The aftermath of an environment that paralyzes the body and mind 🧠

There are days that feel as heavy as if we were carrying a 100-kilo rock on our backs. Even when we walk, that feeling of heaviness doesn't go away; on the contrary, it seems to grow heavier and heavier.

We try to stick to our routine: we get up, make coffee, check our phones, get through the workday, and go home. Everything seems to be going “well,” but it isn’t; though it isn’t completely “bad,” either. How could you describe that? Being neither good nor bad.

If someone were to ask us, the most honest answer would be a heavy silence. It’s simply a state of being for the sake of being, an absence, a disconnection. It’s a sensation similar to being on autopilot, but significantly more pronounced; we aren’t entirely living as spectators, we’re just functioning out of sheer inertia.

The only “term” I found that adequately defines this state is “emotional hangover”: basically, it’s the psychological imprint left on us by the experience of collective trauma. This feeling is invisible to the eye, but very palpable in our minds and bodies.

When our environment becomes uncertain, tense, or threatening, the human body automatically activates its survival mechanisms. Adrenaline and cortisol keep us in a constant state of alert, anticipating a danger for which we must be prepared. When that uncertainty drags on, our nervous system breaks down and shuts down.

That disconnection occurs when the mind reaches the limit of what it can handle; that overload is what drains our energy. It’s like being anesthetized to prevent us from registering further stimuli that could further affect our emotional processing. The result is feeling absolutely nothing.

And that “feeling nothing” is the result of the deep exhaustion I mentioned at the beginning: there’s no restful sleep, there’s accumulated muscle tension, and keeping up with the daily routine becomes tedious because we do everything more slowly than usual.

It’s as if our minds were kilometers away, trying to process the weight of an atmosphere filled with anxiety. The most complex aspect of this process is the external pressure to maintain a supposed “normality”: after the crisis, people are expected to immediately resume their routine. How can one survive an unsafe environment without dying in the process?

Perhaps the answer isn’t to carry on “as if nothing had happened.” Maybe surviving means accepting that we’re still processing what happened—that there are days when our bodies still remember what our minds are trying to numb, and that this apparent lack of energy isn’t always laziness, but rather a silent way of protecting ourselves.

Ever since what happened, I've felt that—a kind of emotional “hangover.” I'm not sad all the time, but I'm not the same person I used to be either. Guilt still overwhelms me at times when I think about the number of victims and the people who lost their homes.

It’s a feeling that’s hard to explain because, from the outside, it seems like we’re carrying on with our lives, while on the inside we’re still trying to regain some sense of calm and sanity. It’s impossible not to wonder how much more a country that has been facing one challenge after another for years can endure.

Many of us are going through this feeling right now, although each of us experiences it differently. Perhaps that’s why I wanted to write these lines: to put a name to “neither feeling good nor bad,” to keep moving forward while everything remains frozen. I’m sure this feeling will be part of the process of feeling safe again, and until that moment arrives, all we can do is accept it and trust that we’ll bounce back from this setback as well.

Healing doesn't always mean stopping feeling, but rather stopping fighting against what we feel.

That's it for today's post. Warm regards to the whole community.