The coronavirus pandemic has brought a fresh crop of mental health challenges — isolation, uncertainty, loss, fear and stress — and is being blamed for a “historic” increase in drug overdoses in Central Florida along with widespread distress.
“Daily life has changed,” UCF psychologist David Rozek said. “We don’t know when a new normal is going to happen, and sometimes it seems like a different timeline is being offered up every day.”
In Seminole County, reported opioid overdoses are up roughly 65 percent so far this year compared with the same months in 2019, and in Orange, overdoses increased by 46 percent.
Accidental deaths from drug overdoses also climbed. In Osceola County, for instance, there was a 63 percent increase from January to June compared with the same period a year ago.
“The numbers can be really shocking, and they are going up,” said Daryl Tol, president and CEO of AdventHealth’s Central Florida division. “Think about where we stand now — at the end of furloughs, at the end of government-support payments, at the beginning of permanent layoffs in a state … that really doesn’t have a large social support infrastructure and certainly very little government spending in those kinds of services. So we all have a responsibility to take an interest in this.”
In Orange, Osceola and Seminole — where unemployment has soared up to 20 percent during the pandemic — the AdventHealth hospital system had more than 553 overdose cases through the end of August, a 37 percent jump. In all, it saw some 18,500 patients identified as having a substance-abuse problem.
Seminole County Sheriff Dennis Lemma, tapped to help lead a statewide task force on the issue last year, said COVID-19 hit Central Florida just as the region was beginning to make inroads fighting opioid abuse.
“I’m very concerned about the unintended consequences” of the prolonged social-distancing requirements, which may have kept people from attending 12-step meetings such as Narcotics Anonymous or going to counseling, Lemma said.
While many peer-support groups and therapy sessions have moved to online platforms, the shift often came with a frustrating learning curve and technical problems. And not everyone has embraced the virtual alternative.
“We have had some people saying, ‘You know, I think I’ll wait until we can do this in person,'” said Rozek, an assistant professor at UCF RESTORES, a treatment clinic for trauma and stress-related disorders. “My hope is that through telehealth we’ve actually increased access to care, but it wasn’t instantaneous.”
The clinic has launched a program for essential workers offering free 60-minute consultations with a licensed mental-health provider and, if needed, referrals for ongoing help.
In August, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that a nationwide survey revealed symptoms of anxiety and depression had “increased considerably” during April, May and June, compared with the same period in 2019.
Overall, the CDC said, more than 40 percent of adults reported at least one adverse mental or behavioral health condition, and over 13 percent had either started or increased their use of alcohol and drugs to blunt the emotional toll of the pandemic.
Most alarming, more than one in 10 adults had “seriously considered” suicide in the month leading up to the survey — a rate that topped 30 percent for unpaid caregivers of adults, 25 percent for 18- to 24-year-olds and nearly 22 percent for essential workers. The rate was also greater for Hispanics (nearly 19 percent) and non-Hispanic Blacks (15 percent), who have been disproportionately infected by the virus, in part because of longstanding inequities in housing and access to care.
The findings were no surprise to Yasmin Flasterstein, co-founder of Peer Support Space Inc., a Central Florida nonprofit led by and for those recovering from mental illness, substance abuse, trauma and grief.
“We’ve definitely seen a spike in suicidal ideation,” she said. “This has been a really tough time for everybody, but for people with pre-existing mental health conditions, the challenges are compounded. There’s a lot of research around social isolation and how that increases suicidal thoughts, and how that can increase the desire to use drugs and to find coping mechanisms, whether they be negative or positive.”
Young adults, while less likely to become seriously ill from the virus, are suffering more from the pandemic’s disruption. Many have lost out on high school proms and graduation ceremonies, summer travel plans and leaving the family nest for an independent college life. The job market, meanwhile, has gone from booming to brutal.
“Think how the world has changed for them,” Rozek said. “That time in life is a huge transition period — you’re moving into adulthood. It’s supposed to be the first time you’re kind of out on your own, but now a lot of your control has been taken away. You’ve lost that freedom.”
While Florida typically ranks last or next to last in national rankings on state spending for mental health needs, there are isolated efforts to address the crisis. AdventHealth plans to add more of its own funds to the issue in the coming year. Last week Tol announced a $114,000 grant to the Longwood-based nonprofit IMPOWER to expand its mental health telemedicine program.
The hospital system is also working with the Seminole County Sheriff’s Office to open an opioid treatment facility that will accept patients regardless of ability to pay. The grand opening, pushed back because of COVID, is expected in the next few months, Lemma said.
But some worry that the pandemic’s ultimate toll on mental health will demand much, much more.
“The data isn’t saying these problems have increased a little. It’s saying they have increased by historic levels,” said Andrae Bailey, founder of Project Opioid, a Central Florida initiative to address the drug epidemic through business, government and faith groups. “And we’re going to need a historic response. We’re going to need money and we’re going to need leadership. And if we fail, we could see more people die deaths of despair than die of the virus.”
