Pandemic Depression

[fustian_garb]

@Greenfire311

Is there anyone else out there who WASN’T moved with exhilaration and creativity and motivated to do so much during all their free time? People who became lonely and depressed? I’m just glad I’m back to Japanese.

I just about clung on to my Japanese studies (no kids, but work was manic as the University was moved online over a weekend and we had to reconfigure all our teaching) but in retrospect I have no idea how I kept going. My tutor and I had just started the second book of Minna No Nihongo the week before lockdown and it started with the fairly incomprehensible-to-an-english-speaker concept of ～んです and then launches into a new verb conjugation every chapter.

At that point it seemed like a fixed point in a turning world but it’s been the last few weeks as we’ve edged into autumn/second wave that the depression has really started for me. Whereas learning japanese seemed like an optimistic investment in the future before, it’s starting to seem quite pointless now as I can’t imagine when I’m actually going to get back there. And then this weekend I got loads wrong in my homework and I basically just went back to bed for the rest of the day.

So yeah, I completely understand. I think most people are going through it but not necessarily synchronously and not necessarily being honest about it. 頑張って! Try to remember that you know more japanese than when you started, even if you don’t necessarily know more than you did at the start of lockdown!

[SystemD]

The pandemic has had some strange effects. My work wasn’t locked down. We still had to go into the office and prepare stuff even though we weren’t teaching (I work in schools in Japan). One of the things I made was a set of cards showing famous places in Japan for the kids to talk about.
It helped me reconnect with why I came to Japan. People who’ve read my few posts in the past will know I’ve not had the happiest time here - living in the system as opposed to visiting is very different - and I really struggle with kanji (still on level one after a couple of years). I have no interest in manga, anime or J-pop…but love ukiyo-e, the films of Kurosawa and Shindo, the ghost stories of Lafcadio Hearn and the literature of Sosski, Akutagawa and Murakami. I like the old histories like the Taiheiki too, and this is what I’ve managed to reconnect with after a long absence. お久しぶりでしょ？

The result is that I’m now in the first stages of writing a book on an aspect Japanese history. Publisher contacted and information about the required formatting received. And then, knowing I’m starting on one project a work colleague comes up and suggests another to do. Again, it’s a Japanese subject, but with links to my home country. So I can say now that while kanji and language studies have kind of hit a wall, other Japanese interests are taking off, and perhaps it’ll lead to more language learning in the future.

[Greenfire311]

I am so sorry you live in California! That also would be depressing right now! I hve friends who live in Northern California and know what you are going through! In fact the last fires that came through destroyed their entire city. They had to talk about whether they were going to rebuild that city or not. My friends lost everything and barely got out alive. They lived in Paradise. They still do, actually. I am sorry for your red sky right now. Poor California is always on fire!!!

[chantellis]

Oh, I remember the Paradise fire. That was so horrible and sad! I live near enough that it impacted my area as well. I’m glad that your friends are okay. California didn’t used to burn like this. This never happened when I was a kid and we never had weeks of 112 degree F heat either. I hope your friends stay okay this time around too!

[Greenfire311]

They barely made it out alive with the clothes on their backs and they weren’t even together when it happened. It was terrible. I know the fires are moving up pretty north too because I also have a different friend in Washington who says it is on fire there too! It’s crazy!

[chantellis]

Yes, hundreds of fires along the whole west coast. I hope your other friends stay safe! It’s really scary with those fires!

[hannah218]

I have to do at least a single review every day or I will forget and stop for 5 years…

@yarumari my september is looking very similar to yours. Cheers to level 32 september!!

[Midnite]

Thank you for this post. I’m a parent of 3 and my two oldest I have had to work and assist with school ever since this pandemic started and schools started sending the kiddos home. Flash forward, I’m in a worse situation and trying to make the best of it as I’m going through an unwanted separation, trying to assist my two oldest kiddos in school and keep my toddler home from daycare to reduce as much risk as possible. I have been away from WK for almost 3 months (maybe more now) and I miss it. I have felt so alone, scared and unlike myself for quite sometime now. Reading your post has given me a little bit of spark to try and get back into something I love to do and try to see that things will be ok. Thank very much for this post I needed it tonight.

[Snappleby]

Would your kids be interested in learning some Japanese? Even though they’d probably be super low level you could teach them how to say the numbers, and then flash the image of the kanji. Or teach them some of the meanings (not readings) for the basic kanji like 口、月、木.
I know you, and them, may be feeling overwhelmed with what they “have to learn”, but sometimes even a short lesson on something that has no goal, formal tests, or grades can be a nice breather from everything else.

[merida77]

Please don’t beat yourself up about feeling low - this pandemic has been hard on everyone but especially parents of young kids. I am a working mum with a toddler myself and it has been so rough. For non-working parents too, the closure of all the normal activities and support groups that would help keep the little ones entertained and the parents sane has been extremely tough. I don’t know any parents who’ve had any experience other than pure stress and exhaustion throughout (and I know a lot of parents). All the talk about extra free time and new hobbies has been hard to hear when we’ve had significantly less time than before. Obviously I’m not saying it’s been easy for everyone without kids, I know a lot of people have found it incredibly lonely and depressing and scary. But add the pressure of having literally zero free time, working until midnight and getting up at 5 am just to fit everything in, the guilt of not having enough time or headspace to do either your job or parenting properly, the constant worry about the effect the lack of socializing and school is having on your kids’ development, the sadness of elderly grandparents missing out on such a long chunk of their childhood… it’s been a lot. I’m lucky in that childcare is now open again where we live, so we are back to a normal daily routine although still missing friends and family. But being able to focus on my work and fit in things like WaniKani has been a big mental health booster. I hope you manage to find a way to balance the demands on your time and make some time for yourself. Even half an hour a day where you can finish a train of thought without being interrupted can be really restorative! You definitely deserve it!

[Greenfire311]

I hope they do too. You stay safe too. Listen to advisory warnings. I saw a picture of the Golden gate Bridge and the whole sky was red. It was amazing and scary at the same time!

[Greenfire311]

Awwww. I am so sorry to hear of your situation. I can’t imagine the difficulty of a separation, especially with children. And trying to teach multiple children from home while trying to do everything else is almost impossible! I am having such a hard time with my kids! They are in elementary school, so they both need my full attention. You have to give 100 percent almost 4 ways with everything. I’m sorry you are having difficulties. If you have to stop Japanese to do other important things for your family, no one will fault you for sure. If it is the one thing you do for yourself then it can be a good thing too. It all depends.

[Greenfire311]

When I first started my daughter was writing a couple of Kanji and wanting me to show her, but that was a while ago. She never said she wanted to learn the whole language, though. She has been doing Italian on Duolingo. That’s what she wants to learn. She has Italian background on my side of the family. I’m surprised I don’t want to learn Italian. It just had always been Japanese for me. My father told me I should have been born Japanese and not Italian American. Haha. My husband knows a lot of Spanish and has been brushing up in it. And my 7 year old, for some weird reason, wants to learn French? Don’t know where that came from. So we started him on Duolingo French.

So pretty much everyone in the family has their own interests and it is kind of hard to share the learning process with anyone. Like I don’t have a study buddy in my husband or anything. That would be nice, but nope.

[meadowdrone]

Well…

When I’ve been on WK over the past few months I’ve just been doing ‘review maintenance’ - not really learning much at all and even then struggling to get to the bottom of my reviews. But I pushed through a few days of veryl ow motivation, doing 80-100 at a time, until I finally got into a groove and was able to clear out my pile. I just learned my first new set of kanji since the spring!

I get it though - it’s difficult and if you want to keep learning then it can really be a misery. The worst when clearing out a review backlog is messing up many many items in a row and falling into a spiral of self-doubt. But it’s just the uglier side of the SRS doing its thing. If you can keep going through the downturn you can eventually have them stick in your brain again.

On the plus side, during my break I have done some reading and also a bit of anime with JP subs as well as conversing with a couple of friends!

Good luck with whatever approach you decide is healthiest!

[Chantruese]

We’re in the same boat. I managed to keep up my Japanese for a while, since we were doing iTalki lessons and they’re virtual and they didn’t stop with the pandemic, so I had a little pressure to keep going. But man, my office closed so I was at home every. single. day, and then I started to have to tell my very recently adopted foster daughter, “no, you can’t go see your friends. No, you can’t go to the mall that’s still open for some dumb reason. No, you’re going to have to do online learning for the last quarter of school” and having all kinds of fights. We had a couple of expensive, AWESOME trips scheduled and they obviously got cancelled. The depression/ennui/apathy hit hard. Stopped doing all kinds of things that I normally did. Then WK took a hit in July and I just got back to it like a week ago, and very similar boat (1000ish reviews, don’t remember what I was doing. Frustration. Ugh.)

There are all those stories of people who started baking sourdough or took up super artistic hobbies, and I sat on my butt on my couch and consumed more Netflix in 6 months than I normally do in 6 years. I’ve just recently started to have little bouts of feeling normal-ish, and I think it’s because it’s fall. I’m used to being inside more when the weather starts to turn, so maybe it feels less oppressive to be inside as much? Or maybe it’s just acceptance finally? Who knows.

Coming back to WK and having 1,000 reviews is SO hard, especially when you don’t remember a thing! So proud of you for coming back and sticking with it. Cheering for you from my own little forced imprisonment!

[Greenfire311]

Same boat. Only in Florida it is still really hot here in Fall. I WISH it would cool enough to enjoy being outside. That would be SO nice!

[EowynCarter]

I’ve been wanting to study Japanese for a while but it’s only after the lockdown I decided to work on it seriously.

More time because of no transportation (i was working from home) , but I felt mostly too depressed to study.

[Greenfire311]

I’m sorry. And it is a little hard in the beginning. Just keep it up! I have to say the forums are really helpful for any questions you may have or discussions about pronunciation or grammar.

As far as being too depressed to study, I completely understand! This whole thing has really y affected everyone all over the world. Just try your best. That’s all you can do!

[Greenfire311]

Oh! And welcome to WaniKani!!!

[Greenfire311]