As restrictions begin to ease, we’re all dealing with the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic over the past 3 months and speculating about what the future will look like. International research tells us that we’re likely to see an escalation of emotional and mental distress.

Already the Office of National Statistics tells us that just over half of adults (53.1%) said that coronavirus was affecting their wellbeing, and just under half (46.9%) reported high levels of anxiety. We know that many people have experienced problems intensified by the pandemic – social isolation, domestic abuse, relationship problems, financial problems, unemployment, balancing working from home with child care and unaddressed health issues among others.

With our survey during May, we started a Wider Conversation around mental health and wellbeing, and these are some of the responses to our survey which share a range of experiences of emotional distress, in people’s own words: