Mental-health services remain key
Unlike the physical impact of the coronavirus, there’s no vaccine against the mental toll it has taken.
As the pandemic wore on last year, people reported feeling more anxiety, depression, suicidal thoughts and other mental health struggles than prepandemic and experts say these issues will remain central to this public health crisis in the coming year.
“Coming into what our new normal will be will take time and in that time people will continue to experience mental health issues,” said Lisa Winjum, executive director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness of Connecticut.
Winjum said calls to their help line nearly doubled last year and she expects the need for mental health services to remain consistently high this year.
The isolation and anxiety of the pandemic itself is exacerbating people’s existing mental health issues, Winjum said.
“The pandemic just highlighted an existing mental health crisis, but also people who have never thought of themselves as having a mental health diagnosis, are now experiencing mental health issues and seeking help for it,” she said.
Last year about three times as many people reported having symptoms of anxiety and nearly four times as many reported symptoms of depression, according to a study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Suicidal ideation also increased and was significantly higher for young adults, Black and Hispanic people, unpaid caregivers and essential workers.
“For every life situation there are different stressors that impact your mental health,” Winjum said. “No one gets out of this unscathed.”
Valerie Lepoutre, peer recovery program manager at NAMI Connecticut, said with a generation of children and young adults under pandemic stress, people with a history of mental health issues may start experiencing them earlier in life.
“We’ll never go back to where we were before and we need people to know it’s OK to ask for help,” she said.
For that reason, telehealth access will continue to be needed, Lepoutre said, since it’s been a lifeline for so many throughout the pandemic. That means it needs to be funded.
“People who experience trauma from this pandemic, they need the best possible care and we shouldn’t have to be jumping through hoops to have their needs met,” she said.
Lepoutre and Winjum said the state needs to ensure there’s coverage for telehealth services equal to what’s available for visits in person.
“Over the last seven months I’ve seen a lot of media attention on mental health and mental wellness and we need to keep that focus up and talk about how we’re going to fund and make sure people get those resources,” Winjum said.