Mental health epidemic coming

[Songbird89]

I work for a mental health charity and it’s horrendous at the moment.
We support people now online and on the phone. We have people calling us begging to see someone in person and we have to refuse.
We have service users calling as soon as we open on a Monday morning and you just know that you’re the first person they’ve spoken to all weekend and they’ve been waiting by the phone.

So many calls about being suicidal. Feeling the lowest they’ve ever felt. Nothing to live for.
Also calls about not wanting to leave the house through fear and stepping outside the door sends them into a panic attack. It’s heartbreaking.
One service user said she’s been alone in her house since March, due to shielding and hasn’t stepped foot outside of her house & garden since then. She is really starting to struggle.

These are unprecedented times (to coin a phrase often used by the government) let’s try and help each other through. I know I’m really feeling it now too.

It isn’t coming. It is here.

And it won’t be going away for quite some time sadly.

There is already a mental health epidemic. It’s not coming, it’s here. Thank you so much for what you do, it’s a hard job for you but it will help so many. I don’t buy into not being able to see them in person 2m distanced on a doorstep or on a walk though.

I really feel very low. My family are abroad, I don't know when I can see them again and its just me and DH. His mum lives near us but we can't see her. We both wfh, DH is stressed from his job and I experience his stress constantly as he works in the next room and I can hear him even with the door of my home office closed..

We had a walk in Hampstead heath (which is local to us) today, I was really hungry and got some takeaway chips to eat. DH was insanely worried we would get fined and looked out as I wolfed it down (please don't flame me for spreading covid, I was really far from everyone). This isn't any way to live.

i have a lovely little hamster for some companionship and I rely on it so much. Dh doesn't understand it and we just had an argument about it.

Yup it's already awful. Online is no respite, you can't even discuss things with people at all. Anything slightly dissenting from the BBC line you are accused of being a right wing trump loving covidiot.

It is very frightening. People need to be given advice to exercise, eat healthily and talk about their worries. They also need to be reminded that it will get better and to get off social media.

You find your joy where you can only

I find my happiness walking a family member’s dog.

We love what we love and we rely on what we need to see eachother through. A love and bond between a pet and a person can help through the worst of times.

Even YouTube has profiled me ffs, I watched one video and forever more I'm reccomended videos from the sun haha. Fucking idiotic algorithm.

How can we help people through @Songbird89?