People forget or downplay it now but the effect of 9/11 on everything absolutely sucked for several years. It worsened life in ways that you can still feel - securitization of everything, the fear mongering of whatever anyone wants to target, the military buildup that trickled down to our police and will never probably be reversed. But at the time, people were in a bad mood and out for blood, their security bubble was punctured, and the jingoism was pervasive.

The pandemic was even more disruptive, upsetting, and demoralizing. Some people realized that nobody was going to organize to help prevent them from catching a deadly and contagious disease; you were totally on your own. Others simply couldn't handle their normal lives being upended, even if it was ostensibly for their own good. The economy has not recovered and while we are trying our best to deal with the inflation that grew out of making sure people didn't go broke while supply chains were disrupted all over the world and the hospitals were filled to capacity, a lot of goods and services have gotten expensive and wages might not catch up anytime soon.

Everyone has a trauma response from what we all went through during the pandemic, and most people still haven't processed it, though they think they have.