Women’s mental health took a beating in the pandemic. It’s time to make it a priority | Editorial

The pandemic has been rough on women’s mental health. More women lost their jobs than men. Women already did more of the home chores, more of the child care, more of the eldercare. COVID made the juggling act even harder. For many, the feminist rallying cry that women can “have it all” felt even more distant.

And while many women are emerging from the crisis with a different sense of purpose and a recalculation of what works in their lives, the COVID-19 pandemic has been a chronic stressors for 18 months. There’s a cost to that.

Depression and anxiety are up among women across the nation, compared to pre-pandemic rates, one South Florida expert told the Editorial Board. A study by the Kaiser Family Foundation in April found that 55% of women across all age groups said their mental health had gotten worse in the pandemic, compared to 38% of men. The U.S. National Pandemic Emotional Impact Report, a joint effort by the University of North Carolina and Harvard Medical School, indicated that women also had higher rates than men of pandemic-related changes to sleep and mood.

For the past week, the Miami Herald Editorial Board has explored the ways South Florida women have been hit by the pandemic and what needs to be done to address their needs better. We’ve advocated for changes in the workplace, pay equity and in child care. But mental health care, as those studies show us, deserves just as much attention.

How women have coped

We asked Miami women what they have had to do to weather the emotional storm, one that still hasn’t ended. Some women leaned on friendship. Others sought out new passions or embraced virtual happy hours or awakened to the need for political activism. Many saw new value in embracing their mental health and self-care. There are high-profile public examples of that, too: Gymnast Simone Biles and tennis star Naomi Osaka have made career choices based on their mental health needs.

“I am a different woman now than I was before the pandemic shutdown. Isn’t every woman?” asked Karen Gonzalez, 53, a Miami yoga instructor, singer in her Yoga band, Mantra Grooves, and mother of a teenage daughter.

For Gonzalez rediscovering the pleasure of singing became her new comfort zone, thanks to the urging of a bass player friend who encouraged her to revive an old love and embrace it. If not now, when? she asked herself. She added a new impressive twist — during the pandemic teaching herself to play the guitar with the help of online classes.

For Gonzalez, music has been her rock. “It saved me. Jamming weekly with my band has truly been musical chicken soup for my soul. It made me feel something was normal” said Gonzalez, a native New Yorker of Caribbean descent who is married to a Colombian-born Miami-Dade firefighter. The pandemic, despite all its horrors, helped her “reset” her life.

“The pandemic gave me a chance to stop and get off the rat race, to get out of auto-pilot,” she said. “It reminded me to put on my oxygen mask first.”

John W. Newcomer, president and CEO of the non-profit Thriving Mind South Florida, also known as the South Florida Behavioral Health Network, told the Editorial Board that socioeconomic issues that disproportionately affecting women — like the loss of employment, food insecurity, domestic violence, caregiving an elderly parent and balancing a home office and classroom under one roof — contributed to the need for more mental health assistance during the pandemic.

Zoom calls documented the state of women’s lives as the pandemic wore on, noted Kathryn Coppola, head of the National Alliance of Mental Illness of Miami-Dade.

“Early on in the pandemic, everyone was trying to keep it together during Zoom meetings. Women would be all dressed up,” she said. As the days of isolation dragged on, “women were wearing anything and you could hear kids in the background or see them on camera.”

Tools to survive

There were more pandemic lessons. Gonzalez said her once casual glass of wine slowly crept into a daily habit during the shutdown. “At one point I had to say to myself, this is not benefiting me. All the uncomfortable feelings, I was numbing them out.”

And Gonzalez then turned again, this time toward her female friends, just as many other women in South Florida have done. Her female support group is centered on her virtual yoga classes, book clubs and text clubs.

“In difficult times, women have always relied on each other. That’s nothing new. In the tribal days, mothers would help each other breastfeed their babies, or quilt or cook together. We’re doing it again,” Gonzalez said.

Mental health demand

Coppola said the need for mental health care has risen in the last 18 months, for both women and men. Before the pandemic, the local NAMI office would sponsor two workshops a week for those in need of counseling. Now, there are nine workshops a week with up to 16 to 24 people in each, Coppola said.

“The demand for mental health care has jumped after the pandemic, and women are a part of the demand,” she said.

Fittingly, self-care may be the most life-changing mantra adopted during the pandemic,

Karen Guggenheim, of Coral Gables, sent an email to the Editorial Board listing what she has learned about herself during these months when life was turned upside down: “The importance of hope and growth. I learned that you can grow even as you are going through trauma. I learned that transitions are really hard. Letting go of a habituated way of thinking is challenging. I learned that courage is not living without fear but walking through fear.”

For others, the pandemic has served to point out crushing inequities. Without a doubt, those with the fewest resources have suffered the most.

“COVID has shown the world we live in is a cold, cruel one and if you are a lower-income woman, you do not stand a chance of living out your life in peace,” Ann Mutschler, of Pembroke Pines, wrote to the board.

Memes of moms

Substance abuse also became an issue for some women. During the pandemic, more than men, women sought out relaxation in the traditional glass of wine at night — which sometimes turned into three and four glasses, drug and alcohol experts said.

According to the U.S. National Pandemic Emotional Impact Report, social media offered a snapshot of women who saw alcohol as a “cure” for pandemic-related stress. We’ve all seen those memes of moms drinking as a way to cope.

But women have twice the risk of men for depression and anxiety, and heavy alcohol use exacerbates those feelings and causes insomnia — experienced by many people during the pandemic. Heavy alcohol use by adults contributed to an increase in domestic violence. The pandemic has created a dangerous situation of greater stress and fewer escape routes for women living with abusive partners. Everyone is trapped home.

Have we mentioned stress? Leslie Small, 55, a Fort Lauderdale behavioral health technician and mother, is dealing with crushing, new responsibilities thanks to COVID.

A long-time professional hairstylist, Small had to pivot when salons were shut down at the beginning of the pandemic. She landed a new job at a Broward County drug treatment center.

“I had to reinvent myself,” she said, but she welcomed the change. “I had always wanted to go into a field where I could help people. The pandemic gave me that chance.”

But Small still does hair for some clients on her days off. It’s a full plate with a full-time job, a part-time job, a teenage daughter and a home to maintain along with her wife, Bella, who also has a full-time job.

Although she’s on a new path, it’s been a rocky one. Uncomfortable with being vaccinated, she contracted COVID and ended up in intensive care for 12 days, along with her wife, who also contracted the virus. They are still recovering. Small is vaccinated now — her job required it — but the physical and mental recovery from COVID has left her unsettled. She wants to be strong — for her mother, who is battling cancer and also had COVID, and for her daughter, whose senior year in high school was disrupted by the pandemic.

‘The day is here’

‘“Most of the time, I feel lost and don’t know what to do first,’’ she candidly shared with the board. “I have a constant sense of impending doom. My partner tells me I need to see a therapist and I think I will.”

Small said she’s learned that women survive times like this by creating their “own special world.” She keeps her mother’s old issues of Spirituality & Health magazine on her coffee table and glances through them when she feels down. She also has small bags of supplies for jewelry-making.

“For years, I’ve been buying supplies and saying, one day I’m going to sit down and do this,” she said. “The day is here.”

No doubt the pandemic has brought a wave of change to South Florida women.

Back in the 1960s, singer Peggy Lee had a hit song, “I Am a Woman,” where she dangled an unreal ideal — a woman who could clean the house, feed the baby, go out until 4 a.m. and then, “Lay down at 5, jump up at 6, and start all over again.”

But if COVID has shown us anything, it’s that women of all ages and economic standing need more support — and fewer unattainable goals. Government and workplaces can and must be changed to accommodate women’s needs on issues like child care and flexible work schedules and equal pay. And women’s mental health should be a guiding principle in all of those areas.

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