Furlough, mental health, and a global pandemic

This is going to be a bit personal. I’m hoping to cover mental health in lockdown, furlough, job hunting, and the constant sense of worry that seems to have come with the global pandemic. This pandemic hasn’t been easy for many of us, so I’m hoping sharing my experiences will resonate, even with one person.

First, I wanna talk a bit about furlough. I’ve seen so many people loving furlough, saying it’s like a holiday, getting paid for doing nothing. For some it carried the added benefit of allowing parents to give more time to home schooling, for others it gave the chance to have one less worry whilst going through a pandemic. For me, it was awful. Due to my workplace, I didn’t expect to be furloughed, and just carried on with what work I could do from home, and personal development through online courses. When I got the call from my boss saying that they were introducing 3 weeks off, 3 weeks on furlough, I cried for a while. Some people might be thinking “why?”, at least I wasn’t being made redundant, I could enjoy the weather and I’d be back in 3 weeks. But in my head all I could think about was the worry about the safety of my position. As an intern, my contract at my work is up in August, and being one of the people in the first round of furlough made me worry that I was also one of the first who could be let go if times got tough. Being on and off made it harder, to try and catch up with what had happened in between furlough periods, and trying to pass on my work to someone else to do whilst I was gone.

I’ve also seen digs from people who have worked throughout lockdown, saying that furloughed workers are “lazy”, though I assure to anyone with this view that those on furlough are not lazy, many of us have taken up voluntary positions, have work related anxieties and have other duties, ensuring that furlough really isn’t “like a holiday”. I’m not sure if many people think about the effect of furlough on mental health and self-worth, and though it has been something I have been quite open with, not many people seem to understand it, or know what to say. I also know that although my employment is up in 2 months, that I’m fortunate that I do still have a job for the time being, but this did add some guilt to feeling upset about being furloughed. If you know someone on furlough, just check in on them, whether they are your friend or someone you work with, not all of us are having the best time.

Something else that added to this worry was the idea of not finding a job, and the constant rejections due to high applications. With my work contract being up at the end of August, I’ve been applying for jobs at least twice a week since April, with little luck. This also marks my second year of applying for a PhD position, with the same level of rejection. Feedback has ranged from “you would find this work too menial” to “we pick for interviews at random, so though you had what we looked for, it just didn’t land on you”. This has further added to the worry that came with a global pandemic, thinking how am I going to pay bills, will I have the find something outside of the career I enjoy? It also piled on to my anxiety that maybe I’m not good enough for a career in science, as although my CV evidences numerous years of experiences, opportunities now seem much harder to come by.

Being furloughed, job/PhD rejections and being in lockdown really made me focus on my mental health. I’ve had to find ways to keep my mental health in check, and something that I have found really helping is talking to people. Calling friends and family, and speaking to people about how I’ve been feeling has really helped. In particular, I have spoken to technicians across the country through a weekly Techs Connect teams meeting, where people have commented on furlough, and even asked me on advice of how to approach staff members coming back to work. These sessions proved so useful for me, and it was really nice to have people take my experiences into consideration. Sometimes people may need a helping hand in understanding how you’re feeling, and that’s OK, just keep talking to people!

I’ve found that online courses, Zoom quizzes, walking and baking has really helped my mental health during lockdown. Properly starting this blog and my science Instagram account has also helped massively, both with my self-worth and mental health, helping me to recognise the work that I’ve done, and the skills that I have. My advice to anyone who’s mental health may have taken a knock during lockdown, is to find something that resembles normality that you enjoy, and not to put pressure on yourself. I’ve seen waaaayy too many posts like this one here.

Suggesting that people who don’t come out of this pandemic with a new skill/a side hustle etc lack discipline is so incredibly disrespectful to those who have struggled. This isn’t free time, it’s people trying to get through a global pandemic. People have lost jobs, have increased anxiety, are missing family, have lost loved ones, have had to become full time chefs and teachers as well as balancing working from home and keeping mental health in check. If you don’t come out of the pandemic as a different person, that is 100% OK! People are going through enough right now without adding guilt for not changing.

I’m hoping to come out of lockdown with stronger connections with those who I’ve spoken to, and *fingers crossed* the months of job searching will finally pay off!