They told us it would be three weeks.
Three weeks of slowing down. Of baking banana bread. Of pajama Zoom calls and Netflix marathons. A sort of… global timeout. Unplanned. Unwanted. But still, kind of a novelty.
And for the first few days, it was.
We joked about stocking up on toilet paper. We shared memes and did TikTok dances with our kids. We clapped for the garbage collectors and essential workers from behind garden gates and kitchen windows. Remember that? Clapping. Just to feel part of something. Because they were the only people we saw all week. That was our highlight.
But then… three weeks turned into something else. Something long, heavy, and unforgiving. Something none of us were prepared for. We stopped clapping.
Instead, we whispered.
Whispers about friends losing their jobs. Whispers about colleagues disappearing from Zoom, never to return. Whispers about a neighbor’s uncle, a friend’s cousin, an entire generation of elders we were losing… quietly. Lonely deaths. Silent grief.
And behind closed doors, the pressure built. The emotional toll of lockdown wasn’t something you could see in the COVID stats. It didn’t show up in daily case numbers. But it lived in our nervous systems. In our bones.
In my house, I was trying to keep it all together.
My partner got sick. Very sick.
My father-in-law, 83, who had moved in with us before the pandemic, would stand silently at her door, watching her sleep. His eyes full of questions I didn’t have answers to. He’d ask, “Is she going to wake up?” And all I could do was nod, smile, and lie through my teeth.
I was juggling everything, cooking, cleaning, looking after him, trying to keep the house going while working from home, and checking my partner’s temperature every few hours like a ritual of control in a world gone mad.
And then I got sick too.
That was the tipping point.
I couldn’t juggle anymore. I dropped all the balls.
And just as I was starting to feel human again, Dad got sick.
We lost him.
He didn’t make it.
And I wish I could say it was peaceful or poetic. But it wasn’t. It was brutal and fast and confusing. The kind of pain you carry in your cells. The kind that doesn’t let go just because the lockdown is over.
To this day, I carry a quiet, aching guilt.
He got sick because of us. In our house. The house where he was supposed to be safe.
We don’t talk enough about the emotional hangover COVID left behind.
The collective grief. The anxiety. The exhaustion.
Burnout isn’t just about long work hours or emails at midnight. Burnout is also about the stories we’ve buried. The grief we haven’t processed. The fear that still sits quietly under the surface.
Globally, mental health statistics have spiked; anxiety, depression, PTSD. People are still reeling. Women especially bore the brunt: juggling careers and households, often alone. Gender-based violence skyrocketed during lockdown. People trapped. Isolated. Forgotten.
We emerged from lockdown changed.
Not just in body, but in mind and spirit
.
Many of us didn’t even realize we were burned out. We just thought we were tired. Irritable. Unmotivated. But it’s deeper than that. It’s chronic. It’s soul-deep.
Burnout isn’t just about doing too much-it’s about carrying too much, for too long, without enough support, without a break, and without being seen.
And so, during Mental Health Awareness Month, I want to say this:
If you still feel heavy, tired, anxious, sad, numb, or all of the above, you are not broken. You are human. You went through something. We all did.
Let’s normalize talking about it.
Let’s normalize needing help, taking breaks, and admitting we’re not okay.
You are not alone in this.
I see you.
And you’re allowed to heal.