How are you feeling these days? Many people I know are dealing with a mixture of: (a) happiness to have many things getting back to "normal" after pandemic restrictions have eased, but also (b) weariness and stress from the lingering effects of a very challenging year.
Lucy McBride, a practicing internist in Washington, DC has a word this -- and, in fact, offers it as a specific diagnosis: burnout. Psychology Today describes burnout this way: Burnout is a state of emotional, mental, and often physical exhaustion brought on by prolonged or repeated stress. Though it’s most often caused by problems at work, it can also appear in other areas of life, such as parenting, caretaking, or romantic relationships.
In a
recently published article in The Atlantic, McBride picks up on that understanding of burnout. She says that to this point, "
burnout" has usually been thought of in connection to job-related stress. Places like the World Health Organization, and Mayo Clinic
have stated that it "is not classified as a medical condition."
Here is what McBride says:
"I beg to differ. The symptoms of burnout have become medical. The work of living through a pandemic has been making us sick. As a primary-care doctor, I’m witnessing the physical-health toll of collective trauma ... And this has been before many people have returned to the office or resumed their pre-pandemic schedules."
(more on that later)
"Now is the time to redefine burnout as the mental and physical fallout from accumulated stress in ANY sphere of life, whether that’s work, parenting, caregiving, or managing chronic illness. To muster the energy for reentry into non-pandemic life, people need more than a vaccine and a vacation; they need validation of their experience, a broader reckoning with how they lived before March 2020, and tools to dig out from more than a year of
trauma."
What follows are further insights from the article, mixed in with my own thoughts:
Americans were flirting with symptoms of burnout well before the pandemic. The combination of hustle culture, toxic stress, and poor access to affordable health care conspired to make Americans among the least healthy populations in wealthy countries. Diseases of despair -- including depression, anxiety, PTSD, and addiction -- were already rampant. I've written about this in
other places.
Living through COVID-19 brought the simmering pot to a boil. By stripping our emotional reserves even further, the pandemic has laid bare our unique vulnerabilities—whether medical, social, emotional, occupational, or logistical. Every aspect of life has required added work during the pandemic.
The mental-health crisis of the pandemic is real. Listen to these statistics -- again from the Atlantic article:
- A staggering four in 10 adults have reported symptoms of anxiety and depression, a quadrupling of the pre-pandemic rate.
- More than one in four mothers reported that the pandemic has had a major impact on their mental health.
- Twenty-four percent of parents have reported being diagnosed with a mental-health disorder since the start of the pandemic.
BUT: things are probably going to get worse ...
Here's what McBride says:
"The full array of suffering has yet to completely present itself. The available data show that traumatic events and the related upheaval directly affect our individual and collective mental health. Studies on major life disruptions—natural disasters, epidemics, civil unrest—show that the burden of mental illness increases afterward."
That last sentence is what scares me. Studies show that "the burden of mental illness increases" after major life disruptions.
Knowing this, let's be ready. To be honest, I've expected, both for myself and others, that there would be a simple upward trajectory of well-being in the aftermath of the pandemic. This article, and the research it points to, suggests that the reality might not be so simple. So keep these things in mind:
- Don't be surprised -- or get down on yourself -- if you find that you don't "bounce right back" in your sense of peace, energy, and happiness. This might take a while, and the road may still be bumpy.
- Get help if you need it. There's no need to try to get through these mental health challenges by yourself.
- Turn to God and to spiritual resources to help you through challenging times. That's what I'm trying to emphasize in my YouTube channel. When thought of and practiced rightly, our spiritual life is a source of healing, strength, and resilience in our mental health.
