Hoosiers feeling anxious, depressed over COVID-19 pandemic

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Feeling anxious or on edge these days? You’re not alone.

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to surge across the U.S., about one-third of all Hoosiers are feeling nervous, anxious or on edge at least several days a week, according to a new federal survey. About one in five Hoosiers reported feeling anxious nearly every day.

The U.S. Census Bureau released survey data last week that found Americans are showing high levels of anxiety and depression, and many are unable to stop worrying.

In direct response to the high levels of stress and anxiety due to the pandemic, Indiana officials on Monday launched a crisis hotline, which will allow Hoosiers to speak confidentially with a trained counselor at any hour free of charge.

The Be Well Crisis Helpful is available through Indiana 211, according to an announcement from the Indiana Family & Social Services Administration’s Division of Mental Health and Addictions.

The state said the pandemic has caused a rise in mental health-related issues across Indiana and the entire country, including new stresses brought on by social isolation and the lack of traditional support systems such as family, friends, schools, and other community organizations.

“Our intent is to provide easy and free access to counselors who can listen and help by simply calling 2-1-1,” FSSA Secretary Jennifer Sullivan said in a statement. “As Hoosiers continue to cope with the ‘new normal’ of life during a pandemic, with massive disruptions in their everyday lives, and with emotions ranging from bored to terrified, it was imperative to build a helpline that could literally be a lifeline for many.”

Indiana 211 is a free service that connects Hoosiers with assistance and answers from thousands of health and human service resources across the state.

The need for counseling seems to be clear from the Census data, which said that more than 154 million respondents across the country, or 62%, reported feeling nervous, anxious or on edge within the last seven days. In Indiana, that figure was 59%, with 18% reporting those feelings “nearly every day.”

In cities across the nation, the average number of  people feeling anxious for at least several days a week was highest in Riverside, California (66%), followed by Phoenix, New York City and Houston (62% each), and Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and Miami (61% each). No cities in Indiana were among the top 15 in the nation for average level of anxiety.

The Census Bureau surveyed nearly 250 million Americans (including more than 5 million Hoosiers) over the age of 18 between July 2 and July 7 on their state of mental health over the previous week.

More than 1 million of the respondents in Indiana said they used money from savings or selling assets to meet spending needs in the previous week. More than 500,000 said they borrowed money from friends or family.

Additional information about mental health resources for Hoosiers and the crisis hotline can be found at BeWellIndiana.org.

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6 thoughts on “Hoosiers feeling anxious, depressed over COVID-19 pandemic

  1. Is it a wonder why?

    We have a conflicted government with agencies ruled by leftist that hate this country constantly changing protocols per politics and nothing to do with medical sciences.

    All of these related agencies under the corrupt CDC from the Fed to the local level have been caught in lies of falsifying and embellishing statistics that defy all common sense and logic, but nonetheless our freedoms are being legislated away on the corrupt’s criteria we know is lying leftist propaganda perpetuated by the left’s MSM.

    It’s a scary thing to see those who are supposed protect us from such bowing to our enemies in all this!

  2. Right – but the leftists do not care. They want to win at all costs – so make the people freak out and depressed and keep on pushing the chaos and violence and vitriole – push everyone to the edge every day- right up to election day. Dems are a frightful bunch.

  3. This is NOT and left or right issue and it is ridiculous to cast it as such. This is a national health crisis albeit uneven in distribution, but the spread and impact cannot be ignored. No one wants the nation to fail or the economy to flounder, Why and to whose benefit would this be. As months progress, whoever may lead the governments must step up to ensure long term viability of the economy and well being of all citizens and non-citizens (working under difficult and unsafe situations to ensure that food supplies remain sound). This partisan foolishness needs to stop and the simple-minded statements of generalization are irrational at best and ludicrous altogether. The greatest fright is the lack of sound messaging and ignoring science for personal gain. This serves no one well. The current situation could have been avoided had sound clear measures been enacted earlier. I repeat, this current Covid bad news is due to bad policy. To wear a mask, for example, can be readily done. To wear a seat belt was once touted as weak and useless.

    1. Thank you. I’m tired of being painted as an anti-American, anti-business libtard. Caring for our citizens shouldn’t be a partisan issue.

    2. “No one wants the nation to fail or the economy to flounder, Why and to whose benefit would this be.”
      .
      This simply isn’t true. Huge portions of political leadership not only want the country to flounder and the nation to fail (at least temporarily), they are hellbent on using tyrannical methods to achieve this. Just look at the commands from the governor in the state to the north. She wants to keep huge portions of her state under her thumb through absurdly stringent stay-at-home commands, and she has largely succeeded: in June Michigan had an over 20% unemployment rate. Is inducing a financial depression really worth it for a disease that will have mild symptoms for 95% of the population?
      .
      You are trumpeting the predictable tune of the media that is engaged in coordinated effort to attack the party in power and have zero moral high ground calling this “partisan foolishness”. Even better: “ignoring science for personal gain”: you mean the proven benefits of HCQ that might have saved tens of thousands of lives, but the partisan press had to concoct fear around a generic (it’s even over-the-counter in some countries) to help concentrate a hitjob on the person who originally suggested it? There’s a reason the overwhelming majority of the states with the highest death rates have Democratic governors…
      .
      You are in no position to wag your finger at people.

  4. By far the most depressing thing is the week-by-week incompetence and authoritarianism being witnessed from the Hogsett administration; decades of progress is being peeled away in mere months right before us.

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