Are We There Yet?
Image taken 12-21-2013 San Francisco Bay
Hello all. I briefly mentioned fatigue in my last post and thought that might be a good topic to cover. I think we can all agree we are tired of this year and sick to death of COVID-19 measures. One thing that is easy to observe is that people can get used to nearly anything. We may not like it and we may complain about it, but we can get used to just about anything. Take this year. Changes have happened rapidly and we all dipped and dodged and moved our offices home and quit going out in the community. We spoke in hushed voices about how scary it was and what we were expecting to happen. Then when it wasn’t over by May, we all started to get restless. Summer began and we got almost itchy. We wanted to go back to old things like traveling and going to the pool and having parties and going to fairs. Much of that didn’t happen and most of us were able to more or less take it in stride. And then cases of COVID began to climb again. And most of us took notice and then went back to what we were doing. My point is, when you spend all your time in a heightened state due to anxiety or fear, eventually you kind of become numb to it. I think it is safe to say people have gotten a little lax of late. And that is human nature. We have lived like this for long enough it has become kind of old hat and so we do it. And then we are so over it, we might take a risk that in April we would never have taken. This is the fatigue I am talking about. It is so overwhelming that after awhile it short circuits your panic and though it’s always a low hum, it isn’t the giant sirens going off any more. And we all just feel tired. Tired of being vigilant and tired of having to worry about if we are taking our lives into our hands to get a bite to eat. My point in cringing this up is to tell you that I think it is very normal. People have a large capacity to absorb circumstances. That is what we are experiencing now. I would encourage you to hang in there. Talk to your support people and check in with yourself to see how you are holding up. Engage in your relaxation techniques and use your coping mechanisms. Do the things you can to make this time as palatable as possible, but don’t give up on being safe and on getting through this. On the other side of this is a light and in that light we will find our new normal.
