How Do I Return to Life After Covid?
Returning to life after a pandemic is confusing, to say the least.
We weren’t meant to live alone, without extended family, teachers, neighbors we see a few times a week, coworkers, store clerks, the mail carrier... How we feel in the social isolation mandated by a deadly pandemic no one expected or planned for, is how our brains and bodies respond to a prolonged and abnormal stressful situation.
One of the results of this is that moms and caretakers who are home with the children day after day get worn down, lose their resilience, can’t bounce back like before. Without a clear end in sight, we can’t expend the effort to do anything except just get through every day. Although this is an expected and “normal” response to prolonged stress, it can easily cause the development of mood and anxiety disorders.
We already know that women in the years of having/raising children are more likely to develop these disorders, outside of a pandemic—due to biochemical, social, psychological and other factors. But what we are seeing now is a significant spike in how often moms and caretakers with primary responsibility for kids at home are developing mood and anxiety outside of the “normal.”
It may show itself as irritability, a shorter than usual temper, not enjoying the small things that used to make us smile, not feeling available to anyone for anything for days at a time, and even fear of what happens when/if this pandemic ends.
We are permanently social creatures, deriving so much that we aren’t even aware of from the numerous daily interactions with friends, family and acquaintances, yet maybe we find ourselves worrying about how or if we can get back to that—excessive worrying can get in the way of moving forward and regaining our social selves. Despite the many times I’ve heard “I’ve been training for social isolation for years!” I don’t believe any of us crave it the way we need and are meant to have social connections.
As we move into another phase of COVID, so many questions arise, so many worries bubble up—what’s right? School from home? Hybrid school? Expand my family pod? Planning a weekend trip? Can I get my nails done or take the kids to the play ground without bringing hand sanitizer? Why isn’t that person wearing a mask? Who can I trust and why don’t the vaccines fix everything????
We cannot get back to being social without feeing resilient, able to trust our instincts, being able to smile at my kid’s crude drawing of the robin in a tree. Remote video platforms (Zoom, Google Groups, FaceTime, whatever) give us an opportunity to start talking about this together—and talking about things together is so much what we need right now!
The Postpartum Wellness Center (PWCB) is offering a Facebook Live series for anyone interested in talking about this together. They will be part informative, part questioning, part listening, part seeing what our community needs to move through this phase of the pandemic. The talks will be led by our therapists, our multi-disciplinary staff, and me, PWCB psychiatrist, with different topics as the focus for each talk.
Look for details in the next weeks and just “stop by” and give it a chance. If you need more, call us at (303)955-6809.
We need to take care of ourselves and each other.