SADNESS + LETHARGY = UNPROCESSED COVID?
Themes emerge each week as I listen to the concerns of my patients …. this week’s theme seems to be a pervasive sense of sadness and lethargy. Classically, these feelings can be explained by the end of summer and the beginning of early darkness and unwelcoming chill. And as animals, along with our brethren bears and chipmunks, we hibernate. It’s a time when our bodies slow down to accommodate the lack of food and warmth. Our “old brain” hasn’t caught up with the fact that we have central heat, Fresh Direct, and refrigeration. It’s done an admirable job of helping us survive as a species, so let’s give it a rousing round of applause, a gold watch, and head it into retirement. Wish.
Anyway.
I’ve tried to make sense of this theme of sadness and, yes, most people have something real to be sad about but the clue here is that it seems pretty universal. I believe, just a belief, not scientifically tested, that we are still reeling from the impact of COVID and what it did to our society, our lives, our perception of safety, and our souls.
The “American” way of dealing with grief and loss is to just “buck up and get on with it!” But grief, like other emotions, demands some space, some attention, some loving kindness and, maybe most importantly, some acknowledgement. We’ve just lost about a year and a half of normal life during which we were isolated, frightened, confused. Our government, the CDC and the FDA, all our “parental symbols” appeared flummoxed, sending out different and divergent messages as images of body bags, overcrowded hospitals, and frantic doctors filled our screens and our imagination. It’s easy to forget, or minimize, how terrifying it was when no one could give us an answer to how this thing was going to end, even how to treat it. States were competing for limited and dwindling supplies of everything from protective gear to ventilators. Our president was too busy pitting politics against science to offer any comfort. This is what trauma feels like….no ones in charge to protect us.
Then, miraculously, the vaccines were approved and people cheered as the first shipment of trucks rolled out! Help was on the way! But there weren’t enough vaccines, the sign-up process was disastrous and chaotic… more trauma.
Now, today. We have effective vaccines, even boosters. Every one who wants a vaccine is able to get one. We’re on the mend! Well, at least our society is on the mend. But our psyches just don’t heal from trauma, fear, isolation, and anger quite so quickly. The pain, the losses, the too-detailed memories are there…. we’re safe enough now to allow them to emerge. But there is a gaping silence where there should be support, education, acknowledgement and help in dealing with these dark emotions. We can’t just go “Hey! Got the vaccine! Yeah!” and go on as if we all haven’t been deeply affected and changed from this experience.
One of my favorite lines from Mary Chapin Carpenter which sums trauma up for me is:
I’m neither bad nor strange. Just slightly rearranged.”
We are not what we were two years ago. We can never be. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but if we don’t acknowledge this, we’ll be tripping over the roots of our submerged emotions.
I invite you to take some time and remember what you’ve just been through. You can remember from a nice, safe distance. It was hard. It was scary. It was tragic. You’re OK now, you survived but your emotions and your psyche still need healing. Keep in mind that emotions are not facts…they need reassurance, safety, attention, and maybe a hug. And then, perhaps, your joy, your hope for your future and the energy you need to move into your dreams, might reappear. Maybe less innocent, maybe more somber at times, but the wisdom gained, and the appreciation of where you are now, will nudge you gently forward into your life.