Special Report: Women and the Pandemic Opener

WOMEN STEADILY ENTERED THE WORKFORCE BEFORE THE TURN OF THE CENTURY…

…BUT THEIR PARTICIPATION SLID AFTER 2008, THEN PLUMMETED TO A 33-YEAR LOW DURING COVID-19

SEVERAL YEARS AGO, WHEN I WAS IN my mid-20s, after suffering from major depressive disorder and anxiety for most of my life, I found myself at the emergency room during an episode of substance-induced psychosis. My father and stepmother found me, at the very beginning of the episode, having paranoid delusions. Someone had tried to poison me and now they were coming, I told them. “Do not answer the door.”

Somehow, I listened when they said I needed to see a doctor. “We’ll be with you the whole time,” my father said. At the hospital, after checking my vitals and asking me to describe what was wrong, the triage nurse talked to my father. He explained my history with depression, my mother’s schizophrenia. I was given an emergency bed.

A psychiatrist—a tall, middle-aged blind man—approached with his guide dog. He asked questions while my father and stepmother watched, worried, nervous. “When was the last time you slept? Do you ever feel disconnected from yourself, or from reality? Do you hear voices?”

“I’m not crazy,” I insisted. I was afraid I was