed getting closer to nature. I want to take that further now, and move away from the city environment entirely. Because I didn’t have the gradual exposure to independence I would have had in normal times, being out alone or with friends still feels – a year and a half later – both amazing and scary: there are so many things to do that we’re still overwhelmed by the choice.
On the positive side, a lockdown lesson that has stuck with me is that things that look difficult – like starting my lockdown, online jewellery-making business – actually aren’t that hard if you get into it. I was thinking the other day about what I wanted to do in life and realised that I can try for one career but if it doesn’t work out, there are always other options, other opportunities.
Very recently, I’ve begun thinking: “Is this really how I want to spend the life I’ve been gifted with?” I still do want to be a doctor but I also want to put as much experience as I can into my life and live as much as I possibly can. That powerlessness feeds through to many other feelings. My mental health has definitely been affected by the lingering effects of lockdown. I’d say that what I’m feeling is almost like PTSD [post-traumatic stress disorder].
Looking back at lockdown, it’s made me think that when I’m the older generation, I want to support young people as much I can. I don’t want any other generation to feel like mine does: looked down on for sacrificing everything to essentially try to solve other people’s problems.Eoin O’Loughlin moved from Dublin to Dundee during the pandemic.
My generation has had no social respite. We grew up amid the financial crisis, recession and austerity – and then Covid hit. Now we’re having to work non-stop to afford a basic level of living because of the cost of living crisis. I’m too young to be this exhausted, this burnt out. I should be bursting with energy. I can’t afford to be burnt out; life is too expensive.
I’ve finally got it right this time but I’ve racked up debts I don’t even want to think about and wasted two years. I should be in my final year of uni right now, not my first. But you know what? It’s OK.
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