GUELPH – Since the COVID-19 pandemic put most of the country into lockdown, almost all Canadians are now experiencing some sort of mental health issue, according to Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA) officials.
“The one in five (Canadians) that we used to have that are still being supported by agencies like CMHA, they’re really struggling,” said CMHA Waterloo Wellington executive director Helen Fishburn.
“They were struggling before, they’re really struggling now with all the restrictions related to the pandemic.
“But on top of that the four out of five Canadians that weren’t struggling before are now struggling.”
She said the agency is seeing people who never had any previous contact with the mental health and addiction system.
“They were just coping with life and kind of managing good days, bad days, you know just kind of regular life and now the baseline for mental health has dramatically changed because of this pandemic in terms of people’s anxiety, people’s worry,” Fishburn said.
“I would say, too, when you look at our health care workforce and our first responders and there are lots of layers of trauma in this as well.
“So the landscape … just the whole face of mental health has dramatically changed because of this situation.”
HELEN FISHBURN
While people are becoming less worried about catching the virus and becoming physically ill because they have more information, they’re feeling what she calls “pandemic fatigue.”
She described it as, “The impact for all of us, every single one of us to be at home, to be physically distant from the people that we love.”
While starting to open up the economy will give people hope and maybe allow them to return to some sort of normalcy, Fishburn said it could also lead to increased worry as people start to leave their homes and re-enter the public realm.
“I think awareness around your own mental health is critical. Pay attention to how you’re thinking and how you’re feeling,” Fishburn said. “Pay attention to your thoughts, to your feelings and what you might need.”
During this time she said it’s also important to look around and make sure close friends and family are doing okay too.
That’s the theme of CMHA’s annual Mental Health Week (May 4 to 10): social connection.
“So some of the key messages are it’s common in our society to ask people how they are, unfortunately it’s also common not to give a truthful answer around that,” Fishburn said.
“Everybody always says ‘fine’ … so we want people to really truthfully answer how they are and be aware of that especially right now during the pandemic. Connecting with other people in our communities doesn’t just feel good, it’s good for our mental health and as we face the COVID-19 global pandemic, we need each other now more than ever.”
Fishburn said some CMHA staff have been redeployed back to Here24/7 to help “because it’s really, really important to us that we keep our call answer rate very high for that program. When people call in they need an answer and they need an answer quickly.”
CMHA Waterloo Wellington has also put together a new website with online resources to help people through the pandemic.
On here4help.ca people can find targeted information for specific groups: children and youth and their parents/guardians, adults, seniors and caregivers, employees and employers, and healthcare workers.
The website contains new resources developed specifically for COVID-19 as well as previously developed information that as been organized in such a way that it’s easy to access.
There are also resources to help with anxiety people may be feeling as they re-enter their world.
“There’s some really, really amazing programs to help you with that and to help all of us with that because a lot of anxiety is our thoughts, it starts as our thoughts and it’s fear, we’re going to catch this virus,” Fishburn said.
“So how we change our thinking will impact the way we feel and the way we behave.
“So there are some really amazing tools, techniques to help us do that and actually to really easily do that, but it requires a level of conscious awareness and conscious change.”
As restrictions are lifted, it’s important to monitor feelings and thoughts and seek help when needed.
Fishburn said groups CMHA officials are most concerned about are people who are experiencing the most acute mental health concerns. That includes people who were already at really high risk.
“So they’re really, really not coping well,” Fishburn said. “They’re really, really struggling.’
“Many of those folks had mental health concerns prior to the pandemic, but they’ve really just intensified given the current climate.”’
Another group is healthcare workers.
“We want to make sure that they’re getting the support that they need to be able to keep going,” Fishburn said. She also indicated that once the first wave of COVID-19 has subsided and restrictions are eased, she anticipates more referrals to the Here 4 Healthcare program.
“Right now they’re still battling a forest fire,” she said. “So we have to make sure that they know about our service and that they know we’re here whenever they can call us, whenever they can reach out for us, we’re here for them.”
The other group officials keeping an eye on is those who are struggling but can’t be reached by CMHA.
“Actually 50 per cent of Canadians identified that their mental health has really been challenged with this pandemic,” Fishburn said.
“We know all that is happening, we have data and evidence to show that, but what we don’t have right now is the ability to get into those families where we know that there are troubles.
“So that’s a worry that we have.”
Fishburn also offered advice for children.
She said it’s important for parents to empower their children and help them stay community minded.
Some strategies for empowering children include: helping them figure out how to stay well and healthy, teaching them about the virus and how to protect themselves and their family, teaching them how to wash their hands, and doing video calls with grandparents.
“There’s so many things that are within your control that you can help your kids manage just within themselves,” Fishburn said.
Some ways to keep kids community-minded include writing signs in the window, writing letters to seniors in long-term care homes, putting signs up in the window for health care workers and sending a video to someone that is living alone.
“Making sure that our kids know that part of what we need to do at a time like this is help our community cope and manage and make sure our kids know all of the amazing work that is happening in our community,” Fishburn said.
Visit mentalhealthweek.ca for info about Mental Health Week and visit here4help.ca for pandemic support resources.
