The mental health side of COVID-19: A Q&A with NAMI's Lori Krinsky

Sep. 8--In a world without a global pandemic, monitoring mental illness was a priority for many people, so much so that the public health system was already taxed.

Now, in a world with a global pandemic, as well as widespread social unrest and economic upheaval, that healthcare system has been tested further, with many people experiencing significant mental health issues for the first time.

The National Alliance on Mental Illness--known as NAMI--is at the forefront of this intersection caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The organization has been supporting mental health for decades.

The following is an edited Q&A with Lori Krinsky, president of the NAMI Central Middlesex affiliate, one of over 20 throughout the state that are part of the larger, national advocacy group.

How would you describe this time? How has COVID-19 changed things?

Obviously, this is a really difficult time for us emotionally as a country on a whole bunch of different levels. For many people this is the first time they've experienced any kind of symptoms of anxiety or depression and we have to recognize that that's perfectly natural and normal in a brand new, high stress, never-been-here-before environment.

And [there is] the roller coaster ride for parents and students with all the decisions they have to make about remote learning, about who they can go hang out with or not hang out with, can you touch grandma...its overwhelming. We have to leave space for us to say, 'that's OK.'

Some of those folks are seeking professional help and it's good but what they're bumping into is a system that was already overloaded before we started.

For folks who had pre-diagnosed mental health conditions, they're in a situation where the new isolation and the new stress is potentially escalating what they've been feeling for a very long time. And they're having difficulty accessing services that they went to previously because those facilities are closed or the group is not meeting anymore, or their therapist is getting 18 more calls a day to get appointments. So it's been extra hard for those people who already have a difficult time.

Is there any positive takeaway?

One little bright spot in all this is that the insurance companies have been told that they must offer reimbursement for telehealth appointments during this time frame for physical health and behavioral health.

That's something that mental health providers have been pushing for a very long time and now we've had a super quick learning curve and it's helping many people.

What differentiates COVID-19 from other situations or isolated national crises like 9/11?

Sept. 11 and this [virus] you can look at as a trauma situation: you didn't expect it and it came quickly. In many ways, 9/11 was one horrifying day but this [pandemic] is a series of uncertainties, potential unemployment for people, economic worries...we're going to hit up against housing concerns when they raise the eviction constrictions...a lot of people are going through an extremely difficult time.

We need to create an environment where we normalize discussing mental health concerns so that people who have a problem can raise their hand for help without feeling stigmatized.

This is a good time to practice that.

What are your thoughts on the recent calls to change who responds to public mental health crises?

First responders and the police department are our front line for a lot of mental health crises and scenarios. You call 9-1-1 if you're very scared or if there's something serious going on and the police are the first ones in the room. We do have some options over the state to call besides the police but they're very limited, they're underfunded and they can't take up the slack.

The folks who aren't getting their regular therapies and are stuck at home and are frightened and paranoid and whatever else--there's an uptick in those kind of calls to the police department. Potentially one big picture option, along with redefining roles for the police, is to ease their burden of being first responders for all sorts of mental health substance abuse calls and try to orient that [work] towards social workers and other employees. In certain instances of course the police have to be there, but in some other incidents that could be better served by other personnel.

Has anything surprised you about this time?

I think it's been an unfortunate realization of our limited system. That doesn't surprise me but it saddens me because the people with diagnoses prior to this, many of them were barely hanging on with the programs that we have available.

We [the healthcare system at large] should be able to absorb an incident where a lot more people are having new symptoms but we're having a difficult time doing that because the structure that was there wasn't strong enough.

___

(c)2020 Wicked Local Metro, Needham, Mass.

Visit Wicked Local Metro, Needham, Mass. at needham.wickedlocal.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.