Disclaimer: This is NOT a discussion about post-COVID fatigue from a patient perspective. If that is what you are looking for, keep scrolling.
In case you spent the last eighteen months on a deserted island or under a rock, the world has experienced the far-reaching impacts of a pandemic since March 2020.
According to the CDC, “coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is a respiratory disease caused by SARS-CoV-2. The virus is thought to spread mainly from person to person through respiratory droplets produced when an infected person coughs, sneezes, or talks.”
COVID vaccinations became available first to healthcare workers in December 2020 and then to the public in stages in early 2021. Since the arrival of COVID, our lives, and those of the rest of the world, have changed dramatically. How we play, work, travel, worship, and educate changed. Parents faced, and continue to face, an abundance of decisions related to these changes.
On a more personal level and for perspective purposes, I am a stay-at-home mom of four, ages 24, 23, 20, and 16, and a career volunteer. My husband is in healthcare, and my youngest child is on the autism spectrum. Our older children started the pandemic in college or graduate school. Since then, two transitioned into the working world, and the other is still in college.
The normal “mom worries” were compounded by the pandemic conditions. I do not believe I realized, until just recently, how much COVID impacted my little world or me personally. To be honest, my immediate family has been very fortunate. While we have known of some COVID cases, we have experienced no deaths. However, I have watched friends and family lose close friends and loved ones to this wretched disease.
In March 2020, when I complained about the two-week emergency shutdown for COVID, I never dreamed that COVID would still impact our daily lives eighteen months later.
My family chose to vaccinate (all of us) as soon as we could. Both to protect our family and those around us. So, earlier this summer, as the world began to reopen, I allowed myself to think and dream of a world without COVID.
The Delta variant said, “Think again.”
And here we are, masking, social distancing, arguing with those who see things differently than we do…it feels like deja vu. It’s exhausting. The daily decisions about masking, distancing, attending work or staying home, virtual or in-person school, soap or hand sanitizer begin to add up.
Is COVID-related stress impacting our physical and mental health?
I think so. I believe I am suffering from COVID-fatigue or decision fatigue. I find myself struggling to find the words to describe an object or situation. For the life of me, I cannot decide what to prepare for dinner.
I am tired. Not sleepy. Tired.
In the essence of full disclosure, I am 51 years old, and this could be old age, but I think there is more to it.
In conversations with my young mom friends and older mom friends, I find this common thread–COVID fatigue.
The pivots required when any one of us experiences either a positive test or just an exposure are limitless. Schedules change immediately. Children isolate from their parents or siblings. Work comes home if it can. College move-ins are delayed. There are “simple” pivots for those who can be treated for COVID at home. Unfortunately, for those who are hospitalized or who have a family member hospitalized, the pivots are compounded.
The lyrics from “The Sound of Music” song “Maria” roll through my mind: “How do you solve a problem like Maria?”
How do you solve a problem like COVID? The words actually work with the tune. Try it; singing can be therapeutic.
How do we recover from this fatigue? Because COVID is not going anywhere.
I need to make peace with that first.
Then, I need to get back to the basics: daily time for my faith, meal plan, exercise, and set realistic expectations. Realistic expectations for myself and of others. Find ways to be there for my friends and family who are experiencing this same fatigue.
Do what I can in my world to make life better for my family, friends, and the community at large.
I encourage you to do the same.
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