Post-pandemic Blues?

I haven’t written for a long time. Early on in the pandemic I was so full of the emotions that it generated, that I needed to write to get them out. Later, I became exhausted and run down, and had no room left to write. The energy of living each day; working as a doctor; caring for children’s schooling; worrying about other family members, wore me down and by the winter of 2020 I was a shell of myself, that needed refilling. I ended up taking some time off work to refuel and reflect.

Since then I have slowly built myself back up. A new job in Substance Misuse, time with friends and family as the pandemic allowed, meditation and running have all played their part. I have focused on wellness and the care of family, despite the on-going losses and pain in our world. 2021 brought changes with the new school year and it has been hard settling the children back to education after over a year of disruption. The pandemic has taken it’s toll on everyone, particularly on our older teenagers and we have been beset by various family issues, which have added to the stress.

As the country and hopefully the world appear to emerge from the pandemic, my life feels more in equilibrium, however it’s long-lasting effects shouldn’t be shrugged off. I still feel sad if I think about the effects too much. The world around me seem to have forgotten the heart-ache, but I still feel odd going into stores without a mask to protect me from covid and the world’s gaze. We seem to be pretending that everything is back to normal and that the pandemic didn’t happen. The truth is that it has had it’s impact on all of us psychologically and covid itself is here to stay. We are just hoping and praying that another bad wave of a worse variant won’t come.

We have all suffered losses and we don’t recover from these easily. I see it each day in my work as a GP. Duty doctor sessions are full of mental health issues now. We are collectively groaning under the strain of change and bereavement. There is a grief on our hearts that is not spoken of, but is there none the less. Other world events don’t help. War in the Ukraine is on-going and we feel the sadness of it, but are powerless to do much to help. Gas, fuel and electric bills are going up and it is not clear where or when they will stop. Yet in comparison to those in war- torn countries, we feel lucky, and guilty that we have our own struggles, which don’t seem so bad.

I don’t have the answers, but I guess the one thing we can hold onto, whatever our faith or background, is that we ARE in this together. We are the human race, beautiful, flawed, adaptive and somehow, if we pull together in love and faith, acknowledging that life will not be quite the same again and not trying to brush this under the carpet, we will get through this.