‘Never got easier’: Meet the Aussie kids still battling post-lockdown anxiety

These three young Australians share how they’re still gripped with anxiety, and wonder if life will ever be the same.

Let’s talk numbers. It’s been five years since Covid-19 surged through Australia.

The worst state for lockdowns was Victoria with six in total — the longest lasting 263 days.

Today, there’s over 40 per cent of youth battling significant mental health concerns, and just under half a million kids failing to attend school full-time.

When The Advertiser asked its readers how pandemic lockdowns impacted their family, a staggering 72 per cent said their children are still facing daily struggles.

Almost 30 per cent are also worried about suicide.

Numbers are a great way to show that the long-term impacts of isolating the country’s children during the pandemic is widespread. But it’s the real life stories from the mouths of those struggling that The Advertiser shares today for its second episode of Lockdown Kids: How To Break a Generation.

The four-part docu-series delves into the sustained impacts of lockdowns, and below are three young Australians who share what life looks like for them now, five years on.

Watch the first episode above.

Isabelle Camp

Isabelle Camp lives with anxiety which developed during the Covid lockdown. Picture: News Corp

Isabelle Camp said prior to Covid the beach had felt like “home”, a place she would go to relax and recharge.

But during the lockdown, it became a trigger for anxiety.

“This overwhelming anxiety manifested where I was so scared of the germs and the people and the sounds,” the Sydneysider said.

“It was just so different from my atmosphere at home that I became so anxious of this thing I once loved and I just couldn’t see myself there.”

Isabelle Camp at the beach when she was a child.

Isabelle is now 22 and while life in lockdown was many years ago now, she shared with The Advertiser that she is still gripped with anxiety today — even calling it “a tag on your clothing”.

“It’s always there … sometimes it’s really annoying, sometimes you’re not really thinking about it but sometimes … it just feels overwhelming to the point where you can’t function,” she added.

Isabelle had to relearn how to socialise after the lockdown was lifted.

Isabelle, when she was at the beach as a little girl.

Isabelle, who is a film student, said one of the most startling aspects of life after lockdown was having to relearn how to socialise.

“Being in an atmosphere where you’re kind of alone, by yourself or the only socialisation you have is over text, having to go back into the world where it’s all in real life … it’s really difficult,” she said.

Isabelle says life after lockdown has been difficult. Picture: Jeremy Piper

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Ben Searle

Ben Searle said he felt “a constant buzz of anxiety” during lockdown. Picture: News Corp

Ben Searle was 17 when the lockdowns began in Sydney.

He had never struggled with his mental health quite like he did in and after the lockdown.

“I found myself not really knowing what to do,” he said. “We were meant to stand six feet apart … it’s uncomfortable.”

During the lockdown, Ben said he felt “a constant buzz of anxiety”.

“It’s a constant pressure of, I have to do this, I have to do that, I’m not doing enough, I’m not enough,” the 21-year-old bar manager said.

This coupled with isolation caused Ben to feel immense loneliness.

“As a guy you’re not often calling on your friends because you’re struggling … so it became a world where you felt like you were isolated,” he said.

This feeling continued into post-pandemic life.

“A lot of issues I had with social interaction and social anxiety that I had were all of sudden insurmountable,” he said.

“I was also out of practice interacting with not just friends but people that you meet on the daily.”

Jayden Delbridge

Jayden Delbridge’s experience in lockdown inspired him to launch his own mental health advocacy organisation. Picture: News Corp

Jayden Delbridge was 15 when the first lockdown was enforced and he would spend each day doing the same thing.

He would sit at his desk, which was a metre away from his bed, complete his school work, before moving back to watch Netflix or call his friends.

He repeated this day in and day out for almost four months.

“I felt like it was groundhog day,” he said. “My mental health was challenged … being withdrawn from an in-person life in a blink of an eye.”

Jayden, from the NSW region of the Central Coast, said his education also took a hit.

“The transition was somewhat challenging,” the 20-year-old said. “Going into online learning was really difficult, it’s not how I best learn … it really steered me off course.”

Now Jayden, who was a Headspace Youth National Reference Group member, studies social science at the University of Newcastle and his experience inspired him to launch his own mental health advocacy organisation UrVoice Australia.

The long-term impact of Covid lockdowns

It’s been five years since Covid spread through Australia, with lockdowns being implemented and lifted and re-implemented in each state when infected numbers spiked.

But while lockdowns were initially used to save lives, Linda Williams, clinical governance lead at ReachOut, said 40 per cent of youth are now experiencing “significant mental health concerns”.

“We know people weren’t able to go about their day to day lives … it really disrupted that period for people and that can have lasting impacts and that doesn’t necessarily go away on the day lockdown finishes,” Ms Williams said.

Readers shares how the lockdowns impacted their children and family life. Picture: The Advertiser

Dr Imogen Bell is a clinical psychologist and emerging leadership fellow from Orygen Digital.

Dr Imogen Bell, clinical psychologist and emerging leadership fellow from Orygen Digital, said during the pandemic society demonstrated “we could act urgently to address a health crisis”.

“Now we’re facing a crisis of mental ill health, particularly among young people and we’re not seeing the same level of urgency and desire to act,” she said.

“When we were instituting lockdowns during the pandemic that was really in order to protect the most vulnerable … older people, right now we have the consequence of that — young people are being affected in terms of their mental health and we are not acting in order to protect them.

“They’re the new vulnerable ones that need our care, our attention, our urgency.”

Originally published as ‘Never got easier’: Meet the Aussie kids still battling post-lockdown anxiety