‘We were in survival mode’: 5 years later, mental health experts reflect on COVID-19 lockdown

RICHMOND, Va. (WRIC) -- It's been five years since the world came to a halt due to COVID-19.

“We were in survival mode,” said Anna McChesney, a licensed professional counselor and CEO of the Center for Creative Healing. “We just kind of almost all blacked out that year and a half, two years — it’s just gone, right?”

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the pandemic officially lasted from March 2020 to May 2023, with lockdown isolating people for roughly six months.

McChesney said the short-term effects — loneliness, fear and financial stress — were felt almost immediately, but mental health professionals are still uncovering the long-term consequences.

“Developmentally, that’s why people are seeing others missing little pieces of things -- whether it’s life skills or learning to emotionally regulate,” McChesney said. “We noticed mostly with parent-aged adults that they had to stop therapy because, now, on top of working full-time, they’re also acting as teacher[s] while their kids are at home."

For children, the impact was different. Therapist Natalie Morison-Uzzle said online learning created educational gaps and heightened anxiety in children about their health and the health of their loved ones.

“[Now there are] really strong reactions to a sick kid going to school, where maybe before it wasn’t so much a thing," Morison-Uzzle said. "So I think the social impact of that is still very real.”

Both therapists agree the lockdown intensified existing challenges in people's home lives and mental health struggles.

“We all kind of felt those short-term effects of feeling isolated and feeling lonely,” McChesney said. “The long-term effects, we continue to see in every single age group."