Long before the pandemic hit, Ty had already sold his plasma and pawned his laptop; he no longer had internet service at home. Then he lost his contract job doing customer service for one of the country’s biggest banks this past April. He watched as the coronavirus blanketed the United States and the death toll rose and the government botched its response. He grew despondent. His mind began drifting to all the things he had lost over the years — his beloved father, his grandfather, a connection to his estranged family. He was alone now in Salt Lake City, apart from his three cats. He started to drink daily if there was money for it. There was no work. Getting out of bed became hard.
This wasn’t an unfamiliar pattern for the 39-year-old white man, who asked to be identified only by his first name, Ty, to protect his identity. He had depression, anxiety, and insomnia, and he’d gone through bouts of heavy alcohol consumption before. But the circumstances created by the pandemic — the job he lost through no fault of his own, the isolation, the bleak national outlook, the mass death — gave Ty little room to catch his breath. Months passed with no income. His prescriptions for anxiety and insomnia were running out, and he began rationing his meds for depression.
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