…people are tired of being tired. Sick of being sick. . angered at being angry.
We are fuming with emotions, we have it building up inside like a powder keg..
We are worried about school returning. Parental fears and how to teach kids while working is a huge question.. Facebook gives us daily fresh arguments about whether the virus is real or fake. Plandemic? Pandemic? Masks.. anti-maskers.. All of that can be found on a news feed near you.
But the state of mind that America– and the world — is slipping into as 2020 continues seems dangerous.
A number of memes have repeatedly tried to make us laugh about the state of affairs during the first year of these new roaring 20s. But instead we are being plagued with a real plague and real videos and accounts of people acting weird all over America. People losing it. Fights in parking lots.. riots on street corners.
Drinking.
Paranoia..
Suicides skyrocketing.
Opioid use rising..
We can all feel this happening but now science and stats back it up.
A new study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention made public on Thursday surveyed 5,412 Americans. It found that “40.9% of respondents reported at least one adverse mental or behavioral health condition.”
That is not a small number!
According to the new study, 31 percent of respondents were suffering from symptoms of anxiety or depression; 26 percent experienced symptoms of traumatic disorder; 13 percent were using drugs or alcohol more heavily, or for the first time, to cope with the pandemic; and 11 percent had seriously contemplated suicide..
“Younger adults, racial/ethnic minorities, essential workers, and unpaid adult caregivers reported having experienced disproportionately worse” mental health outcomes than other groups, the study concluded.
People are losing friends and family .. not to Covid. But to the lonely feeling of depression..
Anxiety symptoms tripled in incidence compared with the same period in 2019; the incidence of depression symptoms quadrupled. The rate of serious suicidal thoughts doubled in comparison to levels recorded in 2018.
Yes, there are fun commercials that talk about how great and whimsical it is to work in your pajamas or go to work meetings on Zoom without shoes.. but we are losing something else more substantial, doesn’t it seem?
More than 90 percent said they were not being treated for anxiety, depression or post-traumatic stress disorder before the pandemic struck, meaning that their symptoms arrived with the coronavirus and its attendant social disruptions.
My own personal account with a physician concludes this to be true: My family doctor has been overwhelmed with mostly healthy patients asking for antidepressants and medication to help cope with the newfound pandemic depression.
THE KIDS AREN’T ALRIGHT
There has been a long thought belief since March that kids were safe from Covid. That was a stretch of a belief for many.. this autumn will test that theory. We are about to advance into one of the strangest and most potentially dangerous experiments since 1918: Schools returning during a global pandemic.
Two news stories that bring caution to the air of the fall school season:
REUTERS has a report about Arizona stating this:
An Arizona school district that ignored state safety guidelines and voted to begin in-person learning on Aug. 17 has had to cancel classes after staff said it was unsafe to return and called in sick. Greater Phoenix’s J.O. Combs Unified School District cancelled all instruction for Monday due to “insufficient staffing,” days after its board disregarded state benchmarks on when students can safely return to classes during the pandemic. The “sick out” underlined the difficulties in returning to in-person learning in the United States after schools in Tennessee, Georgia, and Alabama closed this week as students and staff were infected with COVID-19 or forced to self-isolate from exposure.
And this strange activity from Georgia:
Remember that photo of kids randomly pushing each other without masks? And school then closed? And cases then popped up?
A result now known, the Cherokee County School District reported 80 confirmed cases of Covid-19 and 1,106 students and staff quarantined as a result of those cases, for the week.
That number is almost triple the number of students and staff that were confirmed Covid-19 positive the prior week and double the number in quarantine.
In the first two weeks of school, the district has reported a total of 108 confirmed cases of Covid-19 among students and staff. Last week, 28 positive cases of Covid-19 were reported and 563 were in quarantine.
This is going to be a long, dark autumn.
IF WE MAKE IT THROUGH OCTOBER WE’LL BE FINE?
Maybe not.
But October seems to be the next date we are being warned about.,
Bill Gates predicts: BIG NUMBERS by October..
And the New York TIMES is among those asking loudly: Should we cancel Halloween?
And experts have opined as early as May: October 2020 will not look like October 2019.
Social isolation and distancing are taking hold.. anxiety of the spring turned to hope in the summer. But sadly these summer days are getting shorter.. the darkness is creeping in.
A lot of people are beginning to let reality sink in deep..
We need to support our friends, and our families.. we need to help those who are suffering.
And yes, YOU may be among them.. You may be hopeless like so many others.
National Suicide Prevention LifelineHours: Available 24 hours. Languages: English, Spanish.1-800-273-8255
Or just email me. I will try to help too.