For context I'm been on meds and in therapy for years before the pandemic for anxiety, depression, and ocd and have experienced some serious traumas in my past. I didn't lose anyone in the pandemic and was never in lock down due to where I live but I feel that due to my issues in the past the pandemic affected me more than others and I feel so weak and resentful for feeling this way or almost guilty for feeling so exhausted when it nothing really happened to me. Its like this new trauma has wiped out years of progress and I feel so alone with others going about their lives while I feel like I've been hit by a freight train of emotional weight.
I had made a lot of progress and stay vigilant with my self care and things like exercise for the first two years of the pandemic. I burned out at the end of 2021. I've always wore a mask and was vigilant and did my best to care about what was I happening. I spent 2022-mid 2023 in a state of numbness and derealizaiton and dissociation. It was a bleak but a very stable time in life but the more life returned to normal the worse my anxiety became. I credit therapy for getting me through the pandemic and I'm now doing some trauma processing work and I feel like I'm waking up to a lot of pain and feeling incredibly hollow. I'm finding that the more trauma I process the more pain I'm uncovering. In regards to masking I used to feel like you do you and I'll do me but lately I feel so angry that even though people come into the office with covid and without a mask. that no one else seems to care. I feel like even though life looks like it did pre pandemic nothing feels the same. I'm finding myself incredibly irritable, feeling left behind by life, and pressured by others to just "bounce back" or do what I used to do or be who I used to be and between still being concerned for the pandemic and feeling the brunt of years of pain and frustration I just feel buried by emotionally weight and incredibly lost. Its hard for me to tell the difference between normal depression and anxiety and what is pandemic related.
Please tell me I'm not the only one who feels this way. I feel like the more time that goes by since the pandemic the more crazy I feel for still dealing with its fallout.