Post-Pandemic Survival Mode: Recognizing the Void State in Yourself and Others

Reader Awareness: After the pandemic, many people quietly noticed they didn’t feel quite like themselves. Some experienced emotional flatness, unexpected anger, or a sense of disconnection they couldn't explain. In this post, I share real stories — and a deeper understanding of what I call "The Void State" — to help you recognize the signs, know you’re not alone, and understand how awareness is the first step in reclaiming your life force.

Photo by Clayton Malquist

When I returned to work after the pandemic shutdowns in 2020, something felt different in my practice, in society at large, and inside many of the people I worked with.

Clients began quietly, sometimes tearfully, confiding things they had never shared before. Not just anxiety. Not just burnout.

Something deeper was happening — something harder to put into words.

Here are just a few of the things I heard:

From a Healthcare Worker: "I used to be so patient. Lately I can feel myself wanting to push people away, even my patients. What rises up is that I want to cause harm when my oath is to do no harm. This is different than compassion fatigue. I don't recognize myself.”

From a Business Owner: "Nothing unusual is happening at work, but it’s all I can do not to lash out at my employees physically. I feel fine... and then suddenly, I’m full of rage. I've never felt that before."

From a mother of young children: "I feel no connection anymore. Not to my husband, not to my kids. I think about leaving, and I don't even care. What's wrong with me?"

From a First Responder: "I don't know what’s wrong with me. Last night my wife said something I didn’t like — honestly, it wasn’t even that big of a deal — but I had the urge to hurt her. I've never had a thought like that before. It scares me."

From a Father of Teenagers: "I feel like I’m just going through the motions and like I’m not really present with my kids anymore. Sometimes they will say something innocent and I just snap. I feel this surge of energy. It feels... primal."

These are not people who have a history of violence or serious emotional instability. These are thoughtful, compassionate, responsible people. Something inside had changed —something deeper, beneath their conscious control.

Their life experience and intellectual understanding of right and wrong kept them from acting — but each described a sudden, visceral response that felt swift, serious, and deeply alarming.

Recognizing the Void

Hearing these stories — and witnessing other changes in my clients — was part of what led me to identify what I now call "The Void State."

The Void is a specific energetic and nervous system state where a person becomes disconnected from their life force, self, from source energy — without realizing it. On the outside, they may be "functioning," still showing up to work, checking the boxes of daily life. Underneath, something vital is missing.

The Void often feels like:

• Going through the motions of life without real connection or joy

• Feeling emotionally flat, numb, or nonresponsive

• Having a decreased tolerance for stress or challenge

• Experiencing sudden, primal survival reactions — anger, withdrawal, fear — without understanding why

• Healing efforts (physical, emotional, or spiritual) not integrating or holding the way they used to

  
  

Intellectually, most people know what’s "right" or "wrong," and they stop themselves from acting out in harmful ways. However, these unfamiliar, deep, survival responses surface because the system is out of balance at a foundational level.

My Personal Experience in the Void

About a year after noticing this disconnection in my clients, I experienced a short-lived but vivid glimpse of the Void myself.

For about a week, I felt unusually flat. I told myself, "Maybe I’m just more spiritually centered right now. Maybe this is what complete non-reactivity feels like."

But when my partner said something mildly challenging, I felt a survival response rise up— I can only describe it as an energy of self-protection, anger, and violence that didn’t match the situation. It shocked me.

Despite everything being fine overall, I was provoked and my system perceived a “threat.” In that instant, I dropped into a deeper, more primal state of protection - a place where acting out, even violently and without remorse — could have happened, if I hadn't been aware.

Fortunately, I had the tools to get support. After a session with a trusted practitioner, the energy shifted, and I felt grounded in myself again. '

Then I understood — being in the Void isn’t peaceful. It’s disconnected.

It’s not the natural calm after healing; it’s the flatline before a survival surge. Once I could feel the difference, it was undeniable.

Why This Matters

In the wake of the pandemic, many people experienced unprecedented levels of fear, isolation, loss, and interruption of natural life rhythms.

We are still carrying the imprints of that time.

If you’re feeling different —  flat, quicker to anger, disconnected — it's not just you. It’s not a moral failure or something deeply wrong with your psyche.

Many have noticed that society itself seems angrier, more impatient, more reactive. Even my 82-year-old mother commented recently that people seem far more angry now than they did before.

There have even been reports of increased violence during and after the pandemic years — a sobering reflection of how deeply these survival states have permeated the collective nervous system.

When we understand this, it helps us meet what we’re seeing in ourselves and others with more awareness and compassion. We aren’t simply witnessing "bad behavior" or "personality changes"; we are witnessing the effects of widespread, unresolved survival states still playing out in our communities.

It’s the residual impact of deep, collective stress that our systems are still trying to integrate.

The Void is not who we are — it's a state we can come out of. It’s a survival response, not a life sentence.

In upcoming posts, I’ll share more about:

• The signs you might be in the Void and not know it

• Why everything, including healing may feel harder in the Void

• The hidden causes of the Void

• How to begin restoring your energy and reconnecting to yourself again.
  

I’m still learning, too — about the impact of the past few years, and about the states of disconnection that surfaced through it all.

One thing is clear: We are meant to come back to life, to connection, and to community. Like the clients who trusted me with their truth, healing begins when we recognize that something inside us feels "off" — and we realize we don't have to stay there.

Sara McRae | Creator of HigherCx™

Wellness practitioner, teacher of Touch for Health, and guide for recovery from Long COVID, trauma, and the Void State. Exploring resilience, energy, and conscious integration.