'There is Covid anxiety and there is no vaccine for that'

COUNTING THE COST OF COVID

There are few people whose emotional resilience hasn’t been tested by the events of the last 12 months.

From not being able to see family and friends, to the economic fallout from the biggest public health crisis in a century, the impact of Covid-19 on our lives has been wide reaching and left many of us floundering at times.

Kathleen Poynton is the CEO of the Mullingar not-for-profit organisation Good2Talk, which provides affordable counselling services. Part of the College Street-based service since it was established in 2013, Kathleen (also a counsellor) says the last year has been challenging for people of all ages and backgrounds.

“Personally I think there is a Covid anxiety out there and there is no vaccine for that. Our normal resilience can fluctuate throughout life. What I am noticing with people, including myself, is that we have resilience because we build it up. We take time off, we go away for a weekend, we enjoy a break. There is that reward we got from society and from our friends. That builds up our resilience.

“This pandemic has removed our outlets to our resilience. So we are fully dependent internally on ourselves. Some people have surprised themselves and realised ‘gosh, I didn’t realise I was so internally resilient’. People have turned to exercise and healthy eating and that is fantastic and helps your mood. You’ve seen the ad on the telly ‘hold tight, it won’t be long, we are all in this together’, and we are, but it is very different for lots of people.

“While we might see or hear that a person is doing well, we don’t really know what’s happening internally. It is admitting that you need someone to talk to or need help. There is definitely a Covid pressure or anxiety there for people.”

Despite having to adhere to Covid-19 guidelines, Good2Talk still managed to provide supports to more than 300 people last year through a combination of face-to-face, phone and Zoom counselling.

Kathleen says that while Zoom and phone therapy can be effective and will remain part of the post-pandemic suite of services offered by Good2Talk, for people who are struggling with their mental health, speaking to someone face-to-face is important.

“We might have a person in for their assessment and they’ll meet their therapist, then the following week they could have a phone therapy session and then on the third week they might meet their therapist again.

“Two metre social distancing can be achieved in our rooms and we have window ventilation in all our rooms. We try and put people’s minds at ease, even with their Covid anxiety, from coming out of their homes and doing something different. People want that connection – that is what we are hearing.”

Good2Talk provides counselling and psychotherapy support services to people aged 16 and over. All age groups have found the suspension of normal life difficult, but Kathleen believes that it has been particularly hard on teenagers and young adults.

“It is more difficult for them. They should have all the freedom in the world to do what they want to do – for their development, for their understanding of the world that is out there. This is quite difficult for them at the moment.

“The teenagers that do come to us are so used to contact on the phone or Zoom, but we encourage them to come in for their first session and then maybe have a phone or Zoom one, because they are missing that connection as well. It is very important for teenagers.”

There have been numerous reports about a mental health pandemic coexisting with its Covid-19 counterpart. Kathleen says it is natural that anxiety levels would go during a global health crisis that has killed millions of people and turned the world upside down. Now more than ever, it is important that we practise some self-care.

“Sometimes we don’t know or recognise behaviour of anxiety. We don’t recognise that we might be getting short with people and don’t say to ourselves ‘that’s not how I normally behave’.

“We are doing everything that we are physically expected to do to protect ourselves from Covid but those behaviours can be detrimental to our mental health and wellbeing.

Isolation can be a behaviour of depression, while irritability and having a short fuse can be behaviour of anxiety. When we think of anxiety, we think that is where you are nervy and hyper, but for some people, anxiety can you leave you totally exhausted as well, and that can drain into a low mood.

“It’s the cycle of low mood and the stress and anxiety where your body is full of energy and you don’t know what to do with it. It’s that trap and the animal instinct is that we are trapped, within our counties, within our homes. It is working out what you need to do to alleviate that.

“We live in a society and world where it’s ‘let’s distract ourselves constantly because that makes you happy’. Shopping makes you happy, going on holidays make you happy and, yes, they do contribute [to some people’s happiness], but sometimes you need that internal look-in.”

Stressing or more than one occasion that she is only part of “very strong team”, many of whom are volunteers, Kathleen says that when people finally reach out for help and “normalise” their feelings, it can transform their lives.

“We are never going to get rid of anxiety. It will always be with us. It is part of our development as humans. It is how we survived [down through history] and is an integral part of our life. It is about managing it.

“It is very personal to each individual and how they manage and understand that anxiety. It’s when they come to therapy they can come to understand and normalise the feelings that they are having.

“As I say to clients, no one wants to be sitting in the therapy seat, but once they make that step, it can be life changing for them,” she said.

Fundraising about more than money

Like all charitable organisations that depend on donations to survive, the last 12 months have been challenging for Good2Talk, Kathleen says.

In 2019, the organisation received more than €26,000 from 29 different fundraising events in the community. Due to Covid-19, the total amount raised through fundraisers was only €7,500 last year.

Thankfully Good2Talk was able to make up most of the shortfall through special Covid-related state supports and other funding avenues such as the HSE National Lottery Grant and a grant for Westmeath County Council, which helped with the reopening costs after the first lockdown.

Established in 2013 to provide affordable counselling in the community and “to reduce the stigma and barriers” to people accessing mental health supports in their community, Kathleen says that ethos remains as important today as it did eight years ago. “We at G2T never let the lack of finances of any individual seeking therapy to get in the way of that therapy,” she says.

Being able to operate on a low cost model for clients for the best part of a decade has only been possible through the support of the wider community, including Good2Talks charity partners, Soltec, and the well known Dominick Street based businessman and peace commissioner Tommy Nally Snr.

When it comes to fundraisers in the community, however, Kathleen says that their importance extends far beyond the donations that are needed to keep the show on the road.

“It is more than just the financial side. It enriches the conversation of the importance of positive mental health,” she says.