we’re coming up on one year in a global pandemic.
the other day, a friend passed along these reminders from their therapist:
“… so that you can anchor yourself in how exceptional these life circumstances are right now for nearly everyone: that traumatic stress takes a toll, that new trauma brings forward old trauma, which means that everything gets magnified, that grief is a normative and healthy reaction to trauma and loss, so you will notice it coming up more the longer this pandemic goes on and perhaps even more so once we sense the virus' containment, that regression is an instinctive reaction to uncertainty/change/transition/fear but also how we conserve our energy before growth, and that the social isolation and circadian rhythm (ie, sleep) disruption of winter along with the myth that most of us have internalized to greater or lesser extent of a ‘new year’ being a ‘new beginning’ or a ‘clean slate’ exacerbates rather than relieves symptoms when it feels like just a continuation of the same.”
i pass this along in the hopes that it takes some of the pressure off, as it did for me.