The Trauma that Remains: Healing after the Pandemic
There is a new sense of hope about the end of the coronavirus pandemic coming with the news of the promising development of a COVID-19 vaccine. That hope is a wonderful thing, especially as a third wave of the virus transmission hits major cities in the US and around the world, closing schools and restaurants once again.
For many, the pandemic has been more than a little bit overwhelming; it has been a prolonged period of stress and isolation. People feel completely out of control in their lives with shutdowns, lockdowns, curfews, school and work closures, re-openings, and closures again. Constantly changing routines and and unpredictable boundaries give people a sense of dread and gloom. On top of that, we haven’t gotten together with most of our friends and families, or traveled to beloved places in many months. We all want this to be over. Most of us are chomping at the bit for a vaccine, an effective treatment, a reason to get life back to “normal.”
But we need to face an unfortunate truth here: life for many is not going to be normal again for a long time. Even if we all get vaccinated, can effectively treat COVID-19, and can fully reopen the world, we will be different. “Normal” us, with our “normal” lives, and our “normal” brains will have changed. We will not be the same.
Over the course of the pandemic, the world has faced a prolonged traumatic event; each one of us as individuals, and all of us as a collective whole (well, most of us at least). Trauma changes the brain: not only the thoughts and memories, but the physical brain - the neurotransmitters and the connectivity of different regions. Sometimes we are aware of these changes in our thought patterns and reactive behaviors; some of us can feel our heart race and our muscles tighten when we run out of toilet paper, when there are people standing too close to us, when someone walks by without a mask on. But other times we are very much unaware of the effects of trauma and it comes to the surface in strange and surprising ways: through intrusive thoughts that may or may not actually be related to COVID, new and heightened fear responses to coughs or sneezes, COVID nightmares (or nightmares that aren’t about COVID at all), pauses in our breathing when other people walk by, excessive sleeping, changes in eating patterns, jaw clenching, issues concentrating and attending, etc.
It is possible for these changes in our brains and bodies to be with us for a long time - and perhaps an even longer time if they are happening in the developing brains and bodies of children. Trauma is very impactful to the growing body - brain included. Sometimes you can see these signs of distress and anxiety right away (read this post to learn more about those signs in children), but sometimes it takes a long time for these types of traumas to surface, making understanding their route causes and treating them even more challenging.
We have seen these types of mass traumas (when many people are experiencing a similarly traumatic event) throughout our history, in response to wars, acts of terror, and natural disasters. Like some other types of mass traumas, this disease seems to affect anyone at seemingly any time doing normal daily activities, we do not understand it, we can barely predict it, and we don’t know what it will do to us individually - it could be devastating.
These individual experiences of trauma should not be overlooked. However, the fact that we have all experienced this together could help us in our healing process: we were never alone, even though we were more alone than ever. This is the important take-away message of the pre-released children’s book When the World Closed, which was written to help children navigate their emotions and reignite their positive imaginations during and after the coronavirus pandemic. (Check it out here!) Reading books like this one is a great step in beginning the conversations about the feelings and experiences of this time. It will help build resilience in children and give them a renewed sense of hope.
Talking about our shared experiences and supporting one another through our individual and collective challenges will be among the first steps in healing the trauma of a global pandemic that has affected all of our lives in some way or another. As long as the pandemic continues, the trauma and stress surrounding it continues as well. While we can watch for the warning signs of trauma, stress, and anxiety in our bodies and the behaviors of those we love, it will likely be after it is over that the deeper healing can really begin.
We can persevere through stress. We can treat traumas like these. We can grow resilience: as individuals and as a community. We can be okay; our children can be okay. There is hope, and there is help.
