For the first time in decades, people worldwide are collectively living through the exact same experience due to the Covid-19 pandemic. An experience filled with uncertainty, anxiety and loss presenting itself in many forms – the loss of connection, loss of financial security, loss of normalcy, loss of life, and of our sense of safety.
There is a certain energy in the air that most of us haven’t experienced in our lifetime. We are having to make changes and adjustments to our daily routines, cancel plans, socially distance ourselves, and constantly be aware of our hygiene. Then, there are those among us who are dealing with sick or dying family members and friends and are unable to be there with them, to touch and hold them and care for them as we are accustomed to. This is something we are not used to and are still learning how to navigate.
You may not realize it, but the uneasiness and anxiety you are feeling is grief. Grief is a response to death, but also a response to many different types of loss.
Anticipatory Loss and Grief
Anticipatory loss is the grief that is experienced before an anticipated death. We may feel it when the future of a loved one is uncertain due to a terminal illness, or in expecting the inevitable death of someone close to us.
In the case of this virus, we are uncertain about our future. We don’t know how long this will last, nor do we know just how bad it will affect the economy and our quality of life. Although many people have experienced grief individually, this is the first time we are experiencing it on a global scale. We are collectively fighting an invisible enemy and grieving the trails it leaves behind, together.
Ambiguous Loss and Grief
Ambiguous loss occurs from a lack of closure or clarity. There is a murky quality to it – frustration, confusion, helplessness and loss of control. We are grieving someone who is still alive. We may feel the psychological presence of someone who is physically absent like in the case of a divorce, or the other way around. For example, you might grieve your partner who experienced a life-altering diagnosis but no longer remembers you or grieve a miscarriage, in which you are mourning a child that was never born.
During this pandemic’s tangible losses, we are also mourning abstract losses and losses that haven’t happened yet. When will we finally feel safe going outside? When can we be close to our loved ones again? What will happen next? We are left with a series of unanswered questions, and grieving events that have not yet come to pass.
Disenfranchised Loss
When the loss we are experiencing is minimized, devalued or belittled by someone, we are experiencing disenfranchised loss. When our grief isn’t recognized, we feel unsettled and repressed from openly speaking about what we are experiencing. This pushes us to build walls and retreat within ourselves, making it difficult to learn how to identify, navigate and work through our emotions.
During the spread of Covid-19, we are all experiencing common, yet unique losses as individuals. We feel disempowered and may be surrounded by people who invalidate our feelings and diminish the importance of such losses. This, in turn, centres the experience around sadness and detachment rather than taking action and finding solutions. For example, a couple that has saved for forty years for a dream trip of a lifetime is dealing with a significant loss (loss of a dream), but may feel disenfranchised by the greater perceived losses in their immediate and global community, for fear of judgement.
Nonfinite Loss
Nonfinite loss is continuous and gradually changes as certain aspects of a person’s life, diagnosis or other activating events develop. This is sometimes rooted in unmet expectations where our expectations clash with reality, continuously chipping away at our anticipation, hopefulness and confidence. Although sometimes quiet, this is a consistent grieving process that morphs and adapts to the changes in our life.
The Covid-19 pandemic is rapidly evolving, with news updates quickly becoming outdated as soon as they were published. As soon as we regain some hope and optimism, it can quickly be taken away from us by the latest world-wide updates. We are uncertain of our future, health, and overall well-being and stuck in a process that no one knows just how long will last.
How Do We Support The Grieving Process?
Grieving has many stages: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. First, we must learn to identify these feelings within ourselves in order to move past them and learn to live with what we lost. Online counselling Vancouver is critical in times where you are experiencing physical loss or the loss of community – innate needs every human has.
During the denial phase, we are in shock and disbelief about our reality, and we don’t want to accept that it’s actually happening. During the anger phase, we may feel frustrated with the measures put in place, the fact that we cannot resume daily life, go outside or socialize with our loved ones. We may bargain, and find ways around our newly enforced rules or expect that a quick end will follow if we precisely obey the regulations. You may then begin to feel sad, depressed, demotivated or numb before finally accepting the reality and finding ways to take action and problem-solve. That final stage of grief is where transformation happens. When we accept the current circumstances, we gain back control. We realize the reality of what we can do to keep ourselves and those around us safe.
Our emotions are our teachers – they hold great power, and even greater lessons. When we gain this clarity, we become self-aware and are able to fully experience them in our bodies before finally letting them go.
Although it’s completely normal to feel grief at this current time, know that you are not alone. Allow yourself to be present in your grief, experiencing it consciously. Understand that the grieving process does not flow from one “stage” to the other in a linear fashion, and that you may fluctuate back into anger and sadness at times during this process. It is important that you seek help in your process of grieving, from friends, family, online counselling Vancouver or another helping professional. Finally, establishing a self-care plan for you and your family members can help facilitate a healthier grieving process, one which does not forget the need for emotional, spiritual, mental and physical care for the self. They say “time” is a healer, but it is imperative to remain conscious in our grieving.