Written by Adeline J. Wells
It is no secret that 2023 is a strange time to be alive. We’re still dealing with the repercussions of a global pandemic, the politics of which continue to divide the world. Wars continue to ravage the world, displacing and destroying individuals and their communities. We’re watching clips of billionaires in space while at the same time dealing with rising inflation and rumors of recessions. The news is constantly a source of anxiety for many; bad news, rather, as these days the good news seems to be rather sparse.
I was speaking with a friend of mine on this matter recently. We were lamenting about the state of the world, and she mentioned a conversation she’d had with her therapist on the matter.
“We’re not meant to be consuming this much negativity on such a constant basis. It is absolutely normal and expected for us all to be combating mental health difficulties because of it,” her therapist had shared with her.
My friend’s therapist was very wise in the way she consoled her client. It is harmful to talk about mental health issues as being something that is solely unique and individual, rather than an issue that affects a good portion of the collective. By actively working to normalize the conversation around anxiety, depression, and other mental health issues, we are also normalizing the resources that can be utilized to combat them.
Over the last three years, we have seen the conversation around mental health issues and resources expand in new ways. In early 2020, the onset of the coronavirus pandemic has prompted mass mandates for quarantining and social distancing to reduce the transmission of the coronavirus, thus protecting the physical health of the population. Of course this makes sense, as the coronavirus attacks the physical body of those it infects. However, the early mandates highlighted our society’s typical nature to prioritize maintaining one’s physical health over one’s mental health. We tend to treat physical and mental health as entirely separate entities, rather than two parts of a whole that need to remain in balance. If we are going to be discussing a plethora of ways to maintain our physical health, during this pandemic and beyond, we need to be actively discussing and equally prioritizing our mental health as well. Fortunately, as the pandemic progressed, so did the conversation around mental health, as well as the resources available to maintain it.
Therapy has always been a key resource in the maintenance of mental health; over the past several decades, it has gained acceptance as a topic of open conversation, as well. With the current state of the world, anxiety and depression have become much more prevalent amongst young and middle-aged people; issues that severely increased during the pandemic, and many people were left alone to combat them. One attempt to mitigate this was by the promotion of a host of accessible, affordable therapy sites, where people meet with a therapist via videoconferencing. Like an in-person office, people would be matched with a therapist skilled to suit their unique issues and needs. BetterHelp, Larkr, and Talkspace are three widely used sites. We also saw a lot more articles and stories in the news about mental health issues and how to mitigate them, with resources being promoted so that people could get the help they need. Additionally, the quarantine led to wider discussion about the necessity to check in with loved ones. A lot of these are positive shifts in normalizing the discussion around mental health.
As we continue moving through the fallout from the pandemic and back towards a more “normal” society, the discussion around prioritizing mental health needs to remain active. There should be accessible, viable resources for everyone struggling, no matter the scale.
