Today is the most gloriously beautiful day.  It’s warm, the sun is shining, the birds are singing, and the tree outside my window has tiny green buds on it.  Spring is here.

This tends to be the time of year when our collective mental health starts to improve.  People start to feel better in the spring.  It’s not universal, but in general, moods start to lift when the days get longer.

I haven’t seen that yet this year.

In fact, I’ve never seen so many people struggling so much.  I’ve had more clients in crisis in the last month than at any other point in my career.

All the mental health research in the last year and a half points to one conclusion:  overall, our mental health is worse than it has ever been.  It seems to be hitting young adults the hardest, but people of every age group are consistently reporting more symptoms of anxiety and depression and more thoughts of self-harm.  Addictions are on the rise.

The rates were concerning in 2019.  They are terrifying now.

I know that people fall all over the spectrum in how they think about COVID and how they have reacted to it.  I know that COVID and the shutdowns have impacted people in such a wide variety of ways.  But, when it comes to our mental health, no matter what your opinions or specific experiences, the past year has had a major impact.

We’ve all been impacted, yet it feels like we should be over it. We should be adjusted to the changes or we should be past them.  We should have found our “new normal” (oh, how I hate that phrase) or gone back to our old normal.   At the very least, we should be hopeful and enthusiastic.

And yet so many people are feeling depressed, anxious, exhausted, and overwhelmed.  So many people are feeling weary and disconnected from themselves and others.

I see it over and over again; I feel it myself.  There’s this tension we keep running up against.  On one hand, there is hope everywhere.  Spring is here, the weather is improving, vaccines are becoming more plentiful.  On the other hand, there are still so many decisions to wade through and nothing feels normal.  Still.  Nothing feels normal.

How do we go back? How do we grieve the many, many losses of this year?  What do we do with the knowledge of how many lives and families are permanently changed?  How do we grieve what we missed, what we are still missing?  How do we engage relationships that have been deeply impacted by the tension and turmoil of the last year?  How do we make decisions from our family that may be so different from the decisions that people we love are making?

We aren’t the same as we were a year ago; the world is not the same.  We have the weight of collective grief and fear and anger and uncertainty to carry.  In a very significant way, we have the weight of trauma on our shoulders.

What do we do now?

We need to acknowledge and accept exactly where we are at.  We need to allow ourselves to feel exactly what we feel.  When we feel hopeful, we can accept that hope, and experience it, without letting fear of disappointment shut it down.  When we feel grief, we can hold that grief, allowing space and time for experiencing and expressing our sadness and loss.  When we feel uncertainty and tension and fear, we can acknowledge it without shame or judgement.  When we feel hope and sadness and fear and uncertainty all at once, we can acknowledge and hold them all at once.

We can give ourselves time and space.  The world changed abruptly, but it is going to take time for our emotional and mental health to recover.

We can take really good care of ourselves, prioritizing sleep and movement and nurturing food.  We can gently excuse ourselves from things that drain and deplete us.

We need to know that we are not alone.  It’s not just you who feels exhausted, unmotivated, and not yourself.  It’s not only you who finds your patience wearing thin, your reserves depleted, your fuse shortened.  It’s not only you who feels like you’re not quite the self you used to be, or the self you want to be.

This is a system-level issue.  This is all of us.  And no matter where you fall politically or socially, it has impacted all of us.  We cannot ignore or minimize the impact the last years’ events have had on us as a society.  We all will need time and space and care to heal.  And it will be better for all of us if we extend grace and gentleness to ourselves and to each other.  If we recognize that we are all struggling, and extend extra kindness  and compassion.

This is trauma, and the way we care for ourselves now will determine what happens next.  We will come out of this season forever altered. There is no way around it. I hope that the change is in the direction of post-traumatic growth.   I hope this vulnerability and pain and disruption will shape us into brighter, bolder, more empathic and loving humans.  I hope this stress and anxiety will teach us to ask for and receive help and to help each other.

We need to treat ourselves and each other with same tenderness and caution as someone who has gone through something hard and painful and scary.  Because we all have; we all are.  This is a system-level issue, and we are all impacted.  Give yourself time and space to heal.  If you are hurting, ask for help.  Find a therapist, call your pastor, talk to a friend.  Do not think it’s just you, and do not think you need to be alone.