I am a respiratory therapist who worked the front line the past 2 years.
It's been incredibly challenging for me to go back to normal life. I've watched 100+ people die and suffer throughout the pandemic, feeling helpless. It felt like nothing we did saved them. Watching people come into the hospital and knowing they're going to be dead within the day or the week and having to pretend like everything is fine. Or watching someone die suffering in their last moments. With my job I am at by their heads, watching their faces, watching them struggle to breathe and suffer, before dying completely alone with usually just myself and maybe a nurse in the room. It's hard to make the mental switch to now "okay covid is over let's get back to normal" after all I've witnessed.
It makes me feel like all of the lives lost are invalidated. How am I supposed to move on from this? How do I go back to normal life without forgetting all the people who've lost their lives?
Does anyone else struggle with this issue? I feel like I'm the only one who can't let go.