A clinical psychologist is urging Kiwis who may feel fragile amid the Covid-19 pandemic to hold on to the hope that things will get better, reminding people "we are, and have been, incredibly resilient".
It's been two years since the pandemic began, and for two years we've been in and out of lockdowns. In that time, both in New Zealand and around the world, there has been an increase in anger and violence.
People working on our front line in health, police, supermarkets and more have faced abuse, threats and called heinous names.
So why are people lashing out?
People are in fight or flight mode, are burnt out and some may even have compassion fatigue, which means exactly what it sounds like - fatigue at having to be compassionate with friends, work and family all the time, clinical psychologist Rajna Bogdanovic explained to TVNZ's John Campbell.
But she says adapting to our "new normal" doesn't have to be all doom and gloom, and is urging people to remain resilient and hopeful.
"My biggest thing would be to think about what you can control," Bogdanovic said, explaining "anticipatory anxiety", where people anticipate and worry things that might go wrong in the future.
"And not just what's within your control, but what can you be optimistic about? What can you get excited about? Because there's a lot really that we can control and it's in our view of the absence of that that we start to get distressed, angry, anxious."
Throughout her career, Bogdanovic has worked with many people - including police, firefighters, in criminal court and for the UN - who've faced extreme trauma and she has seen them "coming out the other end".
"The most difficult things that happen to us don't need to necessarily dictate the rest of our lives," she said.
"Some of the most difficult situations that I've been in and the most difficult (people) that I've worked with that have struggled hugely have also been able to come out the other end much better people and this is actually a concept that we have in psychology called post-traumatic growth.
"One doesn't have to be broken as a result of trauma, you can grow and actually thrive as a result of it."
So while Bogdanovic thinks New Zealanders have dealt with the pandemic "reasonably well", she urged people struggling during this difficult period to hold hope.
"I think we are all burnt out, many of us are experiencing compassion fatigue ... I think that all impacts us and will continue to impact us," she said.
"But it might sound cheesy, humans are incredibly resilient, we are and have been incredibly resilient and we are by our very nature designed to connect.
"I think we have done our best to connect throughout lockdowns and I think so long as we continue to connect, trust in the fact that as a species we are resilient but have hope for the future that it will get better, that absolutely we will never return to the normal that we had but that new normal may be better in other ways."
Watch Anger, Anxiety & Us from 7.30pm Sunday, December 12 on TVNZ1, 1news.co.nz, on TVNZ OnDemand, or on 1News’ Facebook page. Read more about the programme here.
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