PTSD AND DEPRESSION ARE KILLING MIDDLE-AGED WOMEN

Megan Brooks in the Vol. 49, No. 1, January, 2021 edition of Clinical Psychiatry News reported on studies indicating that middle-aged women with PTSD and comorbid depression are nearly four times more likelly to die from early death as are matched peers who do not have PTSD and comorbid depression. More severe symptoms led to greater risk of early death and fewer symptoms less risk. This highlights the critical importance of identifying and treating psychiatric illnesses in general health practices according to Dr. Roberts who was an author of a study published online Dec 4 in JAMA Network Open (doi: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2020.27935). These researchers studied more than 51,000 mostly white women for 9 years from 2008-2017. They had a mean age of 53.3 years in 2008 at the start of the study. Women in this study who had high levels of PTSD [six or seven symptoms] were almost 4 times as likely to die during the follow-up period than their peers without PTSD symptoms. Even women with moderate PTSD [four of five symptoms] or with subclinical PTSD and depression were at increased risk for early death. The deaths were from all major causes of death in middle-aged women.

The authors conclude that these findings provide additional evidence that mental health is fundamental to physical health and more specifically how important it is to identify and treat middle-aged women with PTSD and depression.

IS COVID VIRUS MORE DEADLY THAN THE FLU VIRUS?

A study in the Lancet Respiratory Medicine:Comparison of the characteristics, morbidity, and mortality of COVID-19 and seasonal influenza:a nationwide, population-based retrospective cohort study [of more than 89,000 patients with COVID-19 and more than 45,000 patients wth influenza [the flu]] was published December 17, 2020, showed that the risk of death was 3 times higher for COVID-19 than for influenza for all comorbidities except only 2 times higher for pulmonary bacterial coinfection. For those patients older than 50 and younger than 18 the mortality rate was 10 times higher for COVID-19 compared to influenza, especially for adolescents who were also more likely to be overweight.

Another study published on line December 15, 2020 in the British Medical Journal analyzed data from the US Department of Veteran's Affairs for more thah 3600 patients hospitalized with COVID-19 between February 1 and June 17 of 2020 and more than 12,600 patients hospitalized with flu between January 1, 2017 and December 31, 2019. The death rate among COVID-19 patients was 18.5% and 5.3% for the flu. The COVID-19 patients were 4 times more likely to require breathing machines and 2.5 times more likely to be admitted to ICUs.

So, both of these studies found that the death rate from COVID-19 was at least 3 times higher compared to the flu and it was also clear that COVID-19 infections were more severe.

IS EMPATHY JUST LISTENING TO OTHERS WITHOUT OUR OWN REACTIONS?

I've become more and more convinced that listening to others is the best way to be connected to other people...no matter how much your belief's differ from theirs. However, for listening to actually connect us to others requires that we listen without having any reactions ourselves. If you react, you are not listening and this disconnects you from the other person. Maybe this is   one answer to the problems that are dividing people. Possibly. However, we would need to get people together so that we could listen to each other. But what does together mean? Could we liseten without reacting to what we hear on the phone, or on the internet, or on TV? Would this help us to not judge others or have to buy into the us against them way of thinking?

It is sad that lies from leaders make it harder to listen to each other as we have been brainwashed to react with anger and even hatred to others who have different views. It is clear that one way for tyrants [bullies] to have power over others is to promote an "us against them" belief system so that the tyrants can have blind loyalty from their followers. Why do I say blind loyalty. Well, when anyone has been taught to be afraid of something then all the tyrant needs to do is to trigger these fears by lying and promoting the lie that people with different views will cause terrible things to happen. Then when any of us recalls a fear from the past and still feel afraid, our brains will react instantly [in a nanosecond and that is one billionth of a second] in order to protect us by causing us to see people with different views as the enemy and as dangerous. This is not true but your brain thinks that it is true. We can let our brain's know that it does not need to protect us as there is nothing to fear. However, this requires that we choose to recall these past stresses and not feel stressed, thus demonstrating to our brain that there is really no need to be stressed.

Maybe if we can learn to listen without reacting we will discover that we do not need to be afraid of other people and we will stop allowing ourselves to be manipulated into being afraid. If we can do this, our lives would be a lot better.

HAS BEING WHITE EVER BEEN GOOD?

If race was invented to justify exploiting other people then being white has never been good. I have listened to a radio podcast "Scene on Radio" called "Seeing White" that discusses the history of being white including how it was started and what has kept it alive for over 400 years. One of the speakers on the podcast asked the question about whether "being white has ever been good." Considering the terrible exploitation of people of color by whites over these 400 years it seems clear that being white is not good. It is also clear that institutional racism is alive and well in maintaining: the gap in income; home ownership; jobs; incarceration rate; and neighborhoods [home values]. 

It seems clear that race was created inorder to justify exploitation of people of color starting before we became a country and yet was justified in our constitution and by our founding [white] fathers. So, from the beginning the idea that we as a country are told that we believe that we are all created equal is not true. A significant percent of our population has not been treated as equal and this is still happening, sadly. 

It is my hope that our country will choose to reject racism and white priviledge, while moving toward racial and economic equality for everyone. If this happens we might then be able to call our country great.

IT IS ALL ABOUT EXPLOITATION?

Exploitation is defined as the fact of or action taken to treat someone unfairly in order to benefit from their work. Or, to selfishly take advantage of a person or persons in order to profit from them or otherwise benefit yourself. So, is every bad thing humans do related to or involve exploitation? Racism seems to be all about exploitation. Does prejudice involve exploitation as being prejudiced means that you are demeaning others and this makes it easier to justify taking advantage of them? How about corporations externalizing their costs [not taking responsibility for costs of damage to the environment, as well as paying low wages so employees require federal assistance to get by, etc.]? What about our banking systems making it harder for people of color to get loans or charging them higher interest rates? How about making it harder for certain groups of people to vote or to get an education? What about using God to justify white priviledge? What about killing and incarcerating certain groups of people at a much higher rate compared to other people.

So, why do we [humans] seem to like to or need to exploit others? I believe that we know in our hearts that exploiting others is not right. So, somehow, together, we must choose to learn how to get along with others and not exploit them. How do we do that?