Pandemic PTSD

Panic attacks in the dentist car park
Losing my temper in a Jersey sports bar
Safe to say the 20s have been weird
Dazed and confused in the morning after
A two-year slow-motion human disaster
T-shirt slogans to cover over the lockdown gut and the fear

And it's not just you and it's not just me
It's pandemic PTSD

I'm haunted by a kind of mourning for the life that we left in 2019
I know it wasn't perfect, but it's what I knew
Physically distanced, told we're in it together
But socially removed from our snickering betters
Far too smart to abase themselves by following their own rules

And it's not just you and it's not just me
That has pandemic PTSD (one, two, three, four)

Post-traumatic stress disorder
Is characterized by persistent trauma
Caused by severe psychological shock or else physical injury
And maybe I'm just being melodramatic
But I didn't used to be this agoraphobic
Or paralyzed by decisions, also crushed by inactivity

And right about now some arsehole's going to say
That it's okay not to be okay
But we're way past that, the conversation isn't done
And I won't keep calm, I won't carry on

Until it's okay to admit
That I don't know how to feel
About the shit that we just lived through
It was kind of a big deal

And one day it seemed like everybody decided
They were tired of trying and bored of hiding it
Ready for the next adventure, next news cycle, next catastrophe
And we stood in the wreckage trying not to claim
That we had more than our fair share of the pain
But we got punched in the dick for two straight years
We can't move on that easily

And it might not be you but god knows it's us
That's still black and blue, bleeding in the dust
So I'll level with you, if you'll bear with me
And my pandemic PTSD