Mitchell Rosen: Given our coronavirus-altered lives, healing will take time – Press-Enterprise

Like most in Riverside County, I am encouraged to see the number of COVID-19 cases declining and the availability of vaccinations increasing. It is beginning to enter my brain that a return to normalcy may not be too far off.

I am fortunate being able to work from home and having a house to live in. I do telehealth sessions via Zoom with my clients, and many are beginning to talk about the prospect of re-entering shops, restaurants and going back to work or school. At the beginning of this now year-long pandemic, most were chomping at the bit to return to work or school. Recently, Ive been seeing a hesitancy, almost a reluctance or fear, regarding a return to a previous lifestyle.

I understand its hard to flip a switch and convince yourself that suddenly its OK to be around others and view them as people, not vectors. I have patients young and old asking me if its odd or unusual that they arent excited about going back to their old lives. Quickly, they add, its not complacency about being at home thats not the right word. And it would be unfair to characterize their tentativeness as being adjusted to a new normal. They lack any frame of reference most of us do.

As a psychotherapist, what I see after a year is people being settled into this COVID-19 routine. There has been so much change over the past year the pandemic, a highly charged presidential election that continues to reverberate, many people just want routine. Not change, not excitement, but good old-fashioned routine.

Therapists are big on pointing out that kids also need routine; too often, its soothing effects are not mentioned in the same sentence as it is with those out of high school.

I used to fantasize about zip-lining or climbing a sheer cliff with a rope and cleats, but for now, its fine with me to sit in my La-Z-Boy and watch mindless TV shows that have nothing to do with whats going on in the news. The more banal or predictable the better. Shows that dont require a lot of concentration or put me on an emotional roller coaster. I still curse my son for telling me to watch Your Honor with Bryan Cranston (spoiler alert: its perhaps the most depressing show ever made).

Psychologically, it has taken most of us a while to get used to being hyper-vigilant about going outside, and it likely will take an equal amount of time to reacclimate, let our guard down and hug again.

So, I tell my clients who are students, that they arent odd or off because of ambivalence regarding returning to school. As I explain to my adult clients when they express similar uncertainty, it does not mean they will be forever hermits, living underground.

Our collective psyches have taken a huge hit, and its important to view that with compassion. There are elements of PTSD in most of us having weathered a once-in-a-century pandemic. As with any trauma, healing takes time.

Mitchell Rosen is a licensed therapist with practices in Corona and Temecula. Catch up with previous columns atwww.pe.com/author/mitchell-rosen. Email rosen@mrosenmft.com.

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Mitchell Rosen: Given our coronavirus-altered lives, healing will take time - Press-Enterprise