Writer Ed Yong Looks At “The Pandemic’s Mental Wounds”

BIANNA GOLODRYGA: We’re hearing a lot about logistics, right? We’re not necessarily hearing about how we come back emotionally. Why was it so important for you to talk and delve into this issue here?

ED YONG, “THE ATLANTIC”: I had heard from so many people that they were excited about getting back into the world. I think we have all been looking forward to this moment for the last year-and-a-half. But they expected to feel great and actually were hitting a wall. A lot of them were feeling — are more upset than they had been for the last year- plus. And when I talked to experts who study trauma and how communities deal with it, they said that this is common, that this is actually very, very, very common. So, people often, when the adrenalin calms down and they get a chance to recollect themselves, they get moments to reflect on everything that’s happened to them. And those reflections can be deeply painful. They finally get a chance to actually understand how hard and difficult and full of stress and hurt the last year-plus has been. And that can be very damaging, especially if you’re not expecting it to take such a toll, at a moment when you feel like you should be joyful.

GOLODRYGA: And you encapsulate that so well in this one sentence in the piece: “If you have been swimming furiously for a year, you don’t expect to finally reach dry land and feel like you’re drowning.” And yet so many people are at that place now. They’re at the dry land. They have made it. They have been vaccinated, but they have been through hell. And, for many, it still feels as if they’re still grasping for air in the ocean.

YONG: Yes, absolutely. A lot of people I spoke to said that, often, even incredibly hypercompetent people who are used to dealing with a very regular amount of daily stress are finding this moment hard, and, again, confused because they’re finding it hard. That could be anyone from teachers, parents, to health care workers, doctors and nurses, people who are very used to handling adversity, but are still struggling with the aftermath of everything that we have gone through. And that could be things ranging from the death of a loved one, to the loss of a job, through just the constant levels of fear and anxiety and uncertainty about our future that have overwhelmed us for the last 14 months.