One year: living through a pandemic

We hit a milestone​ ​today. In a year that no one could have predicted (beside perhaps epidemiologists and other infectious diseases experts), we have been forced to live through a collective trauma. 

Not in my lifetime, or those of my friends, have we dealt with such despair. We have not personally lived through a war, famine, global pandemic - such as the 1918 flu pandemic, or the like. We only know what it may have been like, through the stories we have been told in history class or accounts from grandparents.  We truly can not relate to such distant memories.  

Coping with such a fundamental shift in our lives has left some of us numb, hopeful for a new “normal”, tired, scared, or wishing to go back to the old “normal”.  What was thought, by some, to be a short disruption to our daily lives, turned out to be a long period of:

1. grief over job loss
2. school closures
3. sickness
4. connecting with friends through a screen
5. disconnecting when it became too much, and
6. sorrow, to name a few. 

The last few months have been the hardest for me. I often feel SAD during this time of year.  But for the first time in a long time I felt depression stirring inside. I pushed the feeling down, equating it to nothing more than a few bad days. But days turned into weeks.  Sleep was becoming harder and harder to come by.  There was no denying it anymore.  Although I had been coping rather well (by my standards) through the first 10 months, my mind was now telling my body, something is not right.  I wonder if it’s “typical” situational depression or if it’s tied to the pandemic on a deeper level. Do our bodies truly know it has been a year. Are our bodies saying, "no more". No more pretending to be OK, and no more doing things on our own and not asking for help.  I hope to explore these questions when I talk with my therapist next week.  

After living through this trauma for one year; the one thing I know, is that empathy, patience, and kindness for oneself leads to empathy, patience, and kindness towards others. And we need that more than ever as we head into another year of uncertainty. 

mnd xo 

P.S. This year showed us that collaboration is possible. The scientific community worked tirelessly to make a vaccine.  Canada has now approved four vaccines (in less than one year of the WHO declaring the COVID-19 pandemic).  The fastest vaccine ever made previous to this was by a man named Maurice Hilleman. In four years Hilleman developed the mumps vaccine. 
​"Hilleman cranked out more than 40 other vaccines over the course of his career, including 8 of the 14 routinely given to children. He arguably saved more lives than any other single person." - Radiolab