Feel What You Feel (COVID-19)

Thankfully, I haven’t yet lost anyone I know personally to COVID-19.   

Unfortunately, people I know HAVE had loved ones succumb to this horrid virus, and it is heartbreaking to hear their stories.  They are devastated.

Their grief and pain is understandable.  We understand the connection between someone dying and feeling grief.  Most of us HAVE lost someone or something dear to us, at one time or another, and felt the pain of that loss.

What can be harder to wrap our minds around, though, is that we ALL are in various stages of grief today as we weather the COVID-19 pandemic.

We lost our old way of life in the blink of an eye because of this new corona virus, and have been thrust into a new way of thinking, living, functioning. 

And we didn’t necessarily want to end up here.

We haven’t necessarily lost anyONE; and yet, here we are, feeling all the emotions associated with grief. 

Grief isn’t just attached to death or obvious loss of some cherished person or thing.

Grief is part of every significant change we experience, as we mourn what WAS and learn to deal with what IS, especially if we didn’t want the change, and even more especially if it blind-sided us or was forced on us.

You may be familiar with the 5 Stages of Grief, popularized by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross.  She identified 5 stages we go through as we grieve a loss:

1. Denial
2. Anger
3. Bargaining
4. Depression
5. Acceptance

In reality, I believe there are more stages (emotions) to the grief process. This more closely represents what I’ve experienced in my life:

It’s perfectly normal to feel these emotions in the order listed, but also to NOT feel them in this order.  Or to feel like you’ve gone through them all only to circle around and be in that grief cycle again.  Or to feel something different.  Or to feel nothing. 

Everyone grieves differently and for different lengths of time. 

I have 2 pieces of advice for you today, to help you deal with all the emotions you may be feeling right now:

1. Recognize/Accept that we’re ALL somewhere in the grief cycle

Recognizing and acknowledging that we are all in a grief cycle will help you put your own emotions, and those of others, into perspective.  When we know WHY we (or others) are acting the way they are, it helps us accept and process the situation.

Other people aren’t being irrational and hard to deal with on purpose – they are grieving and adjusting. Just like you are.

Cut yourself – and others – some slack.  Your whole world has changed in the last few weeks – people are gonna react and feel and grieve as they (we) try to adjust and move forward.

 2. Feel what you feel (and let others do the same)

Whatever emotion you are feeling is the emotion you are supposed to be feeling right then.  It doesn’t help to beat yourself up because you don’t think you should feel that way. 

You feel what you feel, regardless.

So own it. 

I don’t mean wallow in it.  Don’t use your feelings as an excuse to be a jerk.  And don’t excuse bad behavior by saying, “Well this is just the way I am; deal with it!”

But do FEEL the feelings as they come, and try to figure out what is causing you to feel that way.

Angry?  Maybe it’s because you’re a High School senior and your year and all its rites of passages just got hijacked and cancelled.  You have every right to be angry about that.

Terrified?  Maybe it’s because we don’t know exactly how this virus will affect us.  We don’t know how long this is going to last.  We don’t know when there will be a vaccine.  We don’t know if we’ll get it and not survive.  That’s scary stuff.

Feeling nothing?  Maybe that’s because that’s how you’ve been conditioned to cope with crisis, by checking out for a bit.  It’s all a little overwhelming right now.

Your feelings just are what they are.

Your kids’ feelings are what they are.  Let them experience them, and help them work through feelings that they might not know how to process.

Your family members’ feelings are what they are.  Don’t tell them they shouldn’t be feeling that way.  They feel what they feel.

Be nice to yourself and to each other.  We’ve never gone through anything like this before and we are all a little off balance right now.

And remind yourself that you ARE in a grief cycle, even though you may not realize it, and that what you are feeling is normal and expected given our current situation.

Things will get better, but in the meantime, take each day as it comes, and process whatever feelings and challenges that day brings.

Until next time…