The Trauma of Pandemic Fatigue

Feel like getting out?  

A strong desire to forget about precautions?   

Travel to another place to escape?  

Just have some fun...  see friends...  get drunk...  forget it all?

You’re not the only one...  we all feel it...  low level depression...  isolation...  lack of social interactions... lack of physical touch...  loss of interest in hobbies...  pastimes...  life seems one dimensional...  dull...  no spark...  nothing to look forward to with a long winter ahead and the only light at the end of the tunnel is a vaccine available in the spring of next year...   ~sigh~

Does it help to know you’re not alone?  The world is once again facing a raging pandemic infecting in excess of 600,000 daily...  currently 55 million cases worldwide...   more than 1.3 million souls lost...  more than 11 million right here in the US...  with over 135,000 deaths.  

Of course we are overwhelmed...  frightened...  fatigued.  Our defense mechanisms... in an attempt to protect us from the devastation surrounding us...   gives us a false sense of security when we are with people we love and trust...  folks we see frequently...  “they couldn’t possibly get me sick”...  in our effort to deal with reality our defenses lie to us.   

This is the essence of pandemic fatigue.   Our cerebral cortex, usually capable of discerning truth from fiction, has left the party and we are in the hands of our old brain...  our reptilian brain...  the part of us that reacts to stress and trauma via fight, flight, or freeze.   Well...  the bad news is we can’t fight a virus with fisticuffs or verbal tirades...  we can’t flee... no where to go.  So, we freeze...  our feelings...  our sensibilities and our capacity for self care.  Just the opposite of what we need to do to survive.  

There is a way out...  reaching out to others...  we are all in the same boat...  talking with a counselor who can help...  pursuing simple tasks that require small effort for big rewards (baking bread)...  getting some fresh air and exercise by taking a walk (mask on!) or raking leaves...  volunteering to help others in a way safe for yourself...  journaling...  practicing gratitude...  remembering that this time will eventually pass and that others have survived pandemics before us...  and finally remembering that people we love depend on us to practice self care and stay safe so they can hug us when this is all over 😷💕