Moving into week 7 (4/27 to 5/1), this is a stressful week for me. I felt very powerless and hopeless frequently. Why?
Over the weekend (4/25 & 4/26), few clients popped back, leaving messages that they needed to see me via telehealth. These are the clients who were all nurses. I saw them right around the time when the pandemic breaks, and all of them “disappeared” after that. During the last session, we, meaning clients and me, knew that their life would be kind of crazy for a while. We didn’t set up any follow-up appointments, pending on their work situation. Over the weekend, I got quite a few messages from these clients. I was able to set up meetings with them quickly.
So, I talked to quite a few clients who are nurses and have been battling the pandemics in the past 6 weeks. Some of them contracted the COVID-19 and have been in the recovery enough to contact me. The psychological symptoms, such as flashbacks, nightmares, anxiety, sadness, and worries they have experiencing, have been so hard for me to hear and to experiences. They also had to worry about preventing their families from getting the virus while taking care of their recovery.
I found myself in two emotions. The first one was a complete sense of powerlessness to do anything for them. Other than holding a space for them to talk about their experiences and their emotions, I can’t do anything. The other feeling was anger. I found myself wanted to shout out to the people who haven’t taken the situation seriously. How could you not to take the social distancing seriously when these nurse and doctors are risking their own life and their families’ life to take care of us?
I wish I can end the journal this week in a much more optimistic note. Unfortunately, I am not able to find some optimistic feelings in me, and I am still struggling with processing the emotions that I absorb from my clients.
