Delayed stress reaction to the pandemic (keyworker/frontline worker)

[pastabest]

Anyone else having this?

Recently I keep becoming tearful anytime anyone mentions the early months of the pandemic.

I won't go into details but DH and I are both keyworkers/frontline, we had no access to childcare because the DCs were both too young for school and weren't accessing formal childcare pre pandemic.

In hindsight I should have asked to be excused from work due to childcare (public sector so couldn't be furloughed) but I didn't want to let colleagues or service users down.

I now feel a bit panicky whenever anyone mentions anything about it. I cry in the car if anything comes on the radio about the first few months of the pandemic. I deliberately avoid anything on Tv that might reference it but if it does come up I end up sobbing.

I think I'm just trying to gauge if this is a 'thing' or if it's an extension of some undiagnosed PND or something. I'm mostly happy and functioning until someone mentions the first lockdown.

At the time it was 'bad' but I coped. 12 months on, I'm really struggling to talk about it even with family without getting tearful.

@AnyFucker

I can relate

I find I am coping less well than I thought I was at the time

I was redeployed to COVID ICU during the 1st wave. Initially it was all about the team pulling together but the relentless 12 hour shifts, 2 days on/2 days off, never getting a proper respite, constant feeling of doom took its toll on me. I was taken out of my usual work pattern and thrown into another, with colleagues often 30 years younger than me, and expected to cope. I appeared to at the time.

When the 2nd wave in November came along I had to speak up and say I could not do it again but of course you feel guilty you are not pitching in with the team. It meant I was doing more virtual stuff which as said previously is a massive stressor in itself.

I feel I will never be the same again which sounds dramatic but it is true. I totally understand how you are feeling. At least I don’t have young children… I don’t know how you managed. I do know we dif manage but not without a massive toll on mental and physical health. I am crying now at work, just reading this thread. Unseen, unacknowledged and still the presssures of waiting lists and getting back to “normal” in the NHS will burn us out before too long.

I've just had time to read the thread properly and lots of people have put it better than me but particularly AnyFucker really sums it up, covid has taken something from me but I'm not allowed to openly grieve or complain, it's seen as a weakness if I say 'no'.

But my resilience has gone. I'm coping absolutely fine at work but only if there aren't any more bumps or lockdowns. If there is I will seriously consider leaving, I'm an experienced senior member of staff, I love my job usually and this isn't me.

Unseen, unacknowledged and still the presssures of waiting lists and getting back to “normal” in the NHS will burn us out before too long

yes. The country is wanting to 'get back to normal' just as those of us who have helped get to this point are emerging from the fog of pandemic working bleary eyed and battle scarred and tired.

I fee the same, I went from a frontline patient facing role to working from home phoning vulnerable people who really needed visits. Little contact with colleagues so felt isolated.
I have 3dcs and home schooled them throughout, it was awful telling them they couldn't live their usual lives and separation from close family was hard on them. My teenager found it really tough and now has issues with constant usage of sanitiser and anti bacterial spray.
I found the early days of the pandemic really difficult and had regular panic attacks and high anxiety levels. It has been traumatic and this thread has me in tears thinking about how it all unfolded.

I seemed to cope better as time went on but generally feel quite numb now.

I can very much sympathise. I found the first wave very difficult in retrospect although at the time I just "got on with it". I felt lucky that I got to leave the house to go to work - it must have been so hard having to work with small children around.
I remember stripping off my clothes in our front porch and hoping none of the neighbours would see, and carrying my phone in a sandwich bag and cleaning it at my doorstep - seems ridiculous to me now but I was worried I would make my children or husband ill.
We had to go in to self isolation literally days before the country went in to lockdown and I worried we would not be able to get food in.
My marriage has been stretched to breaking point and I feel terrible for my kids whilst also knowing so many children will have had it worse.

We did get offered a group debrief session through work and that helped a bit. I also have semi regular personal counselling for other reasons and have talked a bit about things. But the most helpful thing for me has been talking to another colleague regularly through whatsapp voice notes. Just being able to voice my thoughts and be heard.
I can only hope we do not have a third wave.

I can totally relate as well. I am not in the UK but RoI but very similar experience. Redeployment initially into covid testing services, and i do have young children one of whom has ASD. Jan and Feb of this year pushed me to the brink of my sanity. All schools and preschools closed again for everyone irrespective of SEN or where parents worked. Trying to home school while looking after my younger child with ASD and keep up my own healthcare job was just hell. I won't do it again I just wont put any of us through it. We got no or minimal cover for our regular caseloads while we were redeployed and are now expected to tackle the backlog and irate service users. I still try and do my best for service users but my relationship with my public service employer is forever changed. I won't go the extra mile like that ever again I just don't have it to give anymore. Family comes first from now on.

I'm sorry your feeling like this OP. But I can totally relate.

My DSIS died of cancer last year. The first few months of the pandemic were horrendous because she was terminally ill on top of everything else going on in the world. I won't bore you with my personal perspective of it all. She died in August. Its been a fucking shit 18 months. Absolutely fucking shit.

But today, I started crying because my DC how has to isolate. DH and I were meant to be having a nice romantic weekend away and now we can't. I'm absolutely miserable.

I won't go the extra mile like that ever again I just don't have it to give anymore. Family comes first from now on

Yes.

Then I also get angry that swathes of women who have been propping up public services on the back of their own compassion and goodwill for decades, up and down the country, probably feel exactly the same.

Why have they done this to us?

Nhs here too.

I know exactly what you are going through, as I'm having the same feelings myself.
I can't think about last year, it's too much. It was so hard, the fear everyday of going into work knowing how shit it was going to be, worrying if I'd bring covid home, and how I'd have so much guilt if I did.

Also crying my eyes out watching greys anatomy, it's too real, and too raw.

I still have a tight feeling in my chest whenever anyone says about there being another lockdown. Because I just don't think I can do it all again, and it's making me teary even just writing that down

That is helpful Wisteria

Yes, that is a great post Wisteria