25 May Mental Health Issues Are Real
I believe every one of us is dealing with some form of mental health related issue as a result of the pandemic. You may not recognize it, but it is hard to avoid the strain we have all had to deal with in the past 15 months.
For some it has been the stress from the loss of income, others the stress of working hard to keep their business open. Not to mention the stress of having COVID-19. Of course, the ultimate is dealing with the loss of a friend or loved one. I know, because I have dealt with all four myself. My wife’s business shut down for several months. I was fighting along with my team to adapt to a new world and still bring in revenue for our company. I lost friends and a family member to the pandemic, and I tested positive for the virus in December. Any way you look at it, COVID-19 has affected all of us. Perhaps you didn’t get the virus, but you sure felt it.
That is why I think it is important to recognize that mental health is an important issue. May is Mental Health Awareness month, so I asked Christi Weaver to be my guest on a recent episode of the Create, Build and Manage Podcast. Christi is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker who currently serves as the Director of Recovery Services at Recovery Resource Council in Texas.
Weaver says her organization has seen a rise in mental health related cases. “A year ago, we were told not to come back to the office. We had to figure out how to do everything virtually, either with video conferencing or telephone. We expected that we would have fewer clients and that wasn’t the case, we had more.”
Recovery Resource Council deals primarily with substance use and substance misuse. “People tend to use that as a coping mechanism for mental health and trauma,” says Christi. “The pandemic plays a big part in that the isolation that people feel, (and) the mental health of the people serving them.”
There is a line between needing a mental vacation and needing to seek professional help.
There is a line between needing a mental vacation and needing to seek professional help. “What we look for is your activities of daily living. We look at, ‘are you still taking a shower, are you still brushing your hair, brushing your teeth, putting on clothes, feeling like a human,” says Weaver. “If all of those things are yes, you’re still okay. But we also want to look at hopelessness. If you’re starting to feel like this pandemic is never going away, that you’re never going back to work, never going to see your coworkers again. If you start to feel like things are not going to get better, that’s kind of the beginning of that downslope.”
And Christi says that is when you need to seek professional help. It is okay to not be okay, but it’s not okay to stay that way. You can reach out to Recovery Council for some resources online at www.recoverycouncil.org.
You can listen to the entire podcast at https://biztalkradio.com/create-build-manage/.
Scott Miller is the CEO of Centerpost Media and host of the Create, Build and Manage Radio Show and Podcast. You can find Scott on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter via “@scottmillerceo.” Centerpost Media is a marketing agency with a vision to help every business they encounter with their media needs by providing outstanding quality, service and value. Centerpost Media is the parent company to BizTV, BizTalkRadio, BizTalkPodcasts and Bizvod.