You’ve heard it at the grocery store. You’ve seen it plastered across every other Instagram caption. Maybe you’ve even sighed it into your coffee mug at 7:00 AM on a Tuesday. It's been a hell of a year. It’s one of those phrases that feels like a heavy blanket—part exhausted resignation, part "I can’t believe we’re still standing."
But why does every year lately feel like a decade crammed into twelve months? It isn't just you.
When people say it’s been a hell of a year, they aren't usually talking about one specific catastrophe. It’s the compounding interest of life. We are living through what sociologists call "polycrisis"—a fancy way of saying everything is happening all at once, everywhere, forever. From the erratic swings of the global economy to the way AI is rewriting our job descriptions while we sleep, the baseline for "normal" has shifted.
We’re tired.
The Psychology of the "Hell of a Year" Syndrome
Psychologically, our brains aren't exactly wired for the 24/7 firehose of information we consume. Dr. Vance Vandermeer, a researcher focusing on cognitive load, often points out that humans have a "surge capacity." This is a collection of adaptive systems—mental and physical—that we draw on for short-term survival in acutely stressful situations, like a natural disaster. The problem? We’ve been using our surge capacity for years.
It’s depleted.
When your surge capacity is empty, even small inconveniences feel like a personal attack from the universe. That’s why a broken dishwasher can trigger a full-blown existential crisis about how it's been a hell of a year. You aren't actually crying about the dishwasher. You're crying about the three years of emotional debt you haven't paid off yet.
There's also this weird phenomenon called "Temporal Disintegration." It’s a term used in clinical psychology to describe how people lose their sense of time during trauma or high-stress periods. If you can’t remember if that concert happened in March or three years ago, that’s your brain trying to protect itself from the sheer volume of "events."
High Stakes and Low Resilience
Consider the economic reality of 2025 and 2026. Inflation didn't just touch our wallets; it altered our social lives. People stopped going out as much. The "third place"—those spots like cafes or pubs where you hang out without the pressure of home or work—became expensive. This led to a spike in "passive loneliness." You're around people online, but you aren't with them.
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Honestly, that isolation is the secret ingredient in making a year feel like hell.
Why 2025 Specifically Felt Like a Gauntlet
Let’s look at the facts. We saw a massive shift in how we interact with technology. It wasn't just "new gadgets." It was the year that generative tools moved from being a novelty to being a requirement. For many, that meant the threat of obsolescence was no longer a "down the road" problem. It was a "this Friday" problem.
Then you have the climate. According to data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), recent years have consistently broken heat records. It’s hard to have a "great" year when the weather feels like it's trying to evict you from your own neighborhood.
- Financial Strain: Real wages in many sectors haven't kept pace with the cost of living, leading to a "perpetual hustle" culture.
- Social Fragmentation: Political polarization didn't just stay in the news; it moved into Thanksgiving dinners.
- Health Hangover: We are still dealing with the long-term mental health fallout of the early 2020s.
It’s a lot. No wonder we’re all using the same phrase.
The Language of Exhaustion
The phrase "it’s been a hell of a year" functions as a social lubricant. It’s a way to acknowledge shared struggle without having to dive into the messy details of your divorce, your debt, or your burnout. It’s a shorthand for empathy.
When you say it to a coworker, and they nod, they aren't asking for a list of your grievances. They’re saying, "I’m in the trenches too."
But there’s a danger here. If we keep labeling every year as "hell," we risk falling into a trap of learned helplessness. This is a psychological state where an organism forced to endure aversive stimuli, or stimuli that are painful or unpleasant, becomes unable or unwilling to avoid subsequent encounters with those stimuli, even if they are "escapable."
Basically, we stop trying to make things better because we assume the "hell" is just the new weather.
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Breaking the Cycle of "Hell"
How do we actually move past this? It isn't about "toxic positivity." It's about cognitive reframing.
I spoke with a career coach last month who told me her clients are increasingly obsessed with "micro-wins." Because the big picture—the world, the economy, the future—feels so chaotic, the only way to maintain sanity is to shrink the frame.
Instead of looking at the year, look at the week.
Moving Toward Radical Recovery
If you’re currently nodding along because it's been a hell of a year for you personally, there are actual, evidence-based steps to reclaim your headspace. This isn't just "self-care" fluff like taking a bubble bath (though, hey, baths are fine). This is about structural changes to how you process the world.
1. The Information Diet
The "Doomscrolling" habit is a literal dopamine trap. Your brain is looking for threats to keep you safe, but because the internet is an infinite threat-delivery system, your nervous system stays in "fight or flight" mode indefinitely.
Try this:
- Turn off all non-human notifications. If a person didn't send it, you don't need to see it instantly.
- Check the news once a day, preferably at lunch. Never first thing in the morning or last thing at night.
2. Physical Anchoring
When the world feels "fast" and "crazy," you need things that are "slow" and "heavy." This is why gardening, weightlifting, and pottery have seen such a massive resurgence lately. They require your physical presence. You can't "accelerate" how long it takes for a tomato to grow or a clay pot to dry. It forces your brain to sync back up with physical reality rather than digital speed.
3. Acknowledging the "Shadow Loss"
A lot of the reason the year feels like hell is because of "shadow losses." These are losses that don't have a funeral. The loss of a career path you thought you'd be on. The loss of a friendship that drifted away. The loss of a sense of safety in the world.
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Grieve them. Seriously. If you don't acknowledge that you've lost something, you can't move past the "hell" phase.
It's Not Always Going to Feel This Way
History is cyclical. We’re in a high-friction period of human development. Think about the late 1960s or the 1940s—those were "hell of a years" too. The difference is that they didn't have a 5G connection to every other person’s misery on the planet.
We are navigating a unique historical moment where our global awareness has outpaced our biological ability to process it.
Actionable Steps to Reset Your Year
If you want to stop the "hell of a year" momentum right now, start with these three things:
Audit your "Yes" list. Most of us are over-committed because we’re afraid of missing out or falling behind. Look at your calendar for the next two weeks. Identify one recurring commitment that drains you and find a way to gracefully exit or pause it.
Rebuild your "Third Place." Find a spot that isn't work and isn't your house. A library, a specific park bench, a local hobby shop. Spend two hours there a week without your phone. This rebuilds the sense of community and "place" that digital life erodes.
Document the "Not-Hell." It sounds cheesy, but the brain has a "negativity bias." We remember the car breakdown but forget the three hundred days the car started perfectly. Keep a log—physical or digital—of things that actually went right. It doesn't fix the world, but it fixes your perception of your place in it.
The reality is that while it might have been a hell of a year, you are still the one holding the pen for the next chapter. The exhaustion is real, but it isn't permanent. By narrowing your focus and reclaiming your attention, you can start to dial down the noise and find some steady ground.
Next Steps:
- Start by identifying your "surge capacity" drains—what one thing is currently eating most of your mental energy?
- Set a firm "digital sunset" time tonight to give your nervous system a chance to decompress before sleep.
- Reach out to one person and mention one good thing that happened this week, no matter how small, to break the cycle of shared venting.