New “Norm” post-pandemic COVID-19 on youth and communities. Learn why the pandemic’s aftermath left rubbles of trauma, broken connections between youth, and to many, a numbness to the trauma and learned helplessness.
Compassion, education, and support systems can help us heal – Relearning connectivity, self-efficacy, and resilience
Our Pandemic – All pandemics become a pandemic (widespread, out of control, severely disruptive problems that affect communities and the larger population as a result of a trickling up effect), because of how we cope or don’t cope with a toxic unknown with the potential to rapidly spread like a brushfire if not stopped. Again – we are always subject to pandemics if we do not learn how to cope as a nation, or at a smaller level, state, city, community, school, class, and individual.
COVID-19 – led us to acknowledge the mental health crisis and spreading pandemic, because of a lack of resources, awareness, and ability to serve and support individuals facing mental health issues. When individuals feel trapped, helpless, and feel a lack of self-efficacy, they turn to coping mechanisms that allow for immediate/acute relief from the hopelessness and feelings of no control that spiral during a trauma. The opioid pandemic is a response to coping in the face of adversity; a maladaptive form of escape from a threat that is so terrible, the individual has to fight/flight/or be paralyzed (survival response in full force). Drugs/alcohol and many addictions are a direct response of the fight or flight mechanism that is activated by a threat to one’s sense of identity, life, or something that is so overwhelming, the individual switches into survival mode.
Threats to our society need to bring us together
Need to support those who can offer solutions/help to the threat
• Physical means (Science materials/labs/funding research), distributing medications, vaccinations
• Psychological support
• Community support
• Building the foundations in our youth for effective coping (and non-violence)
Preventing learned helplessness, feelings of entrapment, and amygdala hijacking are necessary for society to function in the aftermath of such widespread trauma that is endemic in our society – We can control and prepare for how we see/view and react to uncertainty and loss of control.
Our teachers, school staff, and healthcare workers also face exhaustion and burnout. They, too, need spaces to be heard and supported. Without a foundation of self-compassion, resilience, and loving-kindness, they cannot extend strength to others.
Healing begins within each of us. Loving-kindness starts inside and radiates outward—only then can communities reconnect, support one another, and light the way forward.
Think of each resource, person, and act of compassion as a wire in a closed circuit. When we are all connected in positive ways, the circuit completes—and the entire community lights up with strength and resilience.
The road ahead is long, but with compassion, patience, and collective action, we can meet this mental health pandemic with the tools it demands.