With Omicron, it is clear that anxiety is starting to spiral out of control even further, in a sort of PTSD response, as people are flashing back to traumatic memories of the beginning of the pandemic. Until a few weeks ago, I could almost feel that things were getting better. Kids were back in school both locally and at college, playing sports and attending after-school activities, and everyone seemed to be adapting to what clearly is an endemic. Now what?

In the past several weeks, I have gotten more and more calls from extremely depressed and overwhelmed college students who are taking medical leaves from school and need me to email professors or fill out the necessary paperwork. I can’t find clinicians near their colleges to treat them, and their college health services are often limited in the amount of regular mental health care they can provide…

There are currently logjams at every portal to mental health care for inpatient and outpatient care, in person and over Zoom. I often cannot find other clinicians to refer children to or to treat alongside me using other types of therapy, because everyone is already too busy.