At the beginning of quarantine I found myself in a negative place mentally, after dealing with an almost overwhelming amount of emotions regarding the sudden shift to online learning, the unexpected departure of McConnell Hall, and the stress of quarantine life in itself. I felt at times as if I had no one to talk to, due to the isolated nature of the post-COVID-19 world, and due to how many people felt the same way and struggled to reach out to those closest to them. After a few weeks of struggling with the transition and feeling fairly lonely, I reached out to a friend and decided to schedule a counselling session with our TAMS counsellors. I was lucky to get an appointment with Dr. Turnock, and while the session over Zoom was definitely different than what I expected an in-person session to be, it was extremely helpful with gathering my thoughts about the whole shift overall. Dr. Turnock was helpful with figuring out ways to manage responsibilities, talking about loneliness, and provided a lot of insight on problems I didn’t even realize I had until an outside perspective discussed them with me. I had a few sessions, which I greatly appreciated, and then decided to end the sessions as my life got busier and I believed I had resolved the main problems that I initially started the sessions for.

After the sessions, I felt that I was in a much better place mentally and started implementing a lot of the plans we discussed during the sessions, such as taking one day a week to not work on many of the responsibilities I found overwhelming, and instead do things that I enjoyed, such as reading, cooking, etc. Once the school year started, I began to find myself getting overwhelmed again with the instant barrage of schoolwork, studying, club responsibilities, and more. I learned of the new TAMS counsellors through a seminar and thought that it may be helpful to go see one, and scheduled an appointment. While I was nervous approaching that appointment, it ended up being so helpful in countless ways.

Being able to talk to someone about the emotions that you are experiencing in a judgement-free zone feels extremely comforting and helped me feel secure in the many rants I started going on about ways people had acted recently that made me upset, frustrations with my professors, and so much more. It also helped me better understand the root of the way I feel about a lot of things, and left me with many ideas based on these revelations after my sessions that I started applying to my life. While I entered the sessions with specific thoughts on my mind, I would always leave with new discoveries and an appreciation for the conversationlike flow created by the counselling team. I would truly recommend people to attend a session, even to just talk about life with them, because it has become one of the things I now look forward to every week.

National Suicide Prevention Hotline

1-800-273-825