Bay Area residents feel increasing psychological cost

A young man from East Bay, struggling with schizophrenia and addiction, breaks his sobriety and fatal drug overdoses after COVID-19 shelter orders cut him off from in-person meetings with his therapist.

Teens break down from loss of contact with school and friends. Black residents, including the mother of a police shooting victim, are emotionally devastated again by images of George Floyd killed by Minneapolis officials.

These are some of the stories that have begun to emerge as Bay Area residents suffer the mounting psychological burden of a global pandemic, civil unrest, and unprecedented and prolonged uncertainty about the country’s future.

Bay Area mental health specialists and crisis line managers say they have seen an increasing number of calls or text messages from distressed people seeking help. They are concerned that the situation will worsen with sudden increases in coronavirus cases and hospitalizations.

This increase in calls for help comes at a time when up to a third of American adults say they have experienced symptoms of clinical depression and anxiety during the pandemic, according to a weekly survey of American households by the Census Bureau.

“People are reaching their limits one by one at different times. They have different abilities to deal with the unknown, “said Narges Dillon, executive director of Alameda County Crisis Support Services, who has seen a 15 percent increase in calls to his crisis line.” As this crisis continues, people who did well in March or April begin to feel that stress increases. “

Karina Chapa, volunteer coordinator for Star-Vista, the non-profit agency that runs the San Mateo County crisis line, added that people have lost access to the things that normally keep them well: exercise, AA meetings , school counselors, family at home support. “People can resort to less healthy coping mechanisms to survive,” she says.

More than half a million Bay Area residents have lost jobs, youth have been cut off from vital social connections, and women have felt loneliness and pressure 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, from work at a distance as they try to educate young children at home. Authorities are especially concerned about layoffs that hit middle-aged men, a high-risk suicide population, and low-income people who are unsure how to pay rent or buy food.

Black Americans were already experiencing disproportionate rates of serious illness and death from COVID-19. But the police killings and resulting protests have triggered a new emotional trauma over long-standing concerns about racism and police violence.

“Many of us were trying to stay mentally well in terms of COVID-19, and we were eager for the reopening of the country,” said Gigi Crowder, executive director of the Contra Costa chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, during a remote meeting of the city ​​council organized by the Oscar Grant Foundation. “Then came these additional wounds, sincere wounds to our spirit.”

In the Census Bureau survey from June 11 to 16, 36 percent of respondents said they experienced symptoms of anxiety or depressive disorder, meaning they felt “depressed, depressed, or hopeless” or “nervous, anxious or nervous. ” That’s more than double the number of adults who reported such symptoms in the spring of 2019, according to another national survey.

On March 13, the Friday before the shelter-in-place took effect, Santa Clara County saw a surge in messages to its crisis text line. Since then, the county’s mobile crisis team has responded to an increasing number of people at risk each month, from 157 in February to 215 in May, said Sherri Terao, director of Behavioral Health Services.

Tom Tamura, executive director of Contra Costa Crisis Services, said his agency handles approximately 1,000 additional calls per month compared to the same period in 2019.

Up to 25 percent of StarVista’s crisis line calls were related to COVID-19’s impact on people’s work, daily routines and mental health, said Zena Andreani, program manager at the Intervention Center Crisis and Suicide Prevention from StarVista. She said these calls “may be the tip of the iceberg for understanding the long-term mental health effects of COVID-19.”

So far, it’s too early to say if the pandemic has caused more suicides, according to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.