ADAA Mental Health Blogs for the Public

Steve has served as a police officer for 24 years, including being a SWAT team member for years. He and I have worked together on his traumatic experiences. He has told me that in a given day a police officer might have to deal with two to three overdoses and do CPR.

I was recently interviewed for an article on how the behaviors people use to avoid getting Covid 19 might make OCD worse or cause OCD to develop. After my interview the reporter notified me that the story was “killed” by the editor of the publication because he wanted to publish a story that suggested living through the pandemic would result in an increase in OCD or the development of OCD.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

A muffled crack of thunder, followed by a flash of light that lit up the bedroom wall. Then another, louder CRACK! I had been lying in bed awake since 1AM, for three hours, my husband next to me, deep asleep. But now the wind was pushing violently against our windows, and I woke him up. I did not want to be experiencing this alone. We pulled the slider open and stepped out onto our bedroom deck, surveying western Sonoma County. Every thirty seconds another jagged bolt of lightning flashed somewhere on the horizon. In forty years of living in California we’d ever seen anything like this.

If you engage in some positive distracting activities during this crisis, then the flow of the day will move like a steady stream rather than a slow drip.

Time might seem to go by slowly and you only measure your day by the time between newscasts.

Do not just stay glued to the tv related to the pandemic.

Look up a new recipe and try to cook it. Get creative with what you have in the pantry.

Let’s first acknowledge that going back-to-school is harder this year. As you write lesson plans, you’re trying to figure out how to execute them online. As you set up your classroom, you’re dodging the new partitions that have been installed. As you meet with your staff about the upcoming year, you struggle to regain a connection with them over Zoom or WebEx. You’re sitting through professional development that’s more about proper hygiene and about using personal protective equipment than curriculum development and teaching strategies.