Michael Obama reveals about her mental health crisis during the pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic didn’t even spare the former first lady. Michael Obama went through low-grade depression during the pandemic. She revealed her struggles fighting depression and encouraging people to be open about their own.

In a conversation with People’s Magazine, she went on propelling her journey suffering depression, “Depression is understandable in these circumstances, during these times,” she said. “To think that somehow that we can just continue to rise above all the shock and the trauma and the upheaval that we have been experiencing without feeling it in that way is just unrealistic,” she added.

Obama pinpointed the necessity to talk about the depression focusing on the need to talk more about it publicly without fear.” This is one of the reasons why we need to talk more about mental health because everybody deals with trauma, anxiety, the difficulties in different ways,” Obama said.

The Covid-19 pandemic and the economic fallout have brought on a mental health crisis in America, and a US CDC in August showed that nearly 41% of respondents reported mental health issues stemming from the pandemic. About 1 in 3 Americans said they had experienced symptoms of anxiety or depression.

Obama also called attention to the most controversial news headline in the US killing of Black Men “We had the continued killing of Black men at the hands of police. Just seeing the video of George Floyd, experiencing that eight minutes. That’s a lot to take on, not to mention being in the middle of a quarantine,” she said.

Obama also told People magazine that she has been vaccinated for COVID-19.

“I encourage everyone to get a vaccine as soon as they have an opportunity,” she said.

“These have been challenging times. Many people have struggled: jobs lost, people going hungry,” she told People. “We’ve learned to count our blessings, the importance of health and family,” she concluded