I am dearly hoping that, as our legislators prepare for a COVID response and stimulus package, they engage in some forward thinking—and allocate significant money to the looming mental-health crises that are coming out of the pandemic. /1 https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/24/us/politics/student-suicides-nevada-coronavirus.html

All of us have been experiencing—to one degree or another—a toxic layered cake of trauma.

Significant social isolation. The collective trauma that comes from the pandemic. Economic insecurity.

This has taken a toll on all of us. And we’re going to see the effects for years. /2

We’re already seeing it. A rash of suicides. A rash of homicides. A surge in substance use, as people—isolated & lonely—attempt to self-medicate.

My deepest fear is that these trends are going to worsen as we start to open back up, and we’re interacting with each other again. /3

If we don’t act NOW—and get the resources in place to deal with these issues—we’re going to be caught flat-footed. We’re going to be dealing with a second, mental-health related pandemic just as we exit the COVID pandemic. /4

We need to fund basic needs (housing, food, etc) first, to ease the economic insecurity that can exacerbate trauma.

We also need to fund a significant increase in mental-health and substance-use treatment.

And we need to ensure these services are available to all. /5

We also need to expend significant resources on young people—of all ages. Their brains are still developing. And the effects of trauma and social isolation on developing brains can be toxic and deadly. /6

Make no mistake: if we care about public safety, these are the most important investments our government can make now.

We can’t expect law enforcement (many of whom are traumatized as well, from putting their lives on the line throughout COVID) to arrest our way out of this. /7

Similarly, we can’t expect prosecutors to prosecute our way out of this. We need to invest *now,* upfront, to minimize the fallout and the violence and the suicides and the substance use and the crimes that are rooted in trauma and pain and isolation and desperation. /8

We’ve had so many conversations recently—cross-ideological conversations—about the need to invest in prevention upfront, rather than invest in punitive responses at the back end.

Now, urgently, it’s time to stop talking about it, and start doing it.

Lives are on the line. /fin