Staying Aware of Our Mental Health During This Pandemic

By Kristin Tugman, PhD, CRC, LPC

VP Health and Productivity Analytics and Consulting Practice
Prudential

On March 11, I was standing in our upstairs hallway talking to my daughter, Kate, about what to pack for our trip to New York City for the high school championship New Balance National Indoor track meet. We were leaving in the morning and I just kept wishing I could press fast forward so that we could get in the car and on our way before the officials changed their minds and canceled the meet. After all it’s my daughter’s senior year and that would be unthinkable.

Just as we said the words, “I am so glad they haven’t canceled,” an alert came across my phone. The NBA had canceled its season due to the coronavirus. We quickly checked our event’s website; still on, and we both breathed a sigh of relief. I said, “no way they’ll cancel now, it’s too late. I am sure there are athletes already there.” We nodded in agreement and our family went to bed that night with the expectation that we’d get up and head to NYC in the morning.

I woke up at 1:30 am, and for some reason, I decided to check my phone. There it was. The headline I dreaded. “New Balance Nationals Cancels Meet.”

I did not sleep the rest of the night. All I could think about was how to tell Kate when she woke up. Besides, what did this really mean? How bad is this? What would become of her senior year? Were the rumors true; were they really thinking of canceling spring sports? How could this be happening? We spent the next four days in somewhat of a fog just trying to support each other and re-group.

I woke up that Monday morning to hear that my company was asking me to put together a mental health strategy that we can use both for our own employees and the employers we work with to address the coronavirus. As I read the request, I snapped out of my fog and realized that our mental health crisis was at risk of getting significantly worse not only in our country but in our own schools and communities, and we had to get ahead of it.

The National Institute of Health reports that one in five of us will experience a mental health condition in any given year. The uncertainty attached to this pandemic, the social distancing, and isolation puts us at risk of an increase in the number of us who will experience a mental health condition. We are already seeing a significant increase in anxiety diagnoses in China with 42.6% of those who were in isolation being diagnosed.

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