During the COVID-19 pandemic, about the same number of students or slightly fewer are signing up for free therapy sessions from CASSY (Counseling & Support Services for Youth), a local non-profit that provides mental health services to Bay Area youth, MHS CASSY Site Supervisor Alice Bui said in a Google Meet interview. MUSD pays for two on-site therapists from CASSY to provide students with free therapy, Bui added.
Although the pandemic has exacerbated existing mental health struggles, she has a few hypotheses for why slightly fewer students are reaching out for mental health support, Bui said. One of her theories originates from a “trauma-informed lens,” one that assumes that everyone has a trauma brain where a fight, flight, or freeze mode can be activated to ensure survival, she continued.
“My guess is that a lot of students are getting stuck in freeze mode, or they fluctuate between fight and flight. Sometimes, they’re sitting down, like ‘Oh, I’m going to grind this out,’ and they do a bunch of work. And, then, they’re like ‘Okay, I’m just going to check out.’” Bui said. “That’s the modern-day version of fight or flight.”
Right now, she thinks a lot of people are at the “freeze” stage, where some experience numbness or are unable to get out of bed, Bui continued. Sometimes in this case, students try things that used to bring them joy, but when these things do not bring happiness anymore, students do not know what to do, she added.
“And when that freeze response is there, it’s hard to jump the hurdle because signing up for CASSY takes work … I think a lot of students are too overwhelmed or numb to get extra help,” Bui said. “I remember that therapy is new for most people, and when your brain is kind of under fire, and you’re in that fight, flight, or freeze response, you’re not really wanting to look at doing something new.”
Currently, students can be referred to a CASSY therapist or another program at MHS by speaking with their guidance counselor, Bui said. She wants to figure out how to lower the barrier to accessing mental health services, she continued. Right now, it feels like everything is on fire, she added.
“A lot of referrals that we get in have to do with academics. Students are not performing as well as they used to,” Bui said. “Sleep disturbances are probably the number one thing parents talk about when we have the parent seminars, like our students aren’t sleeping. It’s kind of a rough time.”
Anxiety and depression are common, Bui added. Some students are also dealing with circumstances unique to the pandemic, such as deaths from COVID-19, Bui continued.
“I often will share with my students … grounding techniques. Grounding techniques … go by the five senses … There’s vision, smell, taste, hearing, and touch,” Bui said. “Most students listen to music a lot, and so the intervention kind of thing with it is that you just set your intention before you hit your playlist. So if you’re feeling sad, and you want to get into the sadness, as long as it doesn’t bring you to a suicidal level … then you can pick your sad playlist, or if you’re feeling sad and you want to feel happy, pick your happy playlist.”
You want to set your intention of how you want to feel at the end of the playlist and pick the playlist that will help you get there, Bui said. Another effective strategy is to collect items with strong smells, such as essential oils, scented lotions, or candles, and smell them to soothe your senses and bring you down and back into your body and the present, she added.
