Bill would support research on COVID-mental illness link
STRONGSVILLE — When 17-year-old son Brycen Gray’s symptoms quickly worsened, his mother, Tara Gray, didn’t know he had COVID-19.
Thinking back on it, the Strongsville resident believes that he contracted the virus sometime between April 16 and 18, when he was with his high school friends — nearly one week before he died by suicide.
Gray said her son, who was never diagnosed with a mental illness, died after the infectious virus caused him to develop a psychiatric illness.
“Hindsight is 2020,” said Gray. “Had I known he had COVID-19 and this was going to be our destiny and we had more information, I would never have left him at home alone.”
Nearly seven months after his death, Gray’s family is calling for federal research funds to study COVID-19 and the mental health and neurological effects it has on the human body.
“Brycen was not depressed. There were no signs. I know kids can hide it,” Gray said. “It has everyone shaken.”
When her son first became sick on Monday, April 19, she wasn’t surprised.
Earlier that day he had received his second BioNTech Pfizer vaccine, and she expected that he would feel sick like he was after his first shot.
But each day his condition deteriorated.
By Wednesday he couldn’t taste or smell, soon developed a fever and had severe diarrhea — common symptoms of coronavirus. He could sleep, but he didn’t eat or drink, she said.
Gray remembers how he became anxious around the same time.
“I asked what he was anxious about, but he didn’t know,” she said.
Then he sent a strange text to a friend.
“He told one of the boys, ‘I feel like I’m going out of my mind crazy,’” Gray said.
On April 23, her son died by suicide.
“I’m a nurse, so I’ve been there through death for other families and have known people who have lost children for a variety of reasons,” Gray said. “You can only imagine, it’s every person’s worst nightmare, and now, living it, it’s a nightmare.”
Medical experts posthumously diagnosed her son with COVID-19 after investigating his illness, Gray said.
“If he wasn’t feeling well the weekend before his second shot, he would not have said anything because he was socializing with his friends,” she said. “I think he caught the virus sometime that weekend.”
A hard pill to swallow
The days after her son’s death are a blur.
Gray remembers almost nothing from the funeral, which lasted two hours longer than anticipated because so many people showed up.
“A lot of kids from all over came, but I remember a couple of parents in the line telling me how he helped them or helped their child with a mental health issue or with feeling welcomed and comforted,” Gray said. “It makes it an even harder pill to swallow.”
Her son attended St. Edward High School, where he played football and had recently taken an interest in lacrosse.
She described him as a well-liked individual who brought people together. He was always social, so during the pandemic, his friends rotated which house they stayed at to keep their families safe, she said.
When he died, his friends were at a loss.
“They didn’t know what to do,” Gray said. “They kept asking what they missed.”
In the week following their son’s death, Gray’s husband emailed U.S. Rep. Anthony Gonzalez, R-Rocky River, who quickly spoke to the family.
Gonzalez knew there could be a connection between suicidal ideation and COVID-19.
Months earlier in February, Ben Price, a 48-year-old married father of two from Illinois, died by suicide after his battle with the virus.
His symptoms, which included anxiety, panic and despair, lined up with Post-COVID-psychosis, medical experts said in a USA Today report from May.
Gonzalez introduced a bill in late October titled, “The Brycen Gray and Ben Price COVID-19 Neurological Impact Act.” It would award grants to support research regarding the psychiatric and neurological impacts of the virus.
“Research is urgently needed to better understand why neurological and psychiatric illnesses occur in patients following a COVID19 infection so that treatments and therapeutic strategies can be developed,” the bill states.
Since her son’s death, Gray has heard from families around the U.S. whose loved ones have experienced some form of mental illness following a COVID-19 diagnosis, she said.
“I hope that education gets out there and that other families will be saved and other people will be saved, so they won’t have to deal with such a tragedy,” she said.
While studies point toward a connection between physical illnesses affecting an individual’s mental health, more is needed regarding COVID-19, said the President of the Counselling Center of Wayne and Holmes Counties Karen Berry.
“I think the long-term effects still have to be determined,” Berry said.
While Berry is mostly concerned with the developmental impact the pandemic has had on children who learn from home, she agrees that COVID-19 could affect one’s mental health.
She hopes that this legislation will spur more research into the mental side of the pandemic.
“Physical health and behavioral health are so closely tied together, there can be a lot of impacts,” she said. “We know, for example, that a number of people have psychosomatic illnesses, and that the psyche can certainly affect our physical state and vice versa.”
Berry also would like to see more research regarding the anxiety and possibly post-traumatic stress caused by the pandemic, but specifically in COVID-19 survivors.
“Certainly for people who have had long hospitalizations, maybe close calls, I think that definitely has a serious impact,” she said. “I think that’s possible that they might develop PTSD as a result.”
With the bill introduced, it will face scrutiny in the U.S. House of Representatives, where it must pass before going to the Senate.