The Other Side of Corona Virus

There is one thing I’ve very thankful for during this pandemic. To date I don’t know anyone personally be it friend or family who has contracted the Corona virus. Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean it hasn’t had a major affect on my life.

On March 27th, my world was rocked when I was laid off by employer due to the virus. Six months prior I had moved to Oklahoma away from all my friends and now I was in Oklahoma and I was unemployed. I was unemployed and forced to isolate away from everyone due to the Stay at Home order. My immediate feelings after being laid off was fear. Fear of what I was going to do. Fear of how long I’d be able to pay my bills. Fear how long I’d be able to keep a roof over my head. Fear of when I’d have the opportunity of going back to work. Fear of how much I’d be in debt when I did.

After a little bit of time I settled down and started to plot out what I needed to do in the short term to keep my head above water during this time. The first step was filing for unemployment. At that moment maybe the only bright spot about my situation was that unemployment was paying more at this time than it ever had before. I was also quickly reminded that I had a network of family and friends that were there for me and would help me through this if I needed them too. That doesn’t mean my situation isn’t stressful and I don’t have worries, but it does give me comfort that eventually I will get through this and get back on track with my life. Some people may not have that comfort.

Every day I read stories online or hear stories on the news about the health risks of the corona virus. I hear numbers of how many new cases there are. I hear numbers of how many cases they expect. What I don’t read or hear much about is the mental effects this pandemic is likely having on many people. As of last week, there are 30 million people who are currently unemployed in the United States. That is roughly 1/10 of the population. There are others who may not technically be unemployed but may have the stress of borrowing money and worrying about whether they’ll be able to keep their businesses afloat during this time.  That’s millions of people who are living with the daily stress of wondering how they are going to pay their bills. Millions worrying about how they are going to feed their selves, or many cases feed their families. The daily stress of that can-do unthinkable damage to a person’s mental state.

According to the National Association of Mental Illness 1 in 5 American’s experience mental illness each year. 1 In 25 American’s experience serious mental illness each year. If that’s the case that means roughly 6 million of the 30 million who are currently unemployed experience mental illness. Over 1 million of those suffer from serious mental illness.  Of that 6 million how many are struggling right now with everything going on to fight their mental illness problems? Of that 1 million who may be suffering through serious mental illness issues how many of them are struggling right now? How many of those may be thinking about hurting themselves to get rid of the pain and stress they feel due to this situation?

I haven’t been able to receive any unemployment benefits to date. I filed 36 days ago. I have been waiting for 16 days for what the state of Oklahoma calls a Level 2 Agent to call me back to help me. There is an issue with my claim, and you can only deal with that by talking to an agent. I have called in numerous times and the same thing happens. My information is taken, and I’m told someone will call me back and they never do. I was lucky, I was given a small severance and that combined with the stimulus check that was sent out I’m ok for now. My question is how many others aren’t?  How many others are stressing daily about keeping a roof over their head? How many others are stressing daily about what they are going to do for food for themselves and in a lot of cases their children? How many of that struggle with the mental health issues I just spoke about?

I understand the fact that 30 million people have filed for unemployment and that the government is overwhelmed dealing with it. I have a hard time believing they are doing their best to help the Americans that truly need it. On one of the occasions I called in I was told they are currently hiring as many as 200 people a day to handle the call volume. If that’s the case I have a hard time believing it should take them two weeks or more to call people back. In recent days I’ve taken to social media and reaching out to the OESC and Governor Stitt in Oklahoma to try to get help with this problem. To date my situation hasn’t changed.

One thing that did happen was a reporter from Bloomberg News contacted me to take part in a story they were doing. I was taken back by it at first. I mean who am I? I agreed and had an interview regarding my situation how the affects being laid off has had on me personally. During the interview I tried to stress multiple times that I was fully aware that many people were in a much worse situation than I was. For the last couple of days since we talked, I’ve really started thinking about how this situation could affect people from a mental health standpoint. Today I called him back and asked if we could continue our conversation and if he could possibly include this subject in the article.

I want anyone to know that reads that I know the Government is working hard to get us past this situation. As we start to re-open the country, I do think they need to focus on the unemployment situation and work on the process to help more of us who are in need as we try to seek employment. Jobs will open, but they are going to open slowly. Hopefully, we won’t have to go back into lockdown and the job market will continue an upward trend even if it’s a slow go. People are going to need help. They are going to need help keeping their homes. They are going to need help feeding their families. If they can’t get the help, they need they may eventually feel like they have nowhere to turn. The pressure may get to much and their mental health may start to deteriorate rapidly and eventually cause them to make an awfully bad decision. Knowing that they can at least get buy and take care of their families even will make a drastic difference in their mental state and help them stay in a positive place mentally.

I want people reading this to know that I am not trying to downgrade or act like the health risks of the Corona Virus pandemic aren’t serious. I have read stories about people having Mental Health problems because of that also. They are serious. They shouldn’t be ignored. This shouldn’t be ignored either. The financial ramifications of this situation are just as serious. They need to be talked about more. They need to take seriously. If they aren’t Corona Virus may not only be a direct cause of deaths of Americans it may be an in-direct cause of deaths as well. People who can’t take the pain and the stress of everything they must deal with.