On a Sunday afternoon, WWL-First News talked with people on their way into or out of grocery stores in Metairie and Kenner.
What we learned is people are stressed.
Not to the point of blowing their tops or reacting with violence, stressed, but definitely feeling the pressures of work furloughs, school closures, and sheltering in place.
Among them was Heather, a healthcare worker with two kids who are battling anxiety.
“My kids can’t see their grandparents, they can’t be with their friends. I think that’s taken more of a toll on us than anything,” Heather says.
Her kids are feeling the separation and they’re reacting as kids would, they don’t understand what’s going on.
“My kids always ask ‘when are they going back to school?’, ‘when can they see their friends?’, ‘Why can’t I see my friends?’.”
Heather’s kids just know they can’t do what they could just three weeks earlier.
“My kids actually see a therapist, because they suffer from anxiety.”
Heather and her kids have been teleconferencing with the therapist.
Others say they are taking the stress of the situation one day at a time.
They’re choosing to live in the moment and deal with life as it comes.
Many are furloughed and wondering if they are able to get unemployment.
Mike is among them, and he very matter-of-factly talks about his kids:
“They want to go out and do things, I think everybody is itching to do that. The quicker we do that, the quicker we can get back to doing that, the quicker we this will all be over with.”
Still the anxiety of not knowing what’s coming next is clearing weighing on people’s minds:
Eunice is a teacher with kids of her own.
She takes social distancing seriously, to the point of having anxiety, “Sometimes I have… a… a… little anxiety going around people or in crowds.”
Marigny Hemenway is a music student at Berklee College of Music in Boston.
She’s home for the duration, taking classes online.
“I have tons of anxiety and nervous issues,” she says.
For Marigny, everything caught her off guard.
“It’s just been really insane and it happened so fast,” she says. “I just can’t get that out of my head.”
