Staring Down the Stress Debt

Dear friends,

Is this just me?  Is everyone feeling this empty and depleted? It might not look like it on the surface, but that's what we’re hearing from lots of folks. Despite this year feeling much more "normal", things still feel so hard. Looking around at the present, people are wondering why the present is so tough if I’ve survived the worst.  

We may be coming out the other side of a major universal stressor (the pandemic and related shutdowns), but that doesn’t mean that we are over it. During the pandemic, we operated in an emergency capacity. We were in crisis mode, and people tapped into every ounce of strength they had to survive the isolation, disruption, stress, and upheaval.

To survive, people had to triage. There were so many urgent concerns that needed to be dealt with as a matter of survival, and everything else had to be put on hold to deal with at a later date. We all accumulated a little "stress debt," and now those things are asking to be dealt with. Unfortunately, while we try to play catch up, life keeps happening.  There are always new challenges attend to. It is no wonder that people are feeling depleted.

The first step to managing our stress is to understand it, so here’s a (not all encompassing) list of what might have bogged you down. 

Reevaluating Relationships:  Lockdown and pandemic related upheaval pushed our personal relationships into new focus. With our children and partners, we may have had a little too much time together without the usual outlets for recharging and reinvigorating. Parents had limited access to childcare options and date nights, social outlets, and alone time all suffered. Couples were under intense pressure without their usual release valves while also growing and changing as individuals. Now that things are stabilizing, people are taking stock of the relationships in their lives and noticing any cracks that need attention. 

Triple-demic:  Does anyone have a child who doesn't have a runny nose this season? The winter is always a difficult time to manage children’s health, but this year also has parents stressing about an overloaded healthcare system. Families are inundated with media declaring that children are being hit hard by RSV/Flu/COVID strains and the shortage of hospital resources to care for them. Plus, a childcare shortage and difficult work realities have parents worried about what happens when anyone in the family needs to take a sick day. It is no wonder that parents are finding themselves anxious about even the usual coughs and colds.

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year:  Thanksgiving through New Years is a gauntlet of family obligation, financial strains, and busyness. If you are the family magic-maker, you might be feeling a bit depleted by your to-do list and overwhelmed by everything you need to remember. All the event invites are a wonderful return to socialization but also a scheduling nightmare mixed with the joy and horror that is dressing kids in their nice clothes. Maintaining good boundaries around how much to stretch the schedule and what types of interactions are healthy can feel exhausting. 

Economic Turmoil:  Raising kids is expensive, and with the economic upheaval over the past few years families are feeling the pinch (especially this time of year). Parents especially feel the weight of uncertainty as they think about shielding their children from the impacts. 

Renegotiating work life:  The last few years have completely upended work lives whether that meant new roles or simply changing responsibilities. At the time, we were all “pivoting during these unprecedented times,” with little opportunity to reflect on what these new arrangements meant. Now, people are settling in to find that their work no longer suits their needs or that their responsibilities have grown unwieldy. Maybe you are just looking around at your daily routine and thinking you need something different now. Even needed changes can be painful.    

Tiny humans:  Parenting is rewarding beyond measure but also not for the faint of heart. Pregnancy and parenting are always challenging, but this post-pandemic parenting takes things to a new level as parents try to address the impacts the pandemic had on their children. So many children need just a little extra support right now while they process their own experiences of that time.  Of course, that means a little extra worry, scheduling, and attention from us. 

Grieving pandemic losses:  Even for those who didn’t lose anyone directly to COVID, there are little losses to grieve. Parents are aware of how quickly children grow, and we cannot reclaim the experiences we (and they) would have had in a different time. For some, there’s the pregnancy and birth experiences that were fraught, traumatic and/or lonely. For some there are simply experiences we never got to have and trips that were never taken. There are milestones that went uncelebrated in the ways we expected.  People have lots of unprocessed grief and traumas that still need to be metabolized. 

We wish that we had a panacea to offer to all of you who are feeling overwhelmed or exhausted right now. Sometimes, it just helps to understand why you are feeling the way you do and to know that you are not alone.

Good news, there is nothing we love more than helping all of you to tackle the highs and lows of your parenting journeys.  We're here to help you process any stress or trauma that you've been holding onto so you can move into the New Year feeling lighter.  

Warmly, 
Kellie Wicklund, LPC, PMH-C
Owner + Clinical Director

Christina Moran
Executive Director