The COVID-19 pan­dem­ic has un­doubt­ed­ly af­fect­ed us all, es­pe­cial­ly par­ents em­pha­siz­ing chal­lenges sur­round­ing the fragili­ty of our men­tal health. A re­cent re­port out of Cana­da, re­vealed three out of four par­ents ex­pe­ri­enced con­cerns and wor­ries about bal­anc­ing child­care, their child’s school­ing and their own pro­fes­sion­al work ir­re­spec­tive of the child’s age. More than half of par­ents sur­veyed re­port­ed in­creas­ing dif­fi­cul­ty in man­ag­ing their child’s emo­tions as well as their own.

The COVID-19 pan­dem­ic has changed a lot of things: the way we in­ter­act with per­sons, our sched­ules, dig­i­tal screen time, our re­spon­si­bil­i­ties, fi­nan­cial pres­sures and more so, our stress and fa­tigue lev­els. For some, these changes have not been for the bet­ter.

In this un­prece­dent­ed time that we are all ex­pe­ri­enc­ing, it is im­por­tant to not on­ly ex­press your­self, but al­so to find ways to ease the stress while so­cial dis­tanc­ing due to COVID-19. For fam­i­lies im­pact­ed by a se­ri­ous health con­di­tion, the pan­dem­ic and its as­so­ci­at­ed stres­sors may be par­tic­u­lar­ly acute. I would like to share with you sug­gest­ed ways to help you ex­press what you are ex­pe­ri­enc­ing dur­ing this time and give you an out­let to help light­en the mo­not­o­ny of stay­ing in­doors every day.

Mere months ago, in Jan­u­ary, our coun­try lost a 14-year-old stu­dent to sui­cide. Ref­er­enc­ing the Sun­day Guardian ar­ti­cle, “Ac­cord­ing to the po­lice re­port, the stu­dent and a rel­a­tive al­leged­ly ar­gued over his school­work be­fore she left the house to pur­chase food. Up­on her re­turn about an hour-and-a-half lat­er, she found him with a ban­dana wrapped around his neck and tied to a door­knob.”

Poly­cys­tic ovary syn­drome (PCOS) is a con­di­tion in which the ovaries pro­duce an ab­nor­mal amount of an­dro­gens, male sex hor­mones that are usu­al­ly present in women in small amounts. The name poly­cys­tic ovary syn­drome de­scribes the nu­mer­ous small cysts (flu­id-filled sacs) that form in the ovaries. How­ev­er, some women with this dis­or­der do not have cysts, while some women with­out the dis­or­der do de­vel­op cysts.

You have wait­ed nine months for your new­born to ar­rive. You ate well, nav­i­gat­ed the anx­i­ety of be­ing preg­nant dur­ing a pan­dem­ic, took your pre­na­tal vi­t­a­mins, at­tend­ed ap­point­ments and did your best to keep your­self healthy. Now that your ba­by has ar­rived, how do you keep him or her healthy dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic?

If you’re go­ing through menopause dur­ing the COVID-19 cri­sis, or if some­one you love is, you may be won­der­ing if the nov­el Coro­n­avirus af­fects menopausal women.

Tylah Ariel

Andrea De Silva

Ty­lah Ariel is a Trinida­di­an/Amer­i­can pop-al­ter­na­tive singer and song­writer whose sooth­ing vo­cals have been com­pared to that of Sade and Jhené Aiko. Her in­tro­spec­tive lyrics are of­ten­times in­spired by her own life’s events or those clos­est to her.

Jenelle Thongs' strut on the cat­walk is fierce. When she speaks she ex­udes friend­ly con­fi­dence, ever so of­ten eas­ing in­to a smile that ful­ly re­veals strik­ing white teeth against her smooth, ebony skin. The Miss Supra­na­tion­al Trinidad and To­ba­go 2020 ti­tle­hold­er ad­mits that she has come a long way from her child­hood per­sona of a lit­tle tomboy who felt un­com­fort­able in her own skin.

Near­ly 450 mil­lion peo­ple world­wide are cur­rent­ly liv­ing with a men­tal health chal­lenge, yet near­ly two thirds of per­sons with a known men­tal ill­ness nev­er choose to seek treat­ment. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic has had a pro­found im­pact on the men­tal health of per­sons of all ages, sta­tus and walks of life.

Trag­i­cal­ly, sui­cide is not as rare as one may think. In 2018, glob­al da­ta from the World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion (WHO) re­port­ed an es­ti­mat­ed 793,000 sui­cide deaths world­wide. Most were men.