Most people may need counseling especially these days due to the Covid-19 outbreak. Including me. One-third of the people suffering from brain injuries, like mine, develop major depression. Depression may be precipitated by genetics, circumstances, illnesses or unforeseeable and uncontrollable events. For example, the current world pandemic affects our mental health in ways we could never have imagined.
Anxiety, too, is at an all time high worldwide. We are scared of going to school and work and contracting Covid-19, or staying home for safety and falling behind. We fear our ability to pay mortgages, medical bills, rents. We worry about losing our homes, our businesses, our loved ones, about finding jobs or keeping jobs.
We are cracking up.
US cases of depression tripled from 8.5% before Covid to 27.8% now.
One in three people in the States are anxious or depressed.
Statistics in Switzerland, rated the top place in world to live for the quality of life, are alarming. Adults suffering from mental health issues before Covid were 3% and that number climbed to 18% in November 2020. Today, one out three people under the age of 24 suffer from depression or anxiety.
“The person who needs help is often times the last to realize it,” says my husband who encouraged me to get professional help after my accident and brain surgery.
If you know someone who is struggling encourage them to seek help or even better help them find it.
A good therapist can’t give you the magic solution, but they can help you find coping strategies and the right tools to move forward. They can help YOU create an action plan and locate resources — the right medications, support groups, community services or books to read to help you. They can motivate, cheerlead, validate your feelings, listen without judging, and help restore hope.
But the first step is admitting you need assistance. We never waver when we need to seek medical health for broken bones, cancer, or illness, but we balk when it comes to caring for our mental health. There is a stigma to admitting your brain is suffering, but like any of the organ can go haywire.
Would it encourage you to take action if you knew that nine people in my hard-working, high-functioning, “normal” family have at one time or other sought professional mental health care in the form of a psychiatric, psychologist or counselor? None of us are crazy.
The cause of mental illnesses are varied as the kinds. They can be caused by brain disease, genetics, chemical imbalances, injuries, PTSD, CBT (i.e.getting one’s bells rung one too many times on the football fields, hockey rings, soccer pitches.)
But due to Covid-19, no time in modern history have the levels of depression and anxiety been greater.
“The distress in the pandemic probably stems from people’s limited social interactions, tensions among families in lockdown together and fear of illness,” says psychiatrist Marcella Rietschel at the Central Institute for Mental Health in Mannheim, Germany.
The finding that women are more likely to experience psychological distress than men is consistent with other global studies that have shown that anxiety and depression are more common in women.
“The lower social status of women and less preferential access to healthcare compared to men could potentially be responsible for the exaggerated adverse psycho-social impact on women,” the researchers suggest.
Mental health professionals can help, but the work must be done by the individual.
Here is some steps that helped me:
- Walk. Go outside. Be in nature.
- Call a mom, daughter, sister, friend, another female.
- Make a to do list. Set a goal. Start a project.
- Declutter one shelf, one drawer, one cupboard.
- Make that difficult decision to seek professional help, many provide services on line through Syke or on the phone.
- Escape - watch Netflix. Read fiction. Look at old photographs.
- Learn something new.
- Share your story.
End the stigma. Stop suffering in silence.
One moment I was living my dream as a professional basketball player in Europe, driving past my opponent with perfect body control releasing the ball so gently it kissed the backboard. The next instance, I was spinning weightlessly through air when our car flipped off a 100 foot embankment into France’s La Meuse River leaving me clawing against an icy current.
I lived near the Eiffel Tower in Paris and at the foothills of the Alps on Lake Geneva. I stood on Mt. Blanc and the Acropolis in Athens. I rode horses on the beach in the Camargue and floated down the canals of Venice. I walked in the shadows of my forefathers at Scotland’s McKinzie Castle and along the Norwegian fjords of my Olson ancestors above the Arctic Circle.
I wrote a book that led to an invitation to speak at the U.S. Senior National Games, an NCAA Final Four basketball banquet and commencement at the prestigious International School of Geneva, founder of international baccalaureate.
In the meantime, I keep fighting to go on, pulling up someone else, pushing another forward. After all my struggles, this much I know to be true. We are in the game together.
Kamala Harris, lost the democratic nomination but won the ticket as Biden’s VP and broke the glass ceiling by becoming the 1st female vice president, 1st African-American and 1st Asian-AmericanVP. She inspired young girls everywhere to dream.
On a smaller scale, heroes exist within our own families. Like my maternal grandparents who came to America for a better life. When my Norwegian grandpa Gustav lost his job during the Great Depression, he walked to the Chicago Public Library everyday to read books because he always wanted to be educated but never had the opportunity.
ur years under the leadership of this madman ended in this deplorable moment in our history, leaving American citizens shocked, appalled, humiliated and terrified. It degraded our image and lowered our status among other countries.
In my twenties I called it home, when I was a player for the professional basketball team, the
Long after I moved to Europe, DC remained imprinted in my heart - Fort Belvoir, a US Army base where we practiced, the DC Armory, the national guard training arena, where we played our games, and the Capitol Center where we toured. A kaleidoscope of memories collide warm family meals, heated basketball games, cozy jazz clubs in historic Georgetown, and landmarks of American history.
Before an entire country can heal, we must begin with one person. Reach out. Get to know someone of another religion, race, culture, ethnicity and learn about their universe. What foods do they eat? What holidays do they celebrate? What language do they speak? What deities do they worship? What fears do they face of living in the USA? How can they be made to feel welcome here?
Everyone everywhere agrees that 2020 has been a bad year in so many ways, so don’t look back, focus on the future, bring it on 2021!
maybe things would be better if they lived in my their passport country, in the land where they grew up understanding the language, customs and culture by osmosis as a birthright. But no matter where in the world one resides storms prevail. Turbulence is an inherent part of the human existence
“We are all divine and we are all ultimately connected.”
Record highs in Covid-19 cases, hospitals across Europe overloaded, healthcare workers on their knees and hearts breaking from being torn apart from families during the holidays. Due to circumstances we should not travel, but must find unique ways to stay connected.
Hold a baby. My niece and nephew-in-law took Covid tests in order to travel safely from their home in Wisconsin to Illinois to introduce their new baby, Hadley Marie, to her great grandparents. My 86-year-old mom, who recently lost her brother to Covid-19, became teary eyed holding her first great grandchild in the circle of life.