Mental health issues certainly aren’t rare—they never were. The fact that more people have come forth and talked about their own struggles in recent years, has made it even more apparent just how common they are. And as many know, the pandemic has contributed to a rise in depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts over the last 15 months: physical and social isolation, loss of work, fear of contacting or spreading the virus, and loss of loved ones have been hard to cope with, to say the least.
Even as we see a light at the end of the tunnel, with more people vaccinated and restrictions lifting, a new study finds that mental health issues haven’t yet followed suit. They may in the coming months, as we regain jobs, resume normal activities, socialize, and generally heal from the trauma. The real issue may be how to harness what we’ve learned about mental health during the pandemic and design structures and policies that support it in a larger way moving forward.
Mental health is strongly dependent on what’s going on in world, as well as our personal commitments and constraints—financial, familial, social, and so on. And it’s more confirmation that mental health problems aren’t just misfirings of the brain (though they can be, they aren’t always). The pandemic showed us the psychological fallout of structures falling away; devising ways to create more of the social supports and safety measures that are well known to contribute to psychological wellbeing would go a long way in supporting our collective mental health in the long-run.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/alicegwalton/2021/05/22/still-feeling-the-psychological-fallout-of-the-pandemic-youre-not-alone-study-finds/?sh=129cef0e9f7b