The Struggle To Return To Normal Life Post Pandemic

This past year as I’ve been working with clients and chatting with friends, I’ve noticed that many people are struggling to recover from the impacts of the Covid-19 culture shifts. As I’ve listened to people’s stories of returning to ‘normal life’, they have all shared the same themes:

Feelings of detachment, or feeling alone in the world

Feelings of disassociation

Anxiety, or in some cases, panic

Confusion/mental fog

Changes in perception

Sensory overload

Time management challenges

Loss of motivation

Increased cynicism

I’ve taken to (jokingly, among friends) referring to this as the C-Hole, short for Covid-Hole. This name comes from the term K-hole, which refers to an overdose of Ketamine. Given that many of the feelings and symptoms are similar, and that the experience just plain feels like climbing out of a literal ‘hole’, the name C-hole seemed appropriate for the phenomenon that many of us are experiencing right now.

Every one of us experienced the world shutting down, and we were instructed to ‘hole up’ in our homes and limit our activities and exposure as science worked to learn more about…