A message to college students like mine who are graduating during coronavirus

It's hard — but my career, and my life experience, has taught me that in crises like these there are some basic rules you should always follow

Socially distanced high school and college graduation ceremonies have been going ahead throughout the pandemic; here, former President Obama addresses high school students virtually (REUTERS)

Instead of sweating under long gowns through boring speeches, tossing caps into the air and embracing classmates, students are graduating alone into a scary world where a hug could kill you. As a college professor for a quarter century – who has taught many high-schoolers too — I find it heartbreaking to see the horrible effects of the pandemic on young people. Distraught from missing friends, their social lives and classrooms, with parties, proms, ceremonies, internships and jobs relegated to Zoom or cancelled altogether, it doesn't help to hear adults say, "You're lucky you're healthy and have a roof over your head."

The truth is: It sucks. Especially for those who are sick, or have lost relatives, dorm rooms, work, or stability. Although the pandemic is unprecedented, here's some advice from my teachers and mentors that helped me through medical, emotional and financial crises over the years:

Don't fake it, feel it

You don't have to feign cheerfulness. Your losses are real and need to be mourned.

My first NYU class, the late Russian poet Joseph Brodsky spent teaching Auden's The Sea and The Mirror, emphasizing the final advice the father in the poem gives to his son. If you ever come to a place of failure, "where thought accuses and feeling mocks," the father says: "Believe your pain." I took this to mean that pain always deserves room and respect.

Re-channel hurt and anger

After recognizing and honoring your feelings, try redirection. Kickbox in the basement, share your angst with a like-minded buddy on Skype, organize a petition to your state representative. These are better outlets than staying in bed until 3pm, eating Pringles and counting likes to the last half-naked picture you posted on Instagram.

The Greek philosopher Epictetus said, "It's not what happens to you, but how you react that matters," echoed by psychiatrist Carl Jung's "I am not what happened to me; I am what I choose to become." The world, and our leaders, have failed and confused us. But even on a small scale, don't be victimised — be victorious.

Don't catastrophize

There's already a catastrophe outside. Seeing it as the end of the world could harm you internally. Yes, it can feel like your whole life has been destroyed. Yet my therapist, Dr Fred Woolverton, always reminded me: "Feelings misinform." Whenever I felt lost, he'd suggest I write down what I had to do that day and focus on the next item. Sometimes it was merely: make the bed when you get up. Then take a shower. (Not a terrible way to start each day.) Like Oprah's Gratitude Journal, I also force myself to come up with at least five things I'm grateful for every night before bed, even if it's just "this day is over."

Seek help

It's available, but you have to ask for it. While depression seems a natural reaction to watching everything you rely on disappear, it's hard to battle on your own. Many schools still offer free counseling, and most shrinks are doing tele-therapy.

When I was 20, an NYU professor led me to the Postgraduate Center For Mental Health, where an awesome social worker saw me for $20 a session. (I still call her when I freak out — though now I pay more.) If you can't afford therapeutic services, find an older relative you trust or a favorite teacher to vent, commiserate or consult with. I feel honored when students reach out by phone, Skype or FaceTime (despite my mugshot) to check in, talk out a problem, or ask for the perspective of someone older in their field. "Insight is almost always the rearrangement of fact," wrote Caroline Knapp in Drinking, A Love Story.

Drinking, drugs, smoking and vaping make everything worse

They provide momentary relief in this weird time of isolation. Yet long-term, they'll set you back.

Dr Woolverton, an addiction specialist, warned: "Addicts depend on substances, not people." Though people are not easily available in the flesh now, there are pixelated versions at AA and NA meetings online and sponsors you can connect with. As someone who needed intensive therapy at 40 to quit bad habits, I question the wisdom of calling pot shops and liquor stores essential businesses. I wish somebody would have warned me that the toxic substances I was consuming for comfort and escape were actually keeping me from getting everything I wanted in life.

Learn self-care now

There's a Buddhist saying that the six best doctors are sunshine, water, rest, air, exercise, and diet. (Though I’d throw in shrinks, friends and Netflix binges.) Punctuate each day with something self-soothing, like taking a walk, a bath, or listening to your favorite music. It's hard to change the world if you're hungover, bloated from gummy bears and sleep-deprived. As Audre Lorde, the self-described "black, lesbian, mother, warrior and poet”, proclaimed: "Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political welfare."

Help someone else

Rabbi Hillel asked, "If I am not for myself, who will be for me? " yet added, "If I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?"

This global trauma presents the chance to do good. Aim for one tiny kindness each day. Along with donating to food banks and to feed healthcare workers, I left flowers for an older widowed neighbor and let someone who couldn’t afford tuition audit my course. A Brooklyn student volunteers to deliver meals to the hungry and homeless. A Michigan 10th-grader I know started a kids' book drive for the disadvantaged. An aspiring designer makes beautiful masks for those in need.

"When one door closes, another opens," said the inventor Alexander Graham Bell. You open one by assisting others less fortunate.

Let the crisis change you

Angst, failure and humiliation are essential – to make art and build character. The students who, despite extreme obstacles, kept attending my online classes this semester published impressive debuts. Kimberley Lara covered what it's like sheltering in Miami with seven relatives in a two-bedroom for PopSugar Latina. Ian Kumamoto chronicled his poverty, fear of illness and anti-Asian sentiment in Slate and The Washington Post. In The Independent, Sergio Perez documented how, as a 21-year-old aspiring photographer, he got the virus twice, pondering the dark irony that his work was being rejected as well as his antibodies. As I tell my classes, three pages can change your life — and writing is a way to turn your worst experiences into the most beautiful.

It's horrendously unfair that graduates can't celebrate their accomplishment in a huge arena with all their family and friends. But remember your power to rekindle hope and light. In times of sorrow, I recall Dr Martin Luther King Jr’s promise: "Only in the darkness can you see the stars."

Susan Shapiro is an award-winning writing professor and the bestselling author of 13 books including Unhooked, Lighting Up, Byline Bible and the upcoming The Forgiveness Tour