COVID-19 – Growing number of people suffer from anxiety, depression, and suicidal thoughts who’ve never faced mental health issues before.
We’ve talked about it before, but the numbers are growing. Quarantine, masks and gloves, working from home, kids schooling at home, social distancing, Zoom meetings. It’s not just the change in routine, it’s the feeling of isolation, of needing a break. Sometimes you just want to go out to eat on Friday night…right? But with businesses closed, you can’t. Cabin fever with tired parents, kids bouncing off the walls… where do you go to get refreshed? With COVID hassles annoying, ketamine can help you break through and enjoy your life again.
You wanna hang out with the girls, paint a picture, drink wine, and chat till the cows come home. But you can’t.
Or go to the gym every morning and work out your frustrations, break a sweat… and go home loose and ready for the day. But the gyms aren’t open.
2020 has been a tough year. A year you won’t likely forget.
Of course, if you’ve gotten sick with this coronavirus, that’s its own battle. But for those who have dutifully worn their masks, stayed home and attended Zoom meetings all day without being infected, there is still a risk caused by the stress of confinement and isolation.
And it’s serious enough that far too many people have succumbed and faced psychiatric disorders for the first time in their lives.
A poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that 45% of those who responded to the poll in April 2020 stated their mental health had suffered during COVID. That was 10% more than the previous month.
Social isolation in adolescents increases fear and worry, which create their own type of stress, wearing down coping skills. Too often, those worry cycles plunge to suicidal thoughts, and the desire to escape the misery.
Seniors are also at increased risk. Those who are shut-ins rely on loved ones for the stimulation, interaction, and camaraderie to keep their outlook bright. Without those regular visits, hopelessness can quickly wear down their purpose and resilience.
Common Sense Says Isolation Takes a Toll
This is not to BLAME the pandemic, but to recognize that people all around us need a lift these days. Every bit of interaction is restorative for the speaker and for the listener… or both.
It’s one thing to show compassion to those who have suffered from mental health disorders all their lives, because it’s certainly true that each of you need extra support through these times.
But, isn’t it alarming to realize so many people have been so negatively impacted by the pandemic, with all its inconveniences and isolation, that they’ve used up their coping ability and have also succumbed to depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts?
So let’s look at this more closely.
True, this pandemic has caused annoying inconveniences, some more difficult to bear than others. But we can’t go back in time, can we? We can’t undo the release of this virus, its spread around the world, the cost to families, the economy, and our general well-being.
COVID Hassles Annoying – Ketamine Can Restore Resilience
At the same time, we don’t have to break under its influence, right?
In times like these, mastering the art of bending, adapting to circumstances, can keep you feeling like you actually ARE in control.
That means if you’re accustomed to traveling on a whim, and you’re not so free to do that right now, you can shudder and fume at the frustration; or you can set travel aside for a better time and choose something new and accessible for your stimulation and reward now.
An IT guy built his own igloo shaped pizza oven in his backyard. Never laid a brick in his life. But he invented a new interest and poured himself into it. And in so doing, kept anxiety and depression at bay.
It was a whole new adventure for him… that began with a new and surprising thought.
A school bus driver had no students to drive on her bus since students were learning online from home. So she dove into art development tutorials, and mastered skills in drawing beautiful, life-like animals.
Pandemic? What pandemic?? She was having too much fun to notice.
Adapting means changing course to accommodate changing circumstances.
That’s not to say these responses are always successful. But they are, more often that not.
On the other hand, warding off symptoms of anxiety and depression by inventing new stimulating interests, honing new skills, or finding new forms of entertainment, are sometimes not enough.
There are those who know these principles, but in this atmosphere found symptoms of anxiety, depression, and despair creeped over them in spite of their efforts to escape.
Sometimes that happens.
Sometimes listlessness takes over, with severely reduced energy, a bleak outlook, hopelessness, and a lost sense of your own worth.
Which can make way for thoughts of dying. Thoughts that there’s nowhere to go from here. Thoughts that you’ve spent all you have to give, you’re depleted, and your life is finished.
And those thoughts can become dangerous for you.
If you find that the thoughts of death, dying, and despair are prevalent for you, there is help.
COVID hassles annoying – ketamine treatment can erase suicidal thoughts
As much as we talk about ketamine treatment demonstrating extraordinary responses in those who are depressed, or suffer from PTSD, or substance abuse, or even anorexia nervosa, it’s also remarkable in its prowess for erasing suicidal thoughts.
The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline 1-800-273-TALK (8255)
Suicidal thoughts can be plaguing you to desperation, then an infusion of ketamine can make those thoughts disappear in a few hours.
Life saving.
Astounding.
It’s so dramatic that I published a retrospective chart review of my own patients in my large practice.
This treatment can erase those thoughts without hospitalization or emergency department visits, and give you the freedom to safely get better and enjoy life again.
At Innovative Psychiatry, we treat patients with ketamine treatment for depression, social anxiety, PTSD, alcohol use disorder, and substance use disorder. And we also treat suicidal thoughts for their own sake.
If keeping yourself diverted, seeking new stimulation and developing new interests to get through these times with healthy hope stops working… if you feel yourself sinking into a sense of loss, confusion, despair, call us.
We can help you find joy again. Invigoration instead of despondency.
And if you feel like you don’t want to live, please call us.
With ketamine treatment, you can be free of those thoughts and feelings, and find them replaced with hope and rewards in life.
To the restoration of your best self,
