You don’t see your story on the news nightly for 20 months. Usually if you are directly affected by a news event – say a bushfire or weather event – it’s relatively short lived. “We need a new word.”Īnd for those of us consuming the news over this period of time – we were in the weird situation of being directly affected by the story. “I am more than exhausted,” one editor told me.
Journalists and editors were in the strange situation of reporting on a situation that they were living through – trapped in a news story for almost two years. I see the exhaustion in my own colleagues. Pope Francis asked Catholics last month to pray for people with burnout. Healthcare workers are leaving in droves, and there is a mass exodus of 20,000 critical care nurses – many of them traumatised and exhausted. They say women are “suffering the great exhaustion” – resulting from the extra unpaid work of caring on top of their normal jobs. Some of Australia’s leading female business and community leaders signed an open letter last week asking for more recognition and support for the care economy. She had just been telling me how exhausted she was from the pandemic. She was looking something up for me on the internet about concussion and then her head dropped sharply in a micro-sleep. The other day at the doctor’s, my GP started falling asleep mid-consult.
They day-dream longingly of profound rest, cool sheets, white walls, long holidays, solitude and silence.Īfter a brief spurt of energy in October when we opened up, people are now limping to the end of the year. They’re wanting to make a 5:30 booking for dinner. People are struggling to stay up past 8pm. Omicron, whatever – just run me over with a tractor. Now … now … people are hollow-eyed, wrecked, a shell. After a brief spurt of energy in October when we opened up, people are now limping to the end of the year There was a buzz to getting back out again and reconnecting with people, a release of pent up energy, and the commitment to beat the virus back and get to Covid zero. Oh, you’ve never been this tired in all your life kind of tired? You dream of sleeping for 10 years tired? Every part of you is tired, even your hair?Īfter 2020’s first lockdown, people bounced back.