World Mental Health Day 2025: When Overwhelm Becomes Too Much

The theme of this year’s World Mental Health Day is one that resonates deeply with our community:

“Overwhelm: when global events and relentless bad news become too much.”

For people living with Long Covid, overwhelm can feel like the constant backdrop to daily life. Alongside the challenges of managing symptoms, many of us have had to come to terms with profound changes to our health, our work, our roles, and even our very sense of identity.

At times, it can feel as though the world outside is collapsing under the weight of bad news, while our inner world is being reshaped in ways we never asked for. The combination can be crushing. It can, quite simply, feel like too much.

The weight of overwhelm

Living with Long Covid often means that our physical and mental reserves are already stretched thin. Fatigue, brain fog, pain, and isolation can leave little capacity for coping with the endless stream of crises on our screens: wars, climate disasters, political turmoil, and inequality.

It can feel almost impossible to absorb it all, yet stepping away can trigger guilt, as though switching off means we are not doing enough.

But overwhelm is not weakness, it is a natural human response when our nervous systems are overloaded. For those of us already living with the daily demands of a chronic condition, the threshold is often lower. Recognising this is the first step towards self-compassion.

Returning to your circle of influence

When the world feels too big, too broken, too loud, it helps to return to what’s within our own circle of influence—the things we can affect, however small. For someone with Long Covid, that circle might feel reduced, but it is still powerful.

• Caring for yourself first: Listening to your body, pacing your energy, and allowing yourself rest is not selfish, it’s survival.

• Acts of kindness: A kind word online, sending a message to a friend, or sharing a resource can ripple further than you realise.

• Allowing kindness in: Many of us struggle to accept help. But letting others support you is not a burden, it’s a gift. People want to care.

  
  

Even when we cannot take part in big campaigns or marches, these smaller acts sustain us and remind us that we are not powerless.

Being gentle in hard times

Your worth is not defined by what you achieve. It is reflected in your humanity, your resilience, and the courage it takes to keep going despite so much.

On this World Mental Health Day, we invite everyone—whether living with Long Covid or supporting someone who is—to pause.

Step back from the relentless news cycle, take a breath, and notice what is immediately around you.

Be gentle with yourself.

Give yourself permission to rest.

Give yourself permission to step away from the noise.

And remember—you are never alone. Even in small circles of family and friends, we can nurture networks of care and kindness strong enough to sustain us through uncertain times.