We need talk about our mental health crisis before the worst of COVID winter hits

• Pandemic life is probably going to get much worse this winter before it gets even a little better. So it's time to take care of your mental health.
• A new Gallup poll shows Americans' mental health is in its worst state since the company began recording such data in 2001. And one-in-four young adults have considered suicide in the past year.
• There's still too much shame, particularly among men, attached to mental health struggles.
• "Mental health is health" is an increasingly common phrase in our lexicon. But for the idea to really stick, we all need to talk more about mental health. And we also need to listen.
• This is an opinion column. The thoughts expressed are those of the author.

Everything is horrible and it's probably going to get much worse this winter before it gets even a little better. So it's time to take care of yourself.

Yes, the first COVID vaccines are being administered in the UK and are expected to roll out in the US shortly, but it'll take the better part of 2021 before they're available to most Americans.

And by April, it's entirely possible that US COVID fatalities could double to over 500,000, according to a new report by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington's School of Medicine.

In the meantime, much of the country will endure winter's miserable weather and shorter days, a common source of seasonal depression.

A generation of children continues to be deprived of a real education and social life, while parents try to keep food on the table. Spasms of social unrest continue, and an excruciating presidential campaign refuses to end as one side continues to salt the earth for democracy rather than abide by the will of the people.

Is it any wonder our collective mental health has taken a beating?

Don't expect a federal mental health task force to come to the rescue. If the government's handling of COVID should have taught us anything, it's that when the s--- hits the fan, we're ultimately on our own.

But there's one simple, effective action available to everybody: talk about it.

Tear down the wall of shame

A new Gallup poll shows Americans' mental health is in its worst state since the company began recording such data in 2001. Just 34% rate their mental health as "excellent," a nine percentage point drop from 2019. (The high-water mark for Americans' "excellent" mental health was 51% in 2004.)

A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention survey released in August found 25.5% of young adults aged 18-24 had "seriously considered suicide" as a result of the pandemic. Among all adults, symptoms of anxiety disorder were reported to have more than tripled - from 8.1% to 25.5% over the past year. The number of adults reporting symptoms of depressive disorder roughly quadrupled, from 6.5% to 24.3%, during the same period.

These are some crisis-level numbers.

Therapy, medication, consistent sleep cycles, and regular exercise are among the most recommended courses of action for people experiencing mental health crises.

But even if you're lucky enough to have better-than-worthless health insurance, endless red tape makes finding a mental health professional to work with a discouraging, time-consuming experience even when a therapist is available at all.

And while most people would benefit from physical exertion, that's easier said than done when the weather is cold and lockdowns abound - to say nothing of commitments and responsibilities that drain what little time one may have.

Candid conversations about mental health have become less taboo in recent years, but we've got a long way to go.

The actress Taraji P. Henson in a recent interview with "Entertainment Tonight" spoke about the Black community's reticence in talking about mental health:

"[We hear], 'Boy, get over it. Man up! Tough it out, strong Black woman.' These things have been passed down, so to even talk about mental health, how do you do that when you've never talked about it?"

Henson's launching a new Facebook Watch show devoted to frank discussions about mental health.

Another subset of the human race that could stand to engage in similar discussions: men.

The very nature of machismo - still the default male posture in most cultures - makes acknowledging personal vulnerability a hard sell. But a growing number of the "manliest" of men, professional athletes, are helping to break the taboo by speaking publicly about their struggles with anxiety, depression, and other common but hidden maladies.

"Mental health is health" is an increasingly common phrase in our lexicon. But for the idea to really stick, we all need to talk more about mental health. And we also need to listen.

The simple act of active listening, rather than trying to solve someone's problem for them, is among the most effective ways to provide non-professional therapy to friends and family.

And with a hellscape of a pandemic winter ahead of us, there's no time like the present.

• Read more:
• Depression doesn't take time off for a pandemic
• The pandemic will almost certainly cause a permanent expansion of America's social safety net
• COVID compelled me to talk about some of the horrors of recent history with my young kids
• Coronavirus has turned New York into a ghost town, so I'm making a 'mixtape' to cope