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December 10, 2020
DENVER, COLORADO
A publication of
VOLUME 94 | ISSUE 5
Heightened anxiety, depression test communities COVID-19 pandemic erodes mental health across state BY TINA GRIEGO AND SUSAN GREENE COLORADO NEWS COLLABORATIVE
On Denver’s west side, an elderly man had been managing his solitude just fine until the COVID-19 pandemic hit, taking with it what social life he had and leaving in its place a loneliness he had not felt for years. Not far from his house, a young woman fights panic attacks after COVID-19 killed her grandfather and landed her in the hospital. Now, she fears the virus will come
for her again and this time she will die. In Fort Collins, the school district announces an early return to online learning, and moments later, a struggling mother calls the local mental health center: “I can’t do this again.” On the Eastern Plains is a thirdgeneration farmer, and if the pandemic does not weigh on him heavily, this year’s record drought and the crop failure it caused do. It sets off an irritability and dread that words do not capture in the same way they cannot capture the layering of crises that marks this time: the body blows dealt by the pandemic,
the shaky economy, climate-change driven fire and drought, civil rights reckoning and a polarizing election. Coloradans are on edge. As individuals. As families. As communities. Colorado already had greater demand for behavioral health services than it could provide. And the
safety net that even the state’s top mental health official says has “too many holes” might be further frayed by the tight state budget. These crises have led to a welldocumented flood of calls to crisis and referral lines, and nearly half of Coloradans recently reported experiencing anxiety or depression. “Everyone is really struggling with the same things,” says Kristen Cochran-Ward, director of Connections, a mental health and substance abuse program at the Health District of Northern Larimer County. “I have heard people saying that we are all in SEE ANXIETY, P11
COVID-19 survivor finds her footing amid fears Year riddled with losses leaves sadness that is difficult to fight BY TINA GRIEGO COLORADO NEWS COLLABORATIVE
Until this year, Elizabeth Torres would not have called herself a particularly anxious person. Stressed, sure. Who wasn’t? Everyone has ups and downs. Torres was working a couple parttime jobs, taking care of her elderly grandparents, raising three kids on her own. Her son, the middle child, has been diagnosed with autism and he likes to get right up into her face, something she really can’t deal with now. When he comes to her lately, “Mom,” on his lips, she can imagine a fine spray of coronavirus cells landing upon her cheeks, nose, eyes. She and her three kids were living in the basement of her grandparents’ SEE SURVIVOR, P4
Elizabeth Torres, 38, of Denver walks at Garfield Lake Park in Denver one afternoon. Torres was diagnosed and hospitalized with COVID-19 back in March and has mostly recovered but lost her grandfather to the virus and had it work its way through her entire PHOTO BY MARC PISCOTTY family.
INSIDE: VOICES: PAGE 8 | LIFE: PAGE 10 | CALENDAR: PAGE 12
KEEPING THE LIGHTS ON
Many holiday attractions in the metro area carry on despite pandemic P10