As a licensed clinical social worker and therapist with decades in the field, Mary Bromley thought she had seen everything—from the early AIDS crisis at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Manhattan to the emotional toll of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and deaths.
“This is different. This is worse,” she said last week by phone in East Hampton, where her office has been closed by the pandemic. “We can’t touch one another. We can’t visit each other. Hospitals aren’t allowing family members to visit patients. This is going to be a long haul.”
At St. Vincent’s, “I was in the special victims unit treating rape victims who had home invasions and were being held hostage for days,” she said. “We had the most serious cases in the city come to us.”
Even with AIDS, after about the first six months, she recalled that people stopped wearing gloves and could touch patients. “People could gather around someone who was dying and help them. Now, if you go to the hospital, you can’t go in with anyone. We’re facing tremendous isolation and depression in our community.”
In every other crisis, she noted, people were able to come together and talk about it. Now, typical coping strategies such as going to the gym, having a massage, or meeting a friend for a meal, drink, or coffee are impossible.
“This is a time to see your family, make up with people you have issues with, and focus on what’s important,” she said. “But we can’t see those people except for on Facetime and Zoom. This is the biggest challenge I’ve encountered, and I’ve been in this business for a very long time.”
Ms. Bromley moved to Springs in the late 1980s with her family and soon found herself inspiring and organizing a community effort to establish the Retreat, East Hampton Town’s domestic abuse shelter. She was also the therapist for Katie Beers, who had been sexually abused and then kidnapped at the age of 9. A therapy success story, Ms. Beers was placed with a foster family who raised her in Springs and with Ms. Bromley’s help has gone on to have a healthy family of her own. In 2016, the patient and therapist participated in a television show addressing trauma and recovery.
She said that another community-based effort to start a hotline for adults and teens or have therapists offer pro bono services to deal with the crisis’s emotional fallout would be of tremendous help. “But we can’t meet! We can have a Zoom, but nobody really likes to do that. The old strategies are going to need to be replaced with new ones.”
She warned everyone to be aware of how powerful the urge to binge is now, whether with food, booze, or drugs. It “is going to get worse and worse. I really worry about that, even for people who don’t have addictions.”
Acknowledging that circumstances both locally and internationally are terrible, she said she understood the temptation to escape in these ways. Instead, she recommended looking “to some spiritual practice to transcend the present reality.”
Developing or returning to spirituality or mindfulness is essential now, she said. “It could be meditation, yoga, prayer, or some deep reflection about how to be in touch with something larger than our immediate situation.”
How to do It
Ms. Bromley uses spirituality as a therapeutic tool and in her own life as well. For her, that means reading and meditating on Eckhart Tolle’s “The Power of Now,” every day, often focusing on just one sentence.
“Find your book, whatever it is,” she said. “It could be a meditation book, a Buddhist book, a Christian book, or an A.A. affirmation. Read something every day that opens your heart in a spiritual way. At the beginning and at the end of the day, you have to sit for a few minutes every day and open your heart.”
In addition, she recommends keeping your body and home environment healthy and your mind engaged with beauty, including flowers and music. “Keep your house clean, keep yourself clean. Don’t let yourself fall apart.”
Sitting in the sun for 15 minutes outside or going for a walk or a run are still allowed, she pointed out. Do it every day.
“Call your therapist, call your best friend, call your mother . . . have some interaction every day.”
Finally, take this time as an opportunity to let go of anger and old resentments. “An obstacle is an opportunity to let go. There’s nothing like a crisis like this to free yourself to help yourself and help another person.”