As a Feminist Therapist, Coping With Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Death Is Complicated

Jessica Gold, assistant professor of psychiatry at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis

 

“Trapped.” That was the feeling my therapist told me I was experiencing on Thursday, as I envisioned holding on to the pain, suffering and stress of my patients and friends leading up to and after the election. I couldn’t think of the word, but I could describe it.

Everyone feels so sad and anxious, I said, like they have little reserve and are just barely hanging on, hoping they can get there and come out the other side still intact.

The number of adults experiencing symptoms of depression in the United States has tripled amid the pandemic, according to a recent study, rising to nearly 28 percent. Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggests that anxiety symptoms have also increased threefold from last year, now at over 25 percent. Reasons for this are many, but the American Psychological Association’s July 2020 “Stress in America” survey found that most Democrats and Republicans reported the coronavirus, political climate and uncertainty in our nation as significant sources of stress. And, like with many other things in the pandemic, women have been disproportionately affected.

Read the full piece in Newsweek.

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