One-Year Pandemic Anniversary (…a panniversary?)
We are quickly approaching what many people are considering to be some kind of morbid milestone: The one year anniversary of lockdown. What we hoped (naively?) would be just two weeks, then a month, through December, is has turned into a solid year of uncertainty, anxiety, information overload, and still more uncertainty.
To say it has been exhausting is an understatement.
Many of my colleagues and clients are starting to bring this up in meetings and sessions. Bottom line: People are having feelings about the one-year mark. The anniversary is bleak reminder of how long we have been enduring this forced new normal. And yet is continues. We remain socially distant from family members, we have put off mourning people and experiences that were lost to us this year, we are still unsure about new strains, new surges, and when it will all be moderately under control. We are unsure what the post-pandemic world will look like, a fact that many people have yet to accept.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, some places are starting to open up more, triggering an entirely new barrage of emotions. We have experienced daily, sometimes hourly reminders that being around other people right now can be fatal, and that is taking a toll on our psyche that will not easily fade. Make no mistake about it. This is a collective traumatic experience, and many, many people will have legitimate PTSD even after the masks disappear.
I hear so often frustrations that people are still struggling with their daily lives, as if it somehow is a criticism of their psychological flexibility. Being a year into this experience does not mean we should be acclimated to it. Our brains have undergone hundreds of thousands of years of evolution to believe that being part of a community is important for survival. Our cave-dwelling ancestors learned that if they band together, the could share resources and more easily face threats from wild animals. That need is still embedded deep in our primitive brains. So while rationally we understand the need to distance right now, our brains simply cannot accept that we have gone a year without much social interaction. From a physiological point of view, the lack of touch, companionship, hugging, and cuddling, is wreaking havoc on chemicals in our brain. Serotonin and oxytocin, neurotransmitters that make us feel good, regulate our stress, help us feel comforted, connected, and bonded, depend on gentle physical touches. With that experience ripped away from us right now, our brains are struggling to maintain healthy levels of those chemicals. We are surviving an unnatural existence right now, an existence that would have almost guaranteed death for our ancestors. The end result is a skyrocketing increased in reports of anxiety, depression, loneliness, and substance use mental health professionals are seeing around the world.
I am here to offer a reminder that whatever you are feeling or thinking right now is perfectly valid. Personally, I have noticed I am triggered by things I didn’t expect to be an issue. I can no longer use a specific conditioner because it was in my rotation in April 2020. Smelling it brings me right back to that time, when we were so scared and so anxious. I have since said goodbye to that conditioner and moved on to other brands. I am incredibly sad, and angry, that this has felt like a lost year in so many ways.
What I keep telling myself, and what I encourage all of you to do, is both incredibly simple and difficult. We must accept our feelings. It seems counterintuitive, but acknowledging our feelings actually helps us feel more empowered. It gives us the ability to challenge irrational thoughts, identify what actually is in our control, and understand how our emotions affect our behaviors and relationships. Ignoring our feelings leads to increased inner conflict and turmoil, which can manifest in all sorts of negative ways.
So as the pandemic anniversary approaches this month, I encourage everyone to take time to recognize it. Meditate on the past year, journal about it, commiserate with friends at a Zoom happy hour, but do whatever you need to do to honor your personal experiences. You owe it to yourself.