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There is not a COVID reporter out there who is not struggling mightily right now. The burden only grows heavier as time passes. https://twitter.com/dataeditor/status/1358939331071795201
I’ve been very open about the detrimental effects of the trauma I’ve absorbed over the past year. Grieving family members, overwhelmed hospital workers, watching COVID patients struggling to breathe & dying with my own eyes. These experiences stack up and reinforce each other.
I’ve been covering coronavirus full time since 2.4.2020. It’s been more than a year, and there is no end in sight. It makes it more difficult to continue doing this when it feels like it’s going to last forever.
Think of it this way: As horrific as covering a mass shooting is — the horror, the trauma, the grief, the pressure to get things right — it eventually ends. In my community and many others, it’s like a mass shooting is happening every single day, without respite.
I’ve cycled through adrenaline, exhaustion, anxiety, grief, anger, depression, extreme irritability. These are all human reactions to this kind of work, but I still feel broken much of the time, like I should be able to handle this better.
Lately, I’ve been feeling so insecure about my output. It feels like I’m never doing enough. Why aren’t I pitching more stories? Why does sending an email or transcribing an interview feel insurmountable? Everything requires so much energy.
But I also know if I push myself too hard I’ll burn out even more than I already am. I did this unknowingly last summer, and it took me months to claw my way out of that hole of fatigue.
I’m grateful that my company has completely covered counseling during this crisis, that my newsroom has given me a venue to talk about these issues with my colleagues.
But we are still enduring the unimaginable, every day. I worry what our health care system will look like when this is all over, but what will we look like? What will journalism look like?
This is a conversation that we *have* to have. We cannot sweep this under the rug. This will affect us for years to come, in ways that we don’t yet realize.
