COVID isolation challenging those with psychiatric issues

The challenges brought about by the coronavirus pandemic have tested the mettle of millions of Americans. We face the disease itself with its recent variants. And we face an economy in which many jobs have been on hiatus or have disappeared entirely due to business closures.

We hope to solve the pandemic but the virus keeps mutating into new strains on which the current vaccines might not work as effectively. Times of uncertainty like this only come about once or twice in most people’s lifetimes.

The threat and the hardships posed by the virus only compound the troubles of people with psychiatric issues. When the pandemic hit, our lives, already hard, became harder.

The shutdowns have added more holes in the supposed safety net. Government and social service agencies on which we rely as lifelines have radically restricted their services. Many agencies and organizations have become almost non-accessible.

Agencies have eliminated nearly all in-person contact and have restricted communications to phone and internet. However, some of these same agencies have changed their phone systems making it much harder to reach anyone. In the not so distant past, consumers could reach people by dialing an extension number. We could also generally reach a live receptionist during normal business hours. This belongs to the past.

Concerning internet contacts, the door is open a bit more. Many mental health service providers offer Zoom meetings. However, if you don’t have working computer equipment, you are left with very few options to get help.

People with mental illness are highly reliant on social service agencies. When these agencies become less accessible, it harms us. I personally am dealing with a great deal of depression. This could be partly osmosis since people in general are having a hard time. And it could partly be caused by the increased difficulties getting various forms of help.

During these times, people are being expected to have a greater degree of resiliency and self-reliance. If we can’t come up with that, we face consequences such as loss of housing and/or income benefits. Or, with the extra expenses of masks and delivered items, the increased likelihood of going overbudget. For people who live on disability, becoming overdrawn is not an option. The expense incurred in an overdraft for those who do not have family to help fix a crisis could lead to instant homelessness.

We’ve been expected to shelter in place. This concept can be frightening. It conjures up ideas about “doomsday.” While a doomsday movie could be entertaining, anything that remotely resembles it in real life will bring about far worse symptoms to anyone who suffers from psychosis.

The difficulty of not being able to see family members in person has magnified emotional impact on people with mental illness. It is easy to underestimate the effect of this.

I, for one, really miss family gatherings. They were often the only way I had of seeing many relatives. When you have parents and siblings who are either getting older or moving on with their lives, you want to see them. But you can’t see them because you might carry COVID-19, which could cause them to become deathly ill.

These times are some of the most challenging that human beings have seen. And if you are mentally ill and can get through these times in one piece, it says a lot.