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TW: suicide
We need to be talking constantly about the spike in mental illness and suicides that’s accompanied the Covid pandemic not only so that people realize the value of limiting isolation as much as possible, but also so that desperate people realize this isn’t permanent.
We need to be talking constantly about the spike in mental illness and suicides that’s accompanied the Covid pandemic not only so that people realize the value of limiting isolation as much as possible, but also so that desperate people realize this isn’t permanent.
A big factor in depression turning to suicide is the attendant feeling of hopelessness—depression makes us feel we will always feel this way. Having a concrete and (hopefully) temporary cause to point to can be huge in getting people to stop blaming themselves and despairing.
We had a patient yesterday who had stayed sober for years and was beating himself up for relapsing. I told him that a lot of people who had been fine for years are suddenly relapsing now. He honestly hadn’t even considered that the pandemic isolation might’ve been a factor.
Just personally, I know the knowledge that the pandemic has a real mental health dimension to it has helped me push aside my own feelings of hopelessness because I can remind myself that I’m not able to think about my life clearly right now. It’s not much, but it’s something.
The other side of it is that, while the isolation might be temporary, the cruelty of our society that’s fully on display right now isn’t—or at least the latter is likely to persist much longer. And there’s nothing I can tell myself to make my anger or sadness over that go away.
But again: we’re not able to look at the facts, *especially* the most depressing ones, with clear eyes when we’re actively depressed. Be kind to yourself and leave the question of whether you can bear living in such a society for another day. You owe yourself that much.
