COVID Trauma, Mental Distress and PTSD

“These high rates of mental stress and trauma will continue long after efforts to control the pandemic have succeeded. We know this from research on the victims of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Five months after Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast, researchers found that 17 percent of New Orleans residents reported serious mental health problems afterward, compared to 1 percent to 3 percent of the American population. Around half of those living in New Orleans reported some type of anxiety, but the most common illness was PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder), which normally has a prevalence of around 6 percent. A year after Katrina, researchers found that the number of survivors with PTSD had jumped from 15 percent to 21 percent.” Will COVID-19 leave us with a long-term mental health crisis? Daniel R. Weinberger https://thehill.com/opinion/healthcare/547754-will-covid-19-leave-us-with-a-long-term-mental-health-crisis
Society is opening up again, people are happy to be out of the house, not wearing face diapers and experiencing a semblance of “normalcy,” but are things really back to normal? The COVID crisis of 2020-2021 has left major scars and an indelible impact on the psyches of people of the world. We have been inundated with non-stop fear porn, gloom and doom prognostications, and images of debilitation death, and dying by the corporate and digital media. This has had a devastating impact on the mental health and well-being of millions. You cannot mindlessly subject yourself to that kind of distressing news and not be traumatized.
Public health officials, physicians, and researchers are now documenting a steady rise in mental health issues during the COVID crisis. “Mental distress in the general population is rising. In early March, hotspot states like California, Washington, New York, and Massachusetts saw that mental distress significantly increased even after adjusting for factors like age and income. This was a critical time frame to start to understand mental health in the population: a national emergency had just been declared, schools were closing, and workplaces were shutting down. Other states had a smaller increase in distress at that time. However, these geographic differences in mental distress may become less pronounced as the pandemic continues. Mental distress is higher in younger individuals than in older populations. Because of medical complications related to COVID-19 among older individuals, researchers expected to see the opposite. Continued data collection is needed to see how age is related to changes in mental health symptoms due to the pandemic. The initial survey results also showed that individuals with more frequent use of traditional media (newspapers, TV, radio) and social media had higher levels of mental distress. The findings suggest spending more time engaged with the media may contribute to distress during the pandemic.” Measuring Mental Distress During a Pandemic April 2020 https://www.jhsph.edu/covid-19/articles/measuring-mental-distress-amid-a-pandemic.html
Notice how this report from the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health states those who consumed more media experienced higher levels of mental distress that spending more time engrossed in the media may contribute to distress during the pandemic. This is critical information; we must connect the dots on this. I have been saying, and I continue to warn against excessive media consumption because the media narratives are one-sided, all doom and gloom, death dying, and vaccines are the only remedy. We get this over and over twenty for seven three sixty-five. Never do we hear COVID has a 98% recovery rate! Alternative therapies are debunked, discouraged, and suppressed.
My concern is the long-term impact of distress, trauma, and psychological disequilibrium caused by the media’s fear-mongering and propaganda. Most of us didn’t get COVID, and if we did, most recovered quickly without incident. Nevertheless, we are seeing people who weren’t infected suffering from trauma. “Anxiety has soared during COVID-19, alongside a host of other mental health and stress-related challenges. About 40% of American adults reported symptoms of anxiety or depressive disorders during the pandemic, compared with 11% in 2019, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. That could persist because uncertainty and COVID-19 risks remain. The emergence of new COVID-19 variants, the looming possibility of another surge, and questions about what’s safe to do once you’re vaccinated—as well as varying timelines for vaccination and comfort levels—all complicate matters. The fear of social reentry adds another layer.” Coping With Trauma in the Wake of COVID -19 Victoria Pulham https://www.cedars-sinai.org/blog/coping-covid19-trauma.html
This trauma maybe even worse in those who did contract the infection. “In the case of COVID-19, long-term psychiatric effects analogous to Katrina can be expected given the psychological challenges of unemployment, economic distress, family struggles, and fear of severe illness. But, in contrast to Katrina and other natural disasters, the long-term effects of COVID-19 may involve direct harm that researchers suspect the virus is causing to our brains. A recent study by Oxford researchers in Lancet Psychiatry examined 70 million U.S. health records and found that almost one in five Americans who have had COVID-19 were later diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder such as anxiety, depression or insomnia, and even psychosis.” Will COVID-19 leave us with a long-term mental health crisis? Daniel R. Weinberger https://thehill.com/opinion/healthcare/547754-will-covid-19-leave-us-with-a-long-term-mental-health-crisis
As things open up and we begin interacting with family, friends, and co-workers we may notice signs of distress and trauma. This is something we must be aware of and be prepared to support our loved ones if and when we see it occurring.