New Challenges, New Chapters

New Beginnings Jasiona graduated with the Class of 2020 and is now enrolled in the nursing program at Ivy Tech.

One day at a time.

That day-by-day strategy is a 2020 mantra for student Jasiona Allen and her mother, Neeka Burtley.

A 2020 Muncie Central graduate, Jasiona has over the past six months – graduated high school and started college this fall in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Students & families face new COVID-19 challenges & chapters NEW CHALLENGES,

NEW CHAPTERS

“At first, it was stressful because of online classes – not just for me, but also my friends – because we’d never had to do that,” says Jasiona of those early days.

In the beginning, not having to go to school was fun, she says, but quickly adds: “It got boring after awhile, especially when we found we were never going back.” “My mental state of mind was the worst.

Closure was difficult. FaceTime helped. So did talking with friends about the unfairness of a senior year without long-awaited traditions.

“It was stressful,” she says. “I listened to music a lot.”

Over the summer, COVID-19 found its way inside Jasiona’s inner support circle. Her mother, a nursing home worker, had contracted the disease.

Physical virus symptoms permeated Neeka’s body, including body aches, headaches, and an overall sensation that she’d been run over. Then came something harder.

“My mental state of mind was the worst,” Neeka says. “It really messed me up for awhile.”

Neeka, a self-described social person who thrives from being around people, faced three cycles of quarantine in her room isolated from her family of five. “I never knew that my mental health would get down like that,” says Neeka, who reached for help from an online medical team. One day, she says, she told her doctors: “I just wished I’d die.”

This fall has brought healing for Neeka and a new chapter for Jasiona. “I’m feeling better now,” Neeka says, adding that her deep gratitude prompted thank-you presents to the medical team who helped her. “I learned you have to take it one day at a time. And it really does help to have people to talk to that understand it. You never know by looking at the outside of someone what’s going on inside.” Jasiona is working to adjust to online classes at Ivy Tech in her pursuit of a nursing degree and her dream of one day working in a hospital.

“Some days it’s kind of hard, and some weeks it’s fine,” Jasiona says.

She offers this advice to other students who are struggling to navigate through changes brought about by the pandemic: “Try not to be hard on yourselves. Everything will be okay. Take it day by day.”