The Centers for Disease Control warns everyone the mental effects of COVID-19 could be far-reaching and long-lasting, Dr. Randy Barnett urges everyone to be aware of the how the pandemic has negatively impacted them.
He said the pandemic has rapidly affected everyone’s day-to-day life. While the economic impact is widespread, the social and emotional impact should not be discounted. Barnett said there is a lot of research linking social isolation to mental health issues. The mental health burden will increase as people continue to take measures to slow the virus.
“One of the most important steps to recovering from the negative impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic is to become self-aware of how this virus has impacted each of us individually,” Barnett, chair of SWOSU’s Psychology Department and associate dean for the School of Behavioral Sciences and Education, said. “Some of us may have been impacted economically, while other may have experienced very little economic change, but were impacted socially by losing their everyday connections to friends and coworkers.”
Barnett said once someone has recognized their needs, they can begin seeking out resources to help with those needs.
“Weatherford has an outstanding array of community resources ranging from banker who will help us with economic paperwork needed for financial relief, to the Weatherford Food & Resource Center and the many mental health service providers within the area,” Barnett said.
He said those resources were established to be utilized if area residents ever needed them, so it is important to use them. Barnett said the local resources are one of the reasons Weatherford is such a great community.
Barnett also said Western Oklahoma has many outstanding mental health services which are aware of the increased need for those services. Red Rock Behavior Health Services, one of the state’s largest providers, has a new, state-of-the-art facility in Weatherford which now is open and operating.
While everyone works to retrain themselves to follow new behavioral guidelines, Barnett said thinking of it as helping life get as close to normal as possible while decreasing the spread.
“As more residents of a community begin to align with a shared set of ideas, it makes us all more and more committed to these new behaviors,” he said.
For example, Barnett said if everyone can agree to wear face masks or shields when social distancing is not possible, the more likely everyone can enjoy college football again. So by using these behaviors to get back to normal, an incentive is built in to those actions.
If someone is facing a mental health crisis, contact the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s National Helpline at (800) 662-4357 for treatment referral or information on local services. For the Red Rock Crisis unit, call (580) 374-1039.