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I'm so sorry about your job. As a journalist covering this story I can understand how it's easy to find yourself only seeing negative stories. But if you look closely there are so many stories of hope out there. Seek those out and let them inform your view of the world these days. Just yesterday at KGW we covered a story of neighbors in an apartment building who posted a sign in the lobby offering to cook meals for any residents stuck in their apartments. That motivated two other neighbors to do the same thing, and a third started a Nextdoor group to open that offer up to other nearby buildings. One of our anchors reminded our audience that when you see empty streets you're actually seeing a powerful signal of love and compassion. People are staying home to keep their community safe. Seek out the positive wherever you can. It's out there, I promise. -John Tierney, KGW News

The experts seems to say it will depend on how good we are at doing the distancing.

But here's one thing we can control: let's make this about physical distancing but social connection. If we do that, we will have resilience and connection to make it to the other side healthy

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-Dwight

I hear you, it's not the same -- but what we are finding is that making the best connections we can reduces the stress and eases the reality of isolation - which definitely and unambiguously sucks.

-Dwight

Great question! We recognize that the pandemic is a really challenging time for mental health professionals because they are having a shared experience with the callers who are calling in with their fears and anxieties. What we are hearing from our call counselors, however, is that they are able to connect with callers more quickly because they understand the concerns that they are hearing on the crisis lines. As supervisors, we are making sure that we encourage our staff to take breaks and practice good self care during this time.

-Greg Borders, LCSW

Yes, we are getting a lot of people calling into our lines asking a similar question. Because there is so much uncertainty, people's anxiety is really going up. What we are encouraging people to do is to make sure that they stay socially connected to loved ones and others while having to have physical distancing. Now is not the time to social isolate, that will only increase feelings of loneliness, hopelessness and fear. If you are someone who is feeling well from a mental health perspective, then this is a great time to go through your phone contacts and see who could really benefit from you reaching out to them. We are also encouraging folks to put some boundaries and limits around how much media they are intaking. It can be natural compulsion to want to take in as much media as possible in hopes of getting answers. Unfortunately, there's a lot of misinformation out there and also a lot of negative and fear driven news. We recommend limiting new intake to just the amount that you need to stay informed and also to make sure you are only getting news from reputable sources.

Greg Borders, LCSW