I fear for the future generations of humankind

I fear for the world that we have created for humans and for all those who watch as Earth rollercoasters into its final demise. This world that is a little bit over two decades into the 21st century, into the new millennium, has so much to offer yet... conflict seems to be rampant everywhere.

I'm not talking about movements and raising awareness to issues that weren't brought up in the past. These give me hope for the future as it is changing peoples' perspective of the world that we live in and slowly, but surely undoing some wrongs of the past. And it also may be a bit too late for most humans to recognize the fact that our impact on this Earth is much, much greater than we credit ourselves for. While this is an extremely important issue to discuss, of course, as a human, I have other priorities. No, what I am going to be talking about today are personal issues such as anxiety, depression, and the rates of suicide that seem to be going up.

Mental health is never an easy topic to discuss for the individual to talk about and it's harder still for the individual to find people who can relate to them and not judge them. Definitely over this pandemic, I have felt my own anxiety and depression skyrocket and it's not quite because of the absence of human contact; I'm quite fine without much human contact being as introverted as I am; I think it was the general numbing fear of not knowing what was going to happen next that made me withdraw even more within myself.

You see, I work in healthcare. Ironic isn't it? Me, a healthcare professional suffering from mental health. However, the fact is that it isn't uncommon at all. At least seventy percent of my co-workers at my workplace gets affected by mental health on a single day at the workplace. From dealing with patients and families to adhering to new CDC guidelines, and then on top of it, new company guidelines, there is a lot to process and do and some days, it just feels like I am doing a completely different routine than the one I was used to yesterday. The sentiment is shared between myself and my dear, fellow co-workers.

I try not to worry my family when I come home to them. In fact, I keep most things to myself. Funny things, however, and truly ridiculous things that happen at work, I cannot bring myself to keep such treasures to myself and of course I share these with them. I never say any names and I never point fingers as to who is doing what wrong and who is doing what's right. I just simply state the facts and well you know the saying how sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction, well many a times I have thought, almost completely all of the happenings right now are stranger than fiction. In fact, if we document and write down everything that was happening to us right now as a journal entry, future generatios would look back at this journal entry and would think no way in hell would any of this be true. Oh, but true it is. Too true it shall be.

Oh and if only people could step into the shoes of healthcare workers and essentially all of the essential workers who have working on the frontlines for about two years now just for a few minutes... just take a step back and relax, eyes closed, and imagine going from station to station, patient to patient, performing proper hygiene such as washing your hands, drying them properly, donning on gloves, each and every single time, rubbing your hands and alternating between water and soap, hand sanitizer, and lotion, until your hands feel raw and layers of dead skin are peeling off; us, the healthcare workers would like to thank you very much. We would like to slow down, we also have love ones we care and worry about and we would like to slack off a little just to catch a break, but we can't. We still need to remain vigilant and at the same time, we would like to not be forced to be so vigilant so that the stress physical and emotional stress wouldn't get to our bodies. The stories of the all the crazy happenings around us is what keeps us going and actually seeing patients get better. We just hope as many people stay safe and healthy for as long as possible.