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<\/p>\nIt has been six years since the world stopped spinning. Six years since the COVID-19 pandemic changed the way Americans do seemingly everything \u2014 from grocery shopping to sneezing into elbows.<\/p>\n
\u201cThings haven\u2019t been the same since,\u201d nurse Trinity Walker told Straight Arrow. \u201cI do sometimes wonder where I would be in my life if it weren\u2019t for the trauma I went through during that time.\u201d<\/p>\n
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For Walker and many others, something fundamental broke during those years. And it never quite reassembled. Millions of Americans continue to live in \u201csurvival mode,\u201d a state in which a person\u2019s nervous system remains activated, awaiting the next crisis. According to a recent report,<\/a> 43% of adults say they feel more anxious than they did the year before \u2014 a steady climb from 37% in 2023 and 32% in 2022.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m still struggling to put myself back to where I was,\u201d said Jessina Allen, an Atlanta-based personal trainer. During lockdown, the 39-year-old faced the inability to work since gyms were closed.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s hard to explain, but sometimes I grieve who I might\u2019ve been if all this hadn\u2019t happened,\u201d Allen said.<\/p>\n The shift from crisis to chronic survival mode<\/p>\n \u201cStress feels more chronic now and less episodic,\u201d said Chlo\u00eb Bean, a licensed marriage and family therapist.\u00a0 \u201cBefore the pandemic, people often came in around one acute stress issue. Now, many clients describe feeling constantly \u2018on,\u2019 mentally overloaded, emotionally depleted and unable to ever recover from this state.\u201d<\/p>\n Dr. Ash Bhatt, chief medical director at Legacy Healing Center, described it as \u201cless about one acute crisis and more about chronic overload.\u201d Bhatt said his patients claim they feel as though their nervous system never fully powers down.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI can\u2019t sleep,\u201d they tell him. \u201cI can\u2019t focus. I\u2019m snapping at people. I feel exhausted, but I can\u2019t relax.\u201d<\/p>\n That \u201congoing hypervigilance,\u201d as Bhatt described it to Straight Arrow, is a key, post-pandemic shift.\u00a0<\/p>\n And now another major crisis looms, affecting a large swath of the population in ways that echo COVID-19.\u00a0<\/p>\n The financial toll of survival mode<\/p>\n For the first time since COVID, there are reportedly more unemployed workers than available jobs<\/a>. As of April, in the tech industry alone, layoffs average roughly 889 job losses per day<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n And that\u2019s stressful.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cPatients are dealing with financial pressure, job uncertainty, family responsibilities and a constant stream of information all at once,\u201d Bhatt said. \u201cWhen people feel like there\u2019s no clear endpoint to the stress, their system stays in a kind of survival mode, and that\u2019s when burnout starts to build.\u201d<\/p>\n After being laid off two years ago, tech account executive Ralph Reid has submitted over 400 job applications. He said his life savings are now depleted.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know how I\u2019m going to do it,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m basically being forced out of the job market, and the mental health toll is absolutely ridiculous.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n For many, the instability is disorienting.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m so tired of all these mass layoffs<\/a> happening almost every week now,\u201d said Reid, who is 46.\u00a0 \u201cEvery week, it\u2019s another corporation letting hundreds of hard-working people go. The search for a permanent role in this climate just feels impossible.\u201d<\/p>\n And the job market doesn\u2019t seem to be improving. Job openings fell to 6.5 million in December 2025<\/a>, the lowest outside the pandemic since 2017.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cNobody talks about the stress of trying to rebuild financially after being underemployed or unemployed for an extensive amount of time,\u201d Reid told SAN.<\/p>\n But in fact, more people are talking about their mental health<\/a>. Mental health experts who spoke with Straight Arrow said the pandemic did bring about (at least) one positive cultural change: Seeking professional help has lost a lot of its stigma. And many are finding relief through telehealth.<\/p>\n Remnant of COVID: mental health became accessible<\/p>\n What started as an emergency solution has become a sustained pathway to mental health care \u2014 one that\u2019s breaking down barriers for people living in survival mode.<\/p>\n By December 2025, mental health held the highest telehealth utilization rate of any medical specialty, according to data from the American Hospital Association.<\/a> Studies show 62.3% of patients with a telehealth claim<\/a> had a diagnosis of mental health conditions last year. The digital mental health market, valued at $7.46 billion in 2025, is projected to reach nearly $47 billion by 2035<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cTelehealth is very effective for structured work around stress and anxiety,\u201d said Dr. Darren O\u2019Reilly, a psychologist and clinical director of AuDHD Psychiatry. \u201cThe main advantage is reduced friction. People are more likely to attend consistently.\u201d<\/p>\n It has worked for Walker, who still feels she is carrying considerable stress from her time working at a hospital during COVID-19.\u00a0<\/p>\n \t\t\tStart your day with fact-based news.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/GettyImages-1220449936.jpg\")
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