Over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic and quarantine, mental health has been brought to a new light and emphasized more now than ever. The benefits from this are exponential, and we continue to see how attention directed towards mental health continues to help people who struggle with it every day. 

Personally, I fall into the large group of people who have and continue to struggle with their mental health. During the pandemic, those mental health struggles were amplified because of the stress and isolation that we all dealt with. Now, a year later, I’m back on my feet like so many people. A year later, everything seems to be getting back to normal, but we shouldn’t take that as a sign to end the conversation about mental health. 

A lot of people experienced what we refer to as ‘quarantine depression’ and many for the first time. That alone brought a lot of attention to the struggles that mental health can impose on a person. Depression, anxiety and so many other struggles can reach a level where they become completely debilitating, and when everyone was in lockdown, there were very few resources to help those people. This highlighted how many people struggle and helped so many realize they aren’t alone. 

The fact that so many people realized they weren’t alone is reason enough to continue this conversation. When we act like depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder and so many other mental health struggles aren’t a thing or we don’t have open conversations about them, that alone can be just as isolating as quarantine. 

Not only do we need to continue this conversation, but we also need to continue to make resources for those struggling more accessible and more normalized.

The pandemic started a conversation that has massive potential to normalize mental health for everyone, and we don’t need to go back to ‘normal’ just because life is almost back to normal too.