INSIGHT AND INSPIRATION FOR NAVIGATING MODERN MENTAL HEALTH CARE
BY ANNA RUSSELL
If you’ve flown enough times, you know to “secure your own mask before helping others.” If you spend regular time in health and wellness circles, you probably also know this phrase is used as a metaphor for prioritizing self-care. But what happens when you wait for a proverbial drop in cabin pressure to make sure there are enough masks to go around?
At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Americans found themselves cut off from both supplies and services—and caught off guard by their lack of preparedness to deal with that.
“The pandemic forced people to sit with their thoughts—literally quarantine with them—some for the first time, and some right alongside their families,” explained Dr. Tiffaney Parkman, director of The University of Baltimore’s B.A. in Human Services program. “Maybe before, their normal way of coping was to ignore their issues or problems, but now, they couldn’t access their usual distractions. People began to realize they didn’t have an actual plan for their mental health care.”