We need to rethink what going back to normal looks like

This year has been traumatic for many. It’s been characterized by numerous deaths due to the pandemic and by unrest across the country relating to police violence. While many areas of the country are beyond their first wave of COVID-19 cases, deaths continue in this pandemic and we are in the midst of a mental health crisis. People are facing increasing rates of unemployment, losing homes, witnessing racialized violence, and losing friends and family members at alarming rates. As a psychiatry resident, I witness how the trauma of this year’s events manifests in the form of new mental illness and worsening pre-existing mental illness. While this crisis continues and worsens, I am left with the following question: What does going back to normal look like?

For many, going back to normal consists of restaurants fully reopening, classes resuming to in-person, travel restrictions being removed, and being able to gather in large crowds. For those with economic means and privilege, this means returning to a time of convenience. For others, this means returning to a time where social issues such as housing insecurity, food apartheid, violence by law enforcement, and health disparities are largely ignored. In the face of this mental health crisis, exacerbated by larger structural issues, I am reminded of the implications surrounding going back to normal for groups often forgotten and minoritized.

Working at a public hospital during this pandemic, I’ve directly seen how structural forces significantly impact the mental and physical health of certain populations and how they’ve worsened during this time. I’ve seen how patients from minoritized groups experience a higher burden of illness. I’ve encountered patients who have lost access to support groups that helped them cope with chronic thoughts of suicide or addiction. I have seen hopelessness in the faces of people with housing insecurity whose options were limited due to fears of contracting the COVID-19 virus. I’ve met children and adolescents who keep returning to the hospital because their mental health supports have been suspended during the pandemic. I’ve even seen how media-induced trauma of police violence has exacerbated mental illness. With each day that I see patients, I am reminded that this is a consequence of the injustices and systemic failures that were addressed with band-aid level solutions prior to the pandemic.

It is important to consider what going back to normal means and whether that should be a goal in the first place. As we quickly approach 2021, our focus shouldn’t be to get back to how things were but on strategizing how to address the issues highlighted during the pandemic. While we need to invest in more mental health resources across the country, we also need to address the structural forces that have exacerbated this surge in mental health needs — forces that operate under racism, classism, and inequity for sexual and gender minorities.

We should not think that structural inequities exist only because of the pandemic. The world is at a moment to confront longstanding issues of systemic oppression, police violence, and health disparities that disproportionately affect minoritized groups. We must acknowledge the traumatic effects of social injustice. We must acknowledge that for certain groups, particularly black, indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) “normal” has always included trauma and systemic oppression. We should not long for the status quo that was operational before the pandemic.

We need to challenge a “back to normal” mentality. To go back is to put a veil over our eyes of the problems inherent in our society. We can not go back to ignoring rampant injustices when businesses reopen and traveling resumes. We need to change the goal of going back to how things were and envision a society where the focus is on healing and building systems that allow for equity in health and justice.