How to Deal With Disaster Fatigue, Chronic Stress, and How to Adjust to the New Normal
By Heather Caldwell, LPCC
The last few posts in the blog series have been about exploring our capacity for happiness, the narratives around happiness, and how adverse childhood experiences may impact our ability to experience happiness as adults. While reflecting on our past experiences is an important step to understanding how we got to where we are, it’s also important to look at what’s currently happening in our lives. This post looks at current national events and how it might affect our mental health.
I woke up this morning and saw the smoke rolling in over the mountains, another day where I might need to skip spending time outside due to unhealthy air quality. I felt sad because getting outside is what helps me navigate the feelings of cabin fever that COVID has brought on, and feelings of helplessness because there’s not much I can do about it. I made some coffee and checked the BBC for news. I read a few articles following events of social and racial injustice across America. I felt a wave of emotions (sad, angry, scared) reading stories of folks suffering due to various levels of systemic oppression - lack of healthcare, racial profiling, economic loss, the list went on. Then I hopped on social media where friends in Oregon, California, and Colorado are posting fire & smoke filled images that seem more appropriate for a dystopian end-of-days horror flick, rather than views from their front windows. I felt mobilized with rage, agitated, and hopeless - How is this happening? What is happening? This can’t be real! I saw another report of raising COVID cases at another university and the entire student body being quarantined. I saw posts from parents stressing about what’s going to happen if their young children can’t go back to in-person school. I talked with another friend who is scared for the future of his black son. I got a text from a friend who is thinking about divorcing their partner and another who is single wondering how in the heck they’re supposed to date in times like these. Another friend wants to start creating a family, how could they think of it during a pandemic, during climate change, during what feels like the end of days. I wanted to respond that things would be okay, but then I read a New York Times op-ed article titled: “Stop Expecting Life to Go Back to Normal Next Year.”
I about fell out.
This article seemed to confirm my helplessness, my despair, and sent me into a state bouncing between needing to do all the things right now (hypermobilized) to not being able to do any of the things (immobilized) to why bother with anything (hypomobilized).
Is this the new normal? The overwhelming sense of anxiety, depression, despair, hopelessness? The ping-pong between all the “negative” emotions? Sure this can’t go on forever. Surely SOMETHING HAS GOT TO GIVE!
You are not alone
If this sounds familiar, you are not alone. More than likely, you are experiencing a new layer of COVID fatigue, or as the UC Davis Health Newsroom calls it: COVID Fatigue 2.0. After 6 months of COVID precautions and changing landscapes with working and schooling from home, job security, etc., many of us have found a routine or flow to make things work. ~~ Just to have something come in and mess it all up again!
Cue in: fires in the western states, hurricane season, school is back in session (or is it?), and now summer is quickly retreating and fall is approaching, bringing us more time indoors, shorter days, colder temps, and flu season.
At every step of the way, the moment we seem to figure out a new way to cope or a new routine - SOMETHING HAPPENS - that throws a wrench in the plan.
Our bodies do not react well to unpredictability.
In fact, instability triggers our limbic system - the place in our brain that helps with emotional regulation, sleep, connection and more. Furthermore, constant instability put our fight/flight response in the ON mode and can result in hypervigilance, anxiety, depression, increased somatic (body) issues, increased blood pressure, and so much more!
THE ARCH OF DISASTER NARRATIVES
Phases of Disaster
How we get though unsettling times
While it might not help resolve the reality of what’s happening, it’s important to know you are not alone - that we’re in it together. Typically, in a community disaster, there is an arc.
Heroic Phase
This phase includes both grief and loss, as well as establishes heroic spirit and communal bonding. We saw this after the September 11th bombing of the Twin Towers and after Hurricane Katrina swept through New Orleans. We also saw this at the beginning stages of COVID. We grieved loss of life as well as loss of ‘normal.’ You might think back to April and how you handled COVID then - watching the news with deep grief and trying to find the heros, as well as washing hands all the time, not going out, reading every. news. piece. available. Many of us made masks for ourselves, our friends, our community members. We offered to pick up groceries for our vulnerable neighbors. We hunkered down and kept social distance.
Honeymoon Phase
Once the disaster is over, survivors move into a honeymoon stage where they can relish feeling “alive” and over the worst of it.
But in our current situation, we haven’t crossed the threshold to the other side. We are still in it. You might have had a period where you could focus on the positive, more time with the kids, more time to discover new trails, completing some projects that have been on the to-do list for far too long. But with the fatigue of “no end in sight,” it can quickly lead to the Disillusionment Phase.
Disillusionment Phase
As the months drag on, more national disasters occur and more social and racial unrest grows - so does our resistance to compliance. We become fatigued at staying positive, and our frustration expands. In fact, you might be seeing and feeling angry! Angry that our infrastructure isn’t set up to handle what’s happening. Angry that things aren’t moving faster. Angry at more plans being canceled. Angry that things haven’t stabilized. Angry that we don’t know more. Angry that things aren’t changing fast enough or they are changing too fast.
Usually, in this phase people start to question what normal will look like. In this case, it’s not just wondering what normal will look like, but when things might start to normalize. Our bodies don’t like this unstable unpredictable space and it’s letting us know that!
Reconstruction
The final phase is reconstruction. And right now, that seems too far down the road that it’s hard to imagine.
Caught in Disillusionment & Impact of Stress
Right now, across the United States, folks are caught in the disillusionment phase. You might be reading this, nodding your head, and feeling the truth of your experience. While this phase is natural, your body is experiencing high levels of stress. This can manifest in a variety of ways, including but not limited to:
Forgetfulness
Absentmindedness
Sudden onset of fear, despair, or overwhelm
Inability to quiet the mind
Lower self-esteem
Lower or lost sex drive
Increased or decreased food consumption
Headaches
Stomach aches
Jaw tension
Back ache
Insomnia
Chronic body fatigue or increased overall body pain
Inability to focus
Increased risky behavior/poor judgement
Increased drinking, smoking, drugs
Increased fidgeting, nail biting, lip chewing
Many of the articles I found and seen shared on social media, speak to finding the sunny side of life. But with COVID fatigue 2.0, that might feel like a tall order. More importantly, it bypasses our emotional experience of what’s happening.
What To Do Now?
Practical exercises to support yourself and move though disaster and fatigue caused by chronic stress.
What to do? Practical exercises that you can do right now
The UC Davis Health Newsroom provided a great list of simple things you can do right now.
Take it day by day, or moment by moment: Staying present in the here and now can be very helpful in preventing a spiral of what’s to come or what’s happened. Just as pre-COVID, we have good days and bad days. It’s okay to have a bad day. Realize these things can come in waves and a bad day or moment is just that - one day or one moment. When you’re able to, ask: ‘What can I do to help feel better, or less bad?’ This action step doesn’t have to be big - it could be playing with your dog for 10 minutes, making a healthy meal, wearing soft slippers.
Be compassionate with yourself: None of us have gone through something like this before. Nobody prepared us for this. We’re all making this up as we go. Sometimes it’s messy. Sometimes we get it wrong. That’s okay. You’re doing the best you can with what you have.
Find things to look forward to: When the smoke clears, take a walk. Find a new or old series you love. Consider setting up Zoom game night or non-alcoholic happy hour. Sign up for yoga in the park.
Find reasons to laugh: Laughing has so many wonderful physical and physiological outcomes. Find a standup comedian online. Watch a funny movie. Talk with a friend and share jokes or funny stories.
Exercise: Exercise is by far one of the best things we can do. Get outside (when not smokey) and move your body in any way that your body can move. Try to raise your heartbeat for 30 minutes. Do yoga on your patio, terrace, or yard. Zoom with a friend and do a workout video together remotely!
Look back, but carefully: Think of how far you’ve come over the past few months. Look at all the things you’ve managed. Look at how resilient you’re becoming. Look at all small moments of success, beauty, connection, and celebration.
While their list is great, I’d like to add a few more things to the list.
Limit your media consumption: It’s okay to snooze Uncle Bob’s posts, unfriend your high school acquaintances, and stop following news outlets. It’s okay to take a media break. If your morning routine is to wake up, make coffee (stimulant), and then read the news (another stimulant), try waking and doing yoga, walking the dog, enjoying the sunrise. Set your alarm for 1 hour a day of media consumption. Create a boundary.
Be creative: Create something. Anything! Turn an old shirt into a new tank top. Cook a new meal. Take old tile scraps or broken plates and make a mosaic. The options are endless.
Explore your triggers: Some things make coping more challenging. Reflect on your daily routine and see if there are things that trigger a negative response (sending you to anger, fear, sadness). Are any of these things something you can pause doing or receive help for doing? If bedtime with the kids is hard, can you receive support from a partner, a family member, a friend?
Feel your emotions!: It’s okay to have emotions. When you feel sad, angry, fear - allow yourself to really feel them. Allow them to process through your body.
Reframe the story: If you’re in a spin, ask yourself how else the story might be told. Is there something you can appreciate about the experience or that you’re learning?
Reach out!: Talking to others and sharing your experience can help normalize what’s happening. Remember, we are all in this together. While your experience might be different than mine, we are all figuring it out as we go.
Seek support: Therapy can be helpful in discovering new tools to help you through the process. The therapists at Evolve in Nature are here to help you on your journey.