Mental Health Information
What is Pandemic Fatigue?
We have just lived through two years of a pandemic. Whether we got COVID or not, we have all been affected in so many ways - personal loss, community loss, nationwide loss, loss of life, loss of health, loss of freedom, loss of feeling safe, loss of socializing with friends and family…. Our work/life balance has been upended. And even though the cases are way down, some stresses remain. Do we still wear masks? Can we take masks off in some places? Are we safe now? Can we repair the rifts of friends and family who approached the pandemic differently than we did? These, and so many more questions, may be going through your mind. We yearn to go back to how things were before March 2020 but are not sure that we can, either physically or emotionally.
We usually think of trauma as something horrible that happens, often as a one-time event. Others may experience chronic or ongoing trauma. This is called complex trauma and can be more ingrained since our bodies and minds change over time to be able to bear the ongoing stress. Trauma can have a significant impact on how we deal with the world. While we don’t often think of the pandemic in terms of trauma, this has been a traumatic two years for each of us, in so many ways. And for those that already have mental health challenges, the pandemic could have greatly exaggerate their symptoms.
You might think that now that the pandemic seems to be winding down, you should be feeling better emotionally and physically. But living like we have for the past two years can take its toll on us. The stresses are cumulative. It will take a while for our minds and bodies to unlearn all the coping skills we developed during the pandemic. Here are some of the common symptoms connected to the trauma of living through the pandemic, even as, or especially as the end may be near:
- Exhaustion even though you get enough sleep
- Experiencing burn out in your job
- Lack of motivation
- Feeling worn out
- Finding it harder to regulate emotional extremes
- Snapping at loved ones
- Finding it harder to cope, even with the little things
- Feeling you just can’t take one more stress or one more thing going wrong when you used to be able to do so
- Still feeling unsafe even though we are told we don’t need to be so cautious anymore
- Feeling a lack of purpose
- Feeling disconnected from others • Feeling less effective
- Feeling helpless
These symptoms can be due solely to the pandemic but can also be intertwined with other pre-existing mental health issues that were exacerbated by the pandemic.
Things you can do to help you get through pandemic fatigue:
- Adjust expectations of others and of yourself
- Don't think, "I should," but rather "I could but ...(reason why it hasn't happened.)" This takes away the guilt and acknowledges the reality of your situation.
- Set boundaries for social media
- As the weather gets warmer, take a walk rather than scroll through your phone
- Be patient with yourself
- Find a hobby that lifts your moo
- Focus on what you can control and accept that some things are out of control
- Meditation and yoga to calm the automatic body stress reaction
- Reach out to a mental health therapist if you feel these symptoms are interfering with your daily functioning. Sometimes having a safe place to talk about and process all you have been through can help in the healing process.
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