Our mental health took a hit
Have we finally wised up to its importance? COVID-19 has taught us intriguing lessons
This year will forever be remembered for the extraordinary global effort to contain a deadly virus.
In 2020, COVID-19 brought economies to a halt, shuttered schools and forced the populations of towns, cities and entire countries into lockdown. Time was measured in the number of infections, deaths, hospitalizations and tests conducted. Much of the year was spent isolating at home, keeping our distance from loved ones, scrubbing our hands until our skin was raw, wearing a mask and lining up two metres apart. We broke new records in searching for, developing, testing, approving, procuring, rolling out and now delivering a vaccine.
All of this was done — rightly, justifiably, necessarily — to protect our physical health. But it was our mental health that took a hit in 2020.
The initial lockdown in March was sudden, drastic and strict. Virtually overnight our world was turned upside down — and we all turned inward to grapple with isolation.
Almost no one was spared this shock to the system. The pandemic ratcheted up stress levels for old and young, married and single, parents and teens, teachers and students, nurses on the front line and workers who lost their livelihood. We went through different degrees of loneliness, helplessness, sleeplessness and fear. Many experienced anxiety and depression. A few went to even darker places.
As is so often the case, mental health got short shrift at the start of the crisis. It was only later that we began to see the collateral damage.
The misery of the homeless was amplified in a desolate and abandoned downtown.
Seniors stranded in care homes suffered from a lack of socialization and dementia patients grew worse.
Kids and teens were cut off from their friends and classmates, confined to home and launched into a virtual realm they may or may not have been ready for. They lost the extracurricular activities, sports teams and dance classes that enrich their lives.
A Université de Sherbrooke survey showed half of young adults between the ages of 18 and 24 have experienced mental distress in the last year. A quarter are exhibiting symptoms of major depression or anxiety disorder. The rate of those contemplating suicide doubled from an earlier version of the study.
Families buckled under the pressure of working from home while simultaneously trying to home-school. The Early Childhood Observatory found preschoolers were crying and acting out more while parents were losing their tempers more. Marriages crumbled.
People lost jobs, causing them to worry about how to put food on the table or pay the rent. Business owners lost their lives' work, leaving them to pick up the pieces. Frontline workers — from doctors to nurses, orderlies, caregivers for the elderly, teachers and early childhood educators — have been pushed toward burnout as the demands on them have grown. They have toiled tirelessly, relentlessly and selflessly, at great personal peril.
A poll from the Mental Health Commission of Canada shows that, nationwide, the number of people who report their state of mind is “strong” has plummeted to 44 per cent from 67 per cent since last year. This means half of us are in difficulty, a stunning statistic.
Not helping amid all this turmoil are all the supposedly motivational memes about how our grandparents' generation had to go to war but all we have to do is sit home on the couch. All that talk about kids being delicate snowflakes when they should be learning resiliency amounts to shaming those whose struggles are very real.
The already inadequate safety net for mental health has of course been further strained from the fallout from the pandemic.
Even if the Quebec government took out ads urging self care for those feeling blue and poured millions of dollars into improving access to psychological services, it's still not enough. Too many people are still being denied.
La Presse columnist Patrick Lagacé chronicled the heartbreaking and harrowing ordeal of one resourceful and determined mother seeking help for her suicidal son. Almost every door was slammed in her face. Imagine how easily a person with less support and less savvy could fall through the cracks. Many already have.
One day, in a hopefully not too distant future, COVID-19 will be behind us. But the psychological scars of the pandemic will remain, like a time bomb ready to detonate.
If we take away one lesson from this silent tragedy, it's that mental distress must no longer be ignored and underfunded. It must be given equal importance to our physical well-being if we are to grow into a healthy, robust and resilient society.