Five Years On from COVID

17^th April 2025

Five years ago we were in the middle of the first COVID lockdown. It’s quite common now to hear people say, ‘It all seems like a bad dream’. But for many of us the effects of that ‘bad dream’ are still with us. We suffered losses that will be with us for ever and yet daily life has returned to a new ‘normal’ because it’s had to. We’ve put on our coping faces and got on with things. Sometimes it feels as though what we went through has been forgotten or pushed under the carpet by those around us – or even by us. Yet we can suddenly be caught unawares, overwhelmed by a memory. People all over the place are holding in grief, resentment, despair, regrets. Some are just feeling that we haven’t really recovered but we don’t know why.

There hasn’t been a great deal of recognition or support for those who lost loved ones very suddenly (or over many weeks in ICU) without being able to say a proper goodbye or to hold a proper funeral. There has been little to mark the extreme sacrifices of health workers and key workers who lost their lives or colleagues, contracted COVID or lived apart from their very young children for weeks on end to care for others. There has been perhaps even less sympathy for those who lost businesses or income and for those who found that long, scary weeks of isolation had a lasting effect on their mental health. Yet all these are highly traumatic events.

Many of us have unresolved issues from that time. Whatever happened, happened. Events cannot be changed. But a chance to reflect on it, to express how we feel about it, to speak unspoken words or to cry as-yet unshed tears can help us find new ways of moving forward. Some of us are only too aware of the burden we carry from those years; others of us may not quite realise the extent of the grief or anger or trauma we are carrying because of what happened to us or what we saw and had to do. It can be very difficult to bring the subject up with family or colleagues.

If you would be helped by a chance to explore your feelings in a safe, confidential way contact us at http://drcs.org.uk

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