I've been an occasional lurker on here since first joining in 2014 when I had my first experience of anxiety/depression. It lasted about 6 months and I then developed some better skills for managing my mental health. Since then I've had bouts here and there when anxiety or depression would pop up but it would go away more quickly, and these were more isolated cases, mostly due to health anxiety for myself or my kids.

Well, the pandemic has hit and with it has come anxiety and depression for me. In March when this all started to hit, I was overwhelmed with dread and hopelessness and felt like this is really the end of the world happening here. I started having nights here and there where my heart would be racing out of nowhere and I would literally not sleep the whole night except for maybe 1 hour. I had had insomnia before but it would be more like I'd wake up and be anxious for an hour or two during the night and have a hard time relaxing enough to go back to sleep. I had never been up for just the straight up entire night. It was jarring and scary to me. This has continued to happen here and there, maybe 3 or 4 times total since March. I think it might be partially related to being a few days away from getting my period, so maybe some hormonal stuff going on too. (I've also been weaning my breastfeeding baby over the last month or two so I know that factors in with the hormones too.)

Anyways, I started therapy which has been a little helpful but I still feel kind of surprised that I don't see more people losing their minds about the pandemic on here. In a way it's been helpful for me to see that this dread and depression clearly doesn't seem to be dominating everyone else's every waking moment the way it is for me. Just curious for those on here how you are managing to not let the pandemic take over your thoughts constantly?? I have been obsessing about it really since day one.