The COVID Pandemic has been like a long dark cloud that continues to overshadow our lives. The fear
and uncertainty that has been plaguing us all for over a year and a half has taken its toll.
Whatever else was going on in your life, before and during; be it a broken relationship, depression, grief, financial concerns, anxiety, loss of job/income, marital problems, or varied stressors, etc has probably been made worse by this omnipresent pandemic.
Yes, although living through a crisis such as this can build resiliency and strengthen us in the long term, you do have the right to squeak now and then your discomfort during COVID boot camp!
The majority of countries are resurfacing again from strict confinements and curfews, thanks to vaccines! For that, we can all rejoice to feel some sense of freedom again.
However, the risks of circulating variants are a reality that continues to cast shadows of uncertainty.
Unfortunately, your neurons who have suffered the intense stress of the last 18 months are exhausted, but no one really listens to them!
They don’t cause gaping wounds, weeping pustules, or physical pain. No, they are not attention-seeking, but the disturbance can be insidious. You may wonder why you are still feeling down, and anxious especially when things are seemingly better.
Uncertainty about when this whole crisis will end doesn’t help either! Seems like almost every few months, a new COVID variant is announced. Toss in the chronic fears that most of have about becoming sick only compounds everything.
Given all of the above, how in the world can you pretend you are OK? A lot of you are not feeling Ok at all, yet may seem obliged to present to the world an I am OK, you are Ok kind of mentality!
You don’t have to keep up the pretense! I expressed my concerns about Covid blues becoming an actual mental health disorder back in April 2020.
Now we have the reality of covid stress syndrome/disorder, as a proposed adjustment disorder. The totality of dimensions isn’t yet fully known.
The symptoms can overlap anxiety disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorders, and PTSD. There is already evidence that those affected have continued higher levels of anxiety, mood disturbances, and fears of being contaminated, maintaining acute avoidance and obsessive hand washing.
True, not everyone is going to be affected. It depends on multiple factors. Those who already have an inherited tendency towards mental illnesses will be more subject to feeling the impact.
Those who suffered fewer losses or who were less touched by illness during the pandemic may have weathered the crisis OK, yet I find you would have had to live in a cave to be unaffected.
Confinement, though necessary, contributed to catastrophic financial losses, losing businesses and homes all over the planet. You who have been in multiple reconfinements are wondering when in the world will this crisis ever end!
Adding to the mounds of stressors we already have are the social divides of the vaccinators versus the anti-vaxxers. The anti-vaxxers denounce any intrusion on their freedom, for various reasons.
Yet those of us who chose to be vaccinated have to waver our freedom from fear while anti-vaxxers are out there proliferating the various variants now in circulation. In doing so they are enabling the virus to keep on mutating more variants.
Some who embrace the old cowboy mentality will shrug off it, employing the old “suck it up” stance, maintaining their indifference, or conviction that they are not vulnerable.
They wear their false badges of strength or denial as a testimony to their come uppity superiority to those of us who do express concern and worry about our vulnerability.
I remain amazed that there are still many who deny the seriousness of this crisis or the need for vaccination until a family member becomes ill or dies.
I suspect the immense uncertainty that this pandemic created weighs heavily on the mood and performance of even the most disciplined and driven individuals on the planet.
A perfect case in point in my opinion was the decision by several extremely talented and famous athletes, to refuse to participate in some of the Olympics or other competitions for mental health reasons.
I highly commend them for their courage to have done so. Their withdrawals helped call attention to the importance of mental health and its impact on performance.
Living in Europe, I am aware that this continent has suffered from multiple extremely deadly plagues and wars. Life goes on and the survivors pick up their lives amid sorrow, losses, and misery.
I am an optimist and like every other trial and tribulation humankind has faced, we too will overcome this crisis, with more wisdom and need for prevention.
Hopefully, we will have learned from the experience and will add another notch of resiliency and strength to our character and instill hope in the next generations to come.
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Dear Cherry,
My admiration for your optimism is high and I wish you’re right with your hopes. Personally I’m rather pessimistic when I read all crazy fakes on the net. I’ll just mention Schiller’s sentence in one of his theatre plays: “Even Gods fight unsuccessfully against human stupidity”.
(Gegen Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens / Die Jungfrau von Orleans)…
Hugs
Georges
Thank you George for your comment! I like Schiller’s sentence and agree it is really difficult to fathom human stupidity.
Your English is always impressive as well as your fluency in multiple languages! A true polyglot!
Hugs
Hi Cherry,
As a retiree, the pandemic has created some inconveniences, esp. in regard to traveling anywhere since so many places have been shut down. Otherwise we are just contending with it all. However for my younger working neighbors and their children, the pandemic has had a more severe impact. June and I are doing wll . . . and she is going on a “girls trip to New Orleans in a couple of weeks; and they just announced cancellation of the Jazz Festival in N.O. for the second year.
In Broward County where we live, there have been over 235,000 new cases in the last month; and over 600 deaths. It sort of staggers one’s imagination that something like 98% of the cases are people who had not gotten the vaccinations.
The vaccination shots are FREE and readily available. Aside from the devastating health (and death) impact, it defies imagination that people continue to refuse to be vaccinated. They were just saying that medical costs (indebtedness) is now the highest category of indebtedness in the U.S. People who refuse to be vaccinated run the potential risks of possible exorbitant medical costs that are not covered by their medical insurance. That can be a financial disaster; many people wind up filing for bankruptcy and/or losing their homes because of medical expenses.
The dire health impact is bad enough, then add to that the potential financial risks, and to me, it becomes rather irrational for anyone to choose to not be vaccinated for FREE and to refuse to wear facial masks. Frankly I really can’t feel any empathy for people who refuse to be vaccinated or to wear masks. Can’t help those who refuse to be helped.
Thank you David for keeping me posted on COVID in South Florida. How sad to read about the ongoing deaths because of non-nonvaxxers. Like you, it is difficult to comprehend why anyone would choose to risk getting sick and possibly dying!
I am very grateful to modern science that we do have vaccines and that I was able to be vaccinated!
As long as we have non-vaxxers, we are subject to more and more variants.
When their personal freedom to remain unvaccinated threatens the well-being of their families and the public at large, I can only conclude a very selfish and narcissistic motive.
Cherry, I’m so lucky I got out of the mainstream of Society when cancer hit me . When I was getting chemo and my immune system was so low I was so worried about covid it definitely affected me mentally on top of already being depressed about cancer. I got vaccinated as soon as I could.
But I could not get Robin to get it because her boss said there needs to be more research on it first .l told her no body has died or in the hospital from the shot. Well everyone in her office caught covid.
Robin spent one week in the hospital and a week at home on oxygen . Now she ready to get the shot.
Even tho I got vaccinated I still wear a mask whenever I have to get out. I prefer to just stay home .
I believe that staying home so much and I’m feeling so much better because of the antidepressants I take.
That I will soon will get cabin fever and get even more depressed .
The people in Louisiana just wont get the shot .i don’t understand.
The governor offered a million dollars raffle all you had to do is get vaccinated and that still didn’t work .
Louisiana is still the lowest vaccinated in the country. That’s definitely depressing.
Only 37 percent of Louisianians have been vaccinated. And it’s FREE I just don’t understand!
I uses to think don’t worry be happy 😃 because every little thing is going to be alright.
Well that’s hard to believe anymore. Not to even mention the gun shooting and killing in Shreveport everyday.its not safe here anymore.
Isham, I am always touched that you take the time to comment during your difficult convalescence. I am happy that you are feeling better and also that you chose to be vaccinated!
I wasn’t aware that Robin had COVID. Fortunately, she has recovered and will get vaccinated to ensure immunity.
Louisiana is inoculated with so much misinformation, crazy conspiracy theories from QAnon, etc, that I am not surprised about the low vaccination rate.
The chronic violence plaguing the US is just one reason I prefer to live in France. I hope you will soon be able to travel again to all places you love and would long to visit! Hugs