When Lewisham residents James and Amy Howard welcomed their son Wolfie in February, they were quite relaxed about the pandemic. 

“At that point, no one had died and it just didn’t seem like it would become such a serious thing,” says James. 

However, as infections mounted, things changed. “We started to become increasingly worried about two or three weeks after Wolfie’s birth,” he remembers. 

“Before the lockdown, our midwife who was visiting us every week to help us out, suddenly stopped coming and we didn’t know if it was because she had the virus. A lot of things heightened our sense of paranoia – and I’m paranoid enough as it is being a new dad.”

James, an artist and content creator on YouTube says he has suffered from anxiety ever since he was younger. Though the pandemic has been hard, he says he and his partner have been dealing well with their mental health. 

After hearing about the coronavirus panic that was beginning to hit European countries, James started to worry about panic-buyers and decided to go to the shops early to get enough food for three weeks.  

“We thought if we go into lockdown it would only be for around three weeks – and even that seemed unlikely at the time. We have a baby too, so we didn’t even want to think about leaving,” he says.

When the lockdown came into place the new parents began being extra careful with their postage and letters, disinfecting everything that came through the door. “Luckily in my pre-panic stock buy I did get some anti-bacterial and I found myself not taking any chances. Whenever the post came in I would go down with gloves and wash my hands before handling the content” James says. 

“We have been trying to find some positives in the situation,” says James. “The lockdown has felt like an extension of our parental leave and my parental leave was supposed to only last a month. The silver lining is that I get to spend more time with my son whereas it would have only been on weekends.” 

Since restrictions have relaxed a bit they have been occasionally going out on walks to get Wolfie out the house and enjoy the weather at their local park, still trying to uphold social distancing rules which seem to have become increasingly redundant. “It’s crazy there” said James. “It’s so busy you’d think it’s a festival.”

James creates videos speaking about mental health journeys on his YouTube channel, Anxiety Plus, aiming to help others overcome their anxiety. He has recently been making videos about the pandemic, sharing advice on where to find essentials which are out of stock and making DIY hand sanitiser among others. 

You can find James’ channel here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCozeJCp8OrzurptV6YRmZbg/videos